In honor of Pri Month, take a ep dive to 200+ years of gay bar history and how they paved the way for the LGBTQ rights movement.
Contents:
- RUNNG A GAY BAR THE 1950S
- THE HISTORY OF HOW GAY BARS BEME THE BATTLEGROUND FOR LGBTQ+ RIGHTS
- THE GAY BARS AND VICE SQUADS OF 1950'S LOS ANGEL
- GAY HISTORY: THE GAY BARS AND VICE SQUADS OF 1950’S LOS ANGEL
RUNNG A GAY BAR THE 1950S
Culture Lt ntributor Randy Dotga disvers a memoir by an opnated straight woman bold enough to n a gay bar the 1950s. He also looks at the gay nightlife scene San Diego durg the 50s. * gay bar 1950s *
Back 1950s Hollywood, a hole--the-wall neighborhood gay bar offered an attractive mix of fizz, iends and fabulons. But the proprietor ran a tight ship, unlike any gay bar you might drop to today.
THE HISTORY OF HOW GAY BARS BEME THE BATTLEGROUND FOR LGBTQ+ RIGHTS
* gay bar 1950s *
Branson wrote her 1957 memoir "Gay Bar, " she need to lay low by keepg her standards high.
Authori om the police to the alhol board preferred to keep gays om ngregatg anywhere, so she ma sure to not draw attentn.
"Gay Bar" spent 60 years obscury. But then a Milwkee thor heard about and brought back to life the newly published "Gay Bar: The Fabulo, Te Story of a Darg Woman and Her Boys the 1950s.
THE GAY BARS AND VICE SQUADS OF 1950'S LOS ANGEL
In Los Angel throughout the 1950s, gay men lived unr nstant harassment by the police. They risked ostracism and loss of employment if outed. * gay bar 1950s *
"In an terview, I asked thor Will Fellows to scribe what he disvered about gay life Southern California more than six s ago. I also rang up a lol historian to learn about the history of gay bars San Diego.
Will Fellows: Helen Branson had many gay iends the 1940s and 1950s, and she was an extraordary straight ally at a time when beg a straight ally of homosexuals was unheard of.
GAY HISTORY: THE GAY BARS AND VICE SQUADS OF 1950’S LOS ANGEL
It was a pretty groundbreakg book: by my timatn, the first book by a straight person that picts the liv of gay people posively. She was wrg this book when Senator McCarthy was still rantg and ravg about thgs, a climate of what we uld all ll homophobia -- great antagonism toward homosexualy and homosexuals, perversn and viants, and all that sort of stuff.
Q: What was her gay bar like?
She really saw as a kd of public livg had a lot of gay iends she'd veloped sce her divorce the 1930s, and she had managed other gay bars for other owners. She was able to do thgs her own way, a way that created a hospable, iendly and vg atmosphere but still mataed safeguards agast problems wh law enforcement and htlers and people who were not necsarily out to treat her gay iends well.