Wide-open town : a history of queer San Francisco to 1965 / Nan Alamilla Boyd.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Boyd, Nan Alamilla, 1963-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gay people--California--San Francisco--History.

Gay people.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (351 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

History of queer San Francisco to 1965

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Wide-Open Town traces the history of gay men and lesbians in San Francisco from the turn of the century, when queer bars emerged in San Francisco's tourist districts, to 1965, when a raid on a drag ball changed the course of queer history. Bringing to life the striking personalities and vibrant milieu that fueled this era, Nan Alamilla Boyd examines the culture that developed around the bar scene and homophile activism. She argues that the communities forged inside bars and taverns functioned politically and, ultimately, offered practical and ideological responses to the policing of San Francisco's queer and transgender communities. Using police and court records, oral histories, tourist literature, and manuscript collections from local and state archives, Nan Alamilla Boyd explains the phenomenal growth of San Francisco as a "wide-open town"-a town where anything goes. She also relates the early history of the gay and lesbian civil rights movement that took place in San Francisco prior to 1965. Wide-Open Town argues that police persecution forged debates about rights and justice that transformed San Francisco's queer communities into the identity-based groups we see today. In its vivid re-creation of bar and drag life, its absorbing portrait of central figures in the communities, and its provocative chronicling of this period in the country's most transgressive city, Wide-Open Town offers a fascinating and lively new chapter of American queer history.

Contents:

Introduction: San Francisco was a wide-open town

History/ Jose Sarria

Transgender and gay male cultures from the 1890s through the 1960s

Oral history/ Reba Hudson

Lesbian space, lesbian territory: San Francisco's North Beach district, 1933-1954

Oral history/ Joe Baron

Policing queers in the 1940s and 1950s: harassment, prosecution, and the legal defense of gay bars

Oral history/ Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon

4. A queer ladder of social mobility : San Francisco's homophile movements, 1953-1960

Oral history/ George Mendenhall

Queer cooperation and resistance: a gay and lesbian movement comes together in the 1960s

Conclusion : marketing a queer San Francisco

Appendix A: map of North Beach queer bars and restaurants, 1933-1965

Appendix B: List of interviewees

Notes.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 247-302) index.

ISBN:

9780520938748

0520938747

9781598750102

1598750100

OCLC:

56605715