Wide-Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965

Nan Alamilla Boyd

Published by University of California Press 2003

Wide-Open Town

A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965

Nan Alamilla Boyd

https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520938748

Overview
Contents

About this book

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.

Author / Editor information

Boyd Nan Alamilla :

Nan Alamilla Boyd is Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Sonoma State University.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
INTRODUCTION. San Francisco Was a Wide-Open Town Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
ORAL HISTORY. José Sarria
1. Transgender and Gay Male Cultures from the 1890s through the 1960s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	25
ORAL HISTORY. Reba Hudson
2. Lesbian Space, Lesbian Territory: San Francisco’s North Beach District, 1933–1954 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	68
ORAL HISTORY. Joe Baron
3. Policing Queers in the 1940s and 1950s: Harassment, Prosecution, and the Legal Defense of Gay Bars Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	108
ORAL HISTORY. Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	148
4 “A Queer Ladder of Social Mobility”: San Francisco’s Homophile Movements, 1953–1960 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159
ORAL HISTORY. George Mendenhall
5. Queer Cooperation and Resistance: A Gay and Lesbian Movement Comes Together in the 1960s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	200
CONCLUSION. Marketing a Queer San Francisco Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	237
APPENDIX A. Map of North Beach Queer Bars and Restaurants, 1933–1965 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	243
APPENDIX B. List of Interviewees Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	246
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	303

Language: English
Publisher: University of California Press
Pages
- Main content: 333

eBook

Published: May 23, 2003
ISBN: 9780520938748