Discovering LGBTQ History

Featured documents reflecting the history of American lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender men and women from 1778 to the present. A project of Stonewall@NARA, the National Archives LGBTQ employee affinity group.

[lgbtqarchives]

Amending America: LGBTQ Human and Civil Rights - Google Arts & Culture

On March 10, 1778, Lieutenant Frederick Gotthold Enslin became the first U.S. soldier court-martialed for “attempting to commit sodomy” with another sold...

Follow this link to our Google Cultural Institute exhibit highlighting some of our LGBTQ-related holdings.

[lgbtqarchives]

Eastern Air Lines Boeing 757 [Source: Wikimedia Commons]

Karen Frances Ulane - then known as Kenneth Ulane - was hired as a pilot in 1968 by Eastern Airlines. Fired in 1981, she filed a charge of sexual discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and later filed suit in a U.S. District Court. 

Ulane alleged that she was discriminated against as a transgender woman in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The U.S. District Court judge ruled in favor of Ulane. However, the case was appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, where the District Court’s decision was reversed.

Below is a sample of the transcript from the District Court proceedings:

Click here for further pages from this testimony. Additional case documents are available here. The text of the Court of Appeals judgment is available here.

[lgbtqarchives]

Helen James' Fight for Equality in the Military

A new National Air and Space Museum Archives collection documents the story of Helen James, a member of the United States Air Force who was arrested and discharged as part of a campaign to remove LGBTQ people from government employment in the 1950s.

Read here about a new LGBTQ collection at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum.

For more Discovering LGBTQ History posts about the Lavender Scare click here.

[lgbtqarchives]

Boundary Map of the Stonewall National Monument By United States Government (United State Federal Register - 81 FR 42220) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

On June 28, 1969, the Stonewall Riots began following a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, an LGBTQ club. 

47 years later, the site was declared a National Monument by Presidential Proclamation.

 Stonewall Inn, October 1969

Diana Davies [via Wikimedia Commons], copyright owned by New York Public Library

[lgbtqarchives]

Jimmy Carter and Harvey Milk, May 21, 1976 Source: Used by permission from the Harvey Milk Foundation, http://milkfoundation.org/

Jimmy Carter and Harvey Milk: On the Campaign Trail and Beyond

For some fascinating documents regarding President Carter, Harvey Milk, and LGBT rights, click here.

For additional posts on Harvey Milk click here and here.

[lgbtqarchives]

Sylvia Rivera Way Street Sign, New York, NY 2007 (photo by Gotty)

Sylvia Rivera was a participant in the Stonewall Riots and an advocate for the rights of transgender people. 

 The National Portrait Gallery’s collection includes a photo of Sylvia Rivera (with Christina Hayworth and Julia Murray) taken by Luis Carle at the 2000 Pride Parade in New York City.

#Stonewall, #Stonewall Riots, #Sylvia Rivera, #Christina Hayworth, #Julia Murray, #lgbtq history, #lgbtq archives, #Pride Parade ,  #Pride, #New York, #transgender, #National Portrait Gallery

[lgbtqarchives]

Pride flag given to President Obama during the White House LGBT Pride Reception, 2016. Courtesy of the Barack Obama Presidential Library

At the 2016 White House LGBT Pride reception, President Obama was given this Pride Flag created by Gilbert Baker. 

President Barack Obama with Gilbert Baker, the artist who designed the  Pride Flag, prior to a LGBT Pride Month reception, June 9, 2016. Courtesy of the Barack Obama Presidential Library

[lgbtqarchives]

Rarely Seen 19th-Century Silhouette of a Same-Sex Couple Living Together Goes On View

A new show, featuring the paper cutouts, reveals unheralded early Americans, as well as contemporary artists working with this old art form

The art of the silhouette allowed even those without wealth to have their images immortalized. A new National Portrait Gallery exhibit features many of these images, including one of Sylvia Drake and Charity Bryant. This couple’s relationship begain in1806 in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. They spent the next 45 years of their lives together.

Click here for our earlier post on this couple.

[lgbtqarchives]

Photo of Harvey B. Milk, November 1951 Official Military Personnel Files, Records of the Dept. of Defense National Archives

In 1952, Harvey Milk was commissioned as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy. The next year he was promoted to Lieutenant (junior grade). His military career was soon to come to a close, however.

In December 1954, Milk was questioned by Special Agents of the Office of Naval Intelligence for “suspected homosexual conduct.” 

In a signed statement the next month, Milk acknowledged that he had been sexually intimate with a number of men. He submitted his resignation from the Navy under “other than honorable conditions” recognizing that he could “expect to encounter substantial prejudice in civilian life....”

Statement of Harvey B. Milk,  January 10, 1955 Official Military Personnel File, Records of the Dept. of Defense National Archives [Highlight not in original For a non-highlighted version, see below ]

In a performance evaluation just prior to the Navy investigation, Milk was deemed excellent and efficient. See below for this Report on the Fitness of Officers.

Milk went on to become one of the most important leaders of the American LGBTQ rights movement. 

Harvey B. Milk; Official Military Personnel Files, Records of the Dept. of Defense National Archives

[lgbtqarchives]

LGBTQ African Americans of the Harlem Renaissance

From the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

[lgbtqarchives]

Portrait of Oscar Wilde in New York, 1882, by Napoleon Sarony [Public Domain] via Wikipedia Commons.

On Christmas Eve, 1881, Oscar Wilde set out from England for a lecture tour of the United States. Sailing aboard the SS Arizona, he reached New York harbor on January 2, 1882 and disembarked the following day. 

Passenger Manifest for the SS Arizona, January 3, 1882.

The Arizona’s passenger list noted his occupation as “Gentleman” and mistakenly cited his age as 30. He was 27 when he arrived in New York.

Passenger Manifest for the SS Arizona, January 3, 1882.  [Highlighting added.]

Wilde’s lecture tour - originally scheduled for several months - proved to be a great success and lasted a year. He gave approximately 140 lectures in over a hundred American cities in states ranging from New York to California to Texas. Click here for contemporary newspaper accounts of his visit to the United States.

[lgbtqarchives]

United States v. Windsor Records of the U.S. Supreme Court, National Archives

Edith Windsor contested the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in her landmark federal lawsuit.  The case eventually made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in her favor. Section 3 of DOMA had stated that, for federal purposes, marriage was defined as the union of one man and one woman. The Court argued that Section 3 of DOMA was unconstitutional because it violated the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  

Edith Windsor died on September 12, 2017 at the age of 88.

Below is the Supreme Court’s summary of its decision. Click here for the full opinion and dissents [see images 338 through 397].

United States v. Windsor Records of the U.S. Supreme Court, National Archives [Images 338-341]

[lgbtqarchives]

Guy Charles, The Advocate Candidates Poll, 1972 [Highlight color not in original]; Frank Mankiewicz Personal Papers; National Archives, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum  [This post is based on an article on the JFK Presidential Library blog.] 

While serving as Senator George McGovern’s 1972 Presidential campaign manager, Frank Mankiewicz created a small file titled “Gays.” 

 It includes a 1972 candidate questionnaire, sent by Guy Charles of The Advocate, which captures some of the concerns within the LGBT community in the early 1970s. 

There is no indication in the file whether the McGovern campaign responded to the questionnaire. Guy Charles’s cover letter is included below.

This material was among Mankiewicz’s personal papers later donated to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

[lgbtqarchives]

Interesting article from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

[lgbtqarchives]

Early LGBT Rights Protests: Historic Films from the Library of Congress

The Library of Congress holds many important materials of early LGBT rights activists. These include the films of Lili Vincenz. Click here for more detail and to view these two two of her films:  

1) The Second Largest Minority, which documents the “Reminder Day Picket” at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, on July 4, 1968 

and 

2) Gay and Proud about the first Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade held in New York City, June 28, 1970.

[lgbtqarchives]

Frank Kameny talking with spectators at first annual Reminder Day protest at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, PA, July 4, 1965  Photo by Kay Tobin ©The New York Public Library  [For further information on Reminder Day click here.]

In 1962 the Mattachine Society of Washington, a homosexual rights group applied for and was granted a city license to fundraise in the District of Columbia. 

When Congress learned that an organization working on behalf of homosexuals had received such a permit, some members were not pleased. Congress’s jurisdiction over the capital city gave it the means to take concrete action.

As president of the Mattachine Society of Washington, Frank Kameny requested that a representative of the organization be permitted to testify at any hearings held on the bill. In response, the committee invited Kameny to speak. A page from his testimony is displayed below. 

For a more detailed account, click here for an article from which this post was excerpted.

Frank Kameny Statement before Subcommittee No. 4 of the House Committee on the District of Columbia, August 8, 1963. Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, National Archives [Highlighting not in original. For a non-highlighted version, see below]

[lgbtqarchives]

Madison Avenue, Chicago, IL, ca. 1915 Detroit Publishing Company, Library of Congress

Joseph Henry Dittmar – better known as Henry Gerber – emigrated from Germany to the U.S. in 1913, settling in Chicago.

During World War I, he served in the U.S. Army and learned of Magnus Hirschfeld and his work to decriminalize homosexuality in Germany. Gerber returned to the U.S. inspired by Hirschfeld’s example.

To support himself, he began working for the U.S. Postal Service.

Henry Gerber, date unknown

In 1924, he and 6 other men formed the Society for Human Rights. Chartered by Illinois, it was the first U.S. homosexual rights group.  Its officers included African-American clergyman John T. Graves as president, Al Weininger as vice-president, and Gerber as secretary.

A complaint by Weininger’s wife led to the arrest of Gerber, Graves, Weininger, and another man.

Gerber was tried but the charges were ultimately dismissed. In the meantime, the police had raided his home, seizing many of his personal papers. On August 13, 1925, he was fired from his Post Office job for “unbecoming conduct.”

See below for two records of Gerber’s dismissal.

Henry Gerber, Service Record Cards, Post Office Dept.Service Record Cards, Civilian Personnel Records,Civil Service Commission Records (RG 146), National Archives at St. Louis