20th century
A01=Nan Alamilla Boyd
america
american history
Author_Nan Alamilla Boyd
bar scene
california
Category=JBSD
Category=JBSF
Category=JBSJ
Category=NHK
Category=WQH
civil rights
civil rights activists
court records
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
gay and lesbian
gay culture
historians
homophiles
homosexuality
ideological
lgbtq
nonfiction
oral histories
political activism
queer bars
queer communities
queer history
queer studies
regional history
san francisco
social identity
social justice
social science
tourist districts
transgender community
transgressive
turn of the century
united states
Product details
- ISBN 9780520244740
- Weight: 499g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 13 Apr 2005
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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"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.
Nan Alamilla Boyd is Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Sonoma State University.
