First Convention of the Daughters of Bilitis, 1960

Sarria for Supervisor!
Archive Dive!

Episode 9 Archive Dive!

Patreon is a crowdfunding platform where fans of Queer Serial can support my new LGBTQ+ history projects!

Join for research dives, bonus episodes, & rewards!

Check it all out at Patreon.com/QueerSerial

Season 2 Bonus episodes

Interview w/ Jon Martinez,
voice of José Sarria

Subscribe on Patreon or Apple Podcasts to listen to this bonus episode from spin-off podcast Forgotten Fairy Tales—and many more from Mattachine Meeting, Randy Wicker Radio, Infamous Crimes: White Night Riot Interviews, and more!

“Live and Let Live:
6 Decades Later”
Interview w/ Randy Wicke‪r‬

Featuring Sylvia Rivera, Randy’s friend Michael, and stories about Marsha P. Johnson, the Mattachine, and radical activism.

Recorded in Hoboken, New Jersey, January 16, 2020.

Images from Interview w/ Randy Wicker

“Return to Normalcy”
•
2020 Election Day bonus‪!

The 1920 presidential election proves yet again that history repeats itself, from fear-mongering to political scandal, and even a sitting president infected by the pandemic he downplayed. Make sure you have a plan to vote!

1920 Election Day Research Dive!

“Trans-sexuals and the Police”
on KPFA,
April 10, 196‪8‬

Three transgender San Franciscans discuss police problems and their work as members of C.O.G., Conversion our Goal, with Police Community Relations Officer Elliot Blackstone of the San Francisco Police Department. Herb Kutchins of the San Francisco Bail Project moderates.

“A Step Higher”
w/ Mattachino
Wendell Sayers

Historian Eric Marcus interviews Wendell Sayers, an attorney, the first Black assistant attorney general for the state of Colorado, and one of few Black members of the Mattachine Society.

He attended the 6th annual Mattachine convention in 1959, a dramatic event featured in S2 E8.

SEPTEMBER 14, 2020

Clip from “The Homosexuals” on CBS in 1967. More about that in an upcoming episode, but go ahead and take a peak inside the Mattachine offices! 📚

AUGUST 10, 2020

People Today reports on ONE, Incorporated, including photos of the staff assembling the February 1954 issue as they cover their faces with it. “Jobs are part-time, unsalaried and done mostly at night.” 👗👔

Also, they refer to the Mattachine coverage by Paul Coates, which was a BFD in season 1 ✂️

@onearchives 📐

AUGUST 18, 2020

Issues published during the events of episode 9! (part 1) 🖊

I swapped the first 2, because Jan 1960 is a remake of Sep ’59, previously posted. And Feb ’60 is so very hot. Also, Patreon subscribers might recognize Stella Rush A.K.A. Sten Russell from the bonus podcast.
🗂 @onearchives

AUGUST 27, 2020

“As President of the Daughters of Bilitis, I must say that we’ve come a long way…And when we feel despondent and sometimes say to ourselves, ‘Oh, who cares? What’s the use?’ we will get a letter or some person will call. Then we feel we should go on a little longer, to help where we can and do what we can.” 🌸

Cleo Bonner met the DOB at a brunch for closeted lesbians hosted by Del and Phyl. Cleo was the only person to show up. While simultaneously working at Pacific Bell, she quickly became circulation manager of The Ladder, DOB national office manager, and was later elected president (stay tuned to the pod!). She was in what Del and Phyl wrote was “a conflicted interracial relationship.” Cleo shared a duplex with her lover on one side and her son on the other. Cleo spoke publicly for the DOB out of state, but wouldn’t attend conventions in San Francisco — she didn’t feel safe being out in her home state. After Cleo stepped down from activism, the DOB lost touch with her. Her lover later called Del and Phyl to tell them Cleo had died of cancer.

📸 from “Before Stonewall” edited by Vern Bullough. Date and photographer unknown.

AUGUST 11, 2020

BTS of DOB! Paste-ups of an itinerary for a Daughters of Bilitis convention! Notice any familiar names? 🔍

Take a look behind the scenes of the podcast and hear bonus episodes at patreon.com/queerserial! 🎊

🗂 @onearchives

AUGUST 6, 2020

“If the Mattachine men dress properly and conduct themselves with decorum, then surely they won’t be mistaken for lesbians.”
—Daughters of Bilitis responding to Hal Call ☀️

The scandalous mid-season finale “The Twilight Woman” is out now!! 📻

Patreon subscribers will still be getting bonus episodes during the break 💕
patreon.com/queerserial 💜 link in my bio!

🗂 The Ladder, Vol. 5, No. 2. November 1960.

AUGUST 12, 2020

Well, we made it! The May 1959 issue, obviously the most striking of all the ‘Review’ covers. ⚡️

Hear about the dramatic changes at Pan-Graphic Press in episode 9. 🗞

📸photos of the big promo wall by @talldarkandryan

AUGUST 23, 2020

“Behind it all is this battle for political power.”
📐✂️📏

Paste-ups for the new column by Hal Call.
🗂 @onearchives

AUGUST 22, 2020

While the podcast has a little “interim,” check out some covers of the Mattachine’s quarterly publication! The scandalous, groundbreaking, legendary photo of President Kenneth Zwerin (episode 5) is included here. The last image is the letter from Curtis Dewees asking why Hal included the scandalous pic in the bound volume (episode 9). These fucking queens. 📬

🗂 @glbt_history

AUGUST 21, 2020

10 years and only 2 schisms!

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

“At our February 1958 Board meeting, it was voted that all other copies of this issue of Interim be destroyed and that no other copies be circulated.” 🔍

If you like messy queens, listen to the Interim photo scandal in episodes 5 & 6
🗂 @glbt_history

SEPTEMBER 12, 2020

The jester on display at the Gerber/Hart Library & Archives here in Chicago… in the Howard Brown Health waiting room. Yep, you can browse real queer history documents while you wait to take your STI tests. Ah, Chicago 💕
👑

Follow their insta, it’s fucking fabulous:
🗂 @gerberhart

SEPTEMBER 13, 2020

Casting a spotlight on bonus episodes! research photos! deep dives on stories that were cut from the podcast!

Take a deeper look inside the stories at patreon.com/queerserial 🔥

🗂 @glbt_history

SEPTEMBER 3, 2020

Look through an issue! (part 1) My fav Helen P. Branson is back! 🖊

🗂 @onearchives

SEPTEMBER 6, 2020

“The raids were intended to intimidate them while there and to ruin gay bar business… Peg B. describes a 1964 raid at Maryangelo’s, a Greenwich Village bar: A large man appeared at the door and yelled, ‘This is a raid.’ Everyone froze; then like a bunch of sheep we all tromped downstairs and into the waiting paddy wagons, about forty-three of us. We later learned that two women hid under a table in the back room and got away. In the paddy wagon a woman panicked and ate her driver’s license.” 🚔

📚Lillian Faderman’s book is one of my favorite resources for the podcast. It’s packed with fascinating anecdotes throughout a history of lesbian love from the mid-19th century to the late 20th.

#ACAB #gayhistory #lesbianhistory #lillianfaderman #lgbthistory #historypodcast #lgbtpodcast

SEPTEMBER 4, 2020

Look through an issue! (part 2) Some very cute drawings in this one. 🖊

🗂 @onearchives

AUGUST 5, 2020

The mid-season finale “The Twilight Woman” is out now! 🔥 Here are some of the lesbian pulp covers brought to life by fabulous voice actors — and some extras that I love, especially the last one. Wow. 📚

During the break Patreon subscribers will still be getting bonus episodes!
patreon.com/queerserial 💕 link in my bio!

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

Season 2 voice actor Annemarie studying up on the DOB founders 💕

📸 @salviogado, obviously

SEPTEMBER 2, 2020

Jeannette Howard Foster’s study of thousands of years of lesbian love from Sappho to “The Well of Loneliness.” She was also a librarian at the Institute for Sex Research and worked with Alfred Kinsey. It was a whole cool thing I cut from an episode for time. 📚

JHF wrote in “The Ladder” about lesbian pulp author Ann Aldrich (as heard in the podcast) in a piece titled, “Ann of 10,000 Words Plus,” “Miss Aldrich doesn’t admit to writing fiction herself. Even if her three volumes on gay life in NYC read a good deal like it, they are sufficiently literal reportage to have got her boycotted by several gay bars in that city—the patrons don’t care to be used as copy. What these reveal is superlative early training in Writing to Sell, and something like diarrhea of the pen. For my money someone’s not sure just who she is. People Who Live in Glass Houses Should Undress in the Dark.”

🗂 @lesbianherstoryarchives

JULY 21, 2021

🖊 “What are you afraid of?”

Take a deep dive into docs and doodles from the 1960 Daughters of Bilitis convention!

✨ patreon.com/queerserial✨
Link in my bio for TONS of upcoming new research dives AND new bonus episodes for season 3! And a new upcoming showwwww....

AUGUST 17, 2020

Before Bilitis, Billye Talmadge took on her blackmailer. We met her in episode 1 this season, now hear her story on my bonus podcast on Patreon. 📬

patreon.com/queerserial

📸 by Morgan Gwenwald, @lesbianherstoryarchives DOB Video Project, May 12, 1987.

AUGUST 11, 2020

𝙷𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚜 𝚝𝚘𝚍𝚊𝚢 / 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚢𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚍𝚊𝚢 / 𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚝’𝚜 𝚠𝚑𝚢 𝙸 𝚠𝚊𝚕𝚔 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚠𝚊𝚢 👭

Edythe Eyde’s (A.K.A. Lisa Ben) “Gayest Songs on Wax,” as heard in episode 9. She also wrote this little song on image 3 for the 1960 DOB convention in the same episode!

Also, a letter from Edythe to Del and Phyl concerning the convention and the recording of the record, which it appears they sold at the big event. And check out that signature! 🎸

Take a look at behind the scenes of the podcast at patreon.com/queerserial! 🎊

🗂 @glbt_history

AUGUST 8, 2020

Behind the scenes paperwork from organizing the first convention of the Daughters of Bilitis! Lots more fab bonus stuff at patreon.com/queerserial 🎉

Hear the convention on the newest episode “The Twilight Woman.”

🗂 drawing saved in the national convention file of the Lyon & Martin Papers @glbt_history
🗂 tour guide pamphlet
🗂 a letter from the Whitcomb Hotel (misgendering Del Martin)
🗂 convention itinerary
🗂 a letter from Kenneth Zwerin to Del Martin. Could the last paragraph be a bit of shade thrown at the Mattachine Society?
🗂 list of lesbian bars

AUGUST 13, 2020

Sign now to become a card-carrying homosexual 🖊

🗂 @onearchives

SEPTEMBER 5, 2020

In case you didn’t KNOW… and obviously the FBI found out. 🗞

An informational pamphlet for friends and family about what homosexuals are and what the Mattachine Society is doing for them.
🗂 Images 1-2 @glbt_history
🗂 Image 3 FBI Mattachine file
🗂 Images 4-6 @onearchives
🗂 Images 7-10 from my little Mattachine collection

SEPTEMBER 7, 2020

Maybe he was corrupt but his publications were gorgeous. 🗞

🗂 @glbt_history

AUGUST 19, 2020

Well-wishes (and some concern from Hal Call) for the first convention of the Daughters of Bilitis. 🖊

To the last letter, the DOB office responded, “If the Mattachine men dress properly and conduct themselves with decorum, then surely they won’t be mistaken for lesbians.”

🗂 @glbt_history

AUGUST 16, 2020

usps.com/store

AUGUST 15, 2020

“𝙵𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚕𝚎 𝚊𝚌𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚜...” 🌳

Voice actor @cacklin_jacqals played Jerry Moore in episode 8. The Detroit Mattachino was also a queen named Lady Jai. He passed away just last May at the age of 92. Jai was the last living link to Detroit’s earliest gay activism, having served as secretary for the chapter for its 17-month run. Jai typed two sets of minutes for their meetings: one with their real names, and one with their pseudonyms, just in case police came knocking. When the chapter disbanded, Jai wrote to the San Francisco leaders, “We do not know who is to blame. We, the members, or the flighty gay populace.” 🍁

🗂 letter of congratulations to the DOB on their first convention, in episode 9. @glbt_history
📸 Lady Jai at the Golden Slipper gay bar in Detroit, undated. University of Michigan Library.

AUGUST 13, 2020

🖊

🗂 @glbt_history @onearchives

SEPTEMBER 6, 2020

𝙼𝚊𝚢𝚋𝚎 𝙸 𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚠𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚘𝚗 𝚊 𝙿𝚊𝚗-𝙶𝚛𝚊𝚙𝚑𝚒𝚌 𝚕𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍. 📚

🗂 @glbt_history

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

New York Mattachinos still have a few tricks up their sleeves. 🦒

Until then, hear the schism in episode 9. 🎧
🗂 @nypl, @onearchives

SEPTEMBER 3, 2020

This week on the bonus podcast, I’m chatting with choreographer (and my longtime friend!) Jon Martinez, voice of José Sarria. Jon accidentally discovered Sarria way before I asked him to play the drag star activist. You can hear the whole story on the bonus pod through my Patreon! 🧚🏽‍♀️

Link in my bio. patreon.com/queerserial 🌸
👠 @jonnytaco_official
📸 @collinquinnrice
🗂 @glbt_history

AUGUST 12, 2020

Sarria for Supervisor! 💃🏽🗳

Hear José’s big return in episode 9, “The Twilight Woman.” I did a big post about José Sarria on my Patreon today! patreon.com/queerserial

🗂 @glbt_history

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

José Sarria at the Black Cat! 🌟

🗂 @glbt_history

SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚢 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚍𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚍

AUGUST 10, 2020

Hear more queer history on my other podcast, “OutSpoken LGBTQ Storytelling” for @sidetrackbar 🎙

Thanks to @gerberhart for digitizing the fabulous early 90s gay Chicago news show!! See the full show at gerberhart.org and youtube 💋

SEPTEMBER 3, 2020

Hear more queer history on my other podcast, “OutSpoken LGBTQ Storytelling” for @sidetrackbar 🎙 Available wherever you listen to A Queer Serial 🎧