Search Results
-
Jerry "Scout" Jones
Jerry "Scout" Jones, famous organizer of Drag Balls in the 1950s
-
Drag Balls
Various pictures of the Drag Balls published by African American Newspapers
-
Johnny Ryan
Johnny Ryan, Burgess Papers, Box 98, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
-
Diversity and Drag Balls
Various pictures of the Drag Balls published by African American Newspapers
-
Eddie Phlique
Gay Disc Jockey Eddie Phlique with two female impersonators during a Drag Ball in 1940
-
Cabin Inn Ad
Ad for the Cabin Inn in the Chicago Defender, 1936
-
Club DeLisa
Club DeLisa [Photograph by Wayne F. MIller]
-
Club DeLisa
Club DeLisa [Chicago Historical Society]
-
Regal Theater
Regal Theater [Chicago Historical Society]
-
The Nightlife in Bronzeville
The Nightlife in Bronzeville [Chicago Historical Society]
-
45th Street
45th Street [Chicago Historical Society]
-
Leo
Leo, 18, “I decided that I could act as I wished among the faggots, but among the straight people I had to act reserve. I have always swished quite a bit, and with Jam people I tried to act more manly but I was conscious of myself with Jam people. I…
-
My Story of Fags, Freaks and Women Impersonators
“When they want to get married they go to a bull diggars ball, a bulldiggars marries them, put a mark or the fag, and they tells her next husband how many times she has been married. […] The women fucker, she fucks women like men, if she fucks your…
-
Lester
Lester, 16, recalled he “would walk down the street in [his mother’s] clothes and the boys would say “what a sissy!” “I would get mad and would say: “I am not a sissy!” I am just a boy that likes to wear women’s clothes.” It made me very mad.”…
-
Case of Arthur
The boys always called ma a sissy. Although I was not dressed as a girl, when my mother was away, I would put on my mothers clothes. My relatives and other people said that I looked like a girl. I swished very much as a child by my mother broke me of…
-
Professor Ernest Burgess
University of Chicago Sociology Professor Ernest Burgess encouraged his students to analyze the experiences of African American homosexuals on the South Side throughout the 1930s. [Courtesy of the University of Chicago - Regenstein Library]
-
Lucille Bogan
Blues Singer Lucille Bogan
-
Bessie Smith
Blues Singer Bessie Smith
-
Ma Rainey
Blues Singer Ma Rainey
-
Prove It On Me Blues
In 1928, Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey, a South Side resident, stated in a song she wrote - entitled “Prove it on Me Blues" - that “she [wore] a collar an tie,” and “talk[ed] to the gals just like any old man.”