1930s gay cabaret
The Most Important Gay Bars in History
The Pansy Craze: When lgbtq+ nightlife in Los Angeles really kicked off
It was New Years Eve, 1929. Three hundred men in tuxedos were celebrating the opening of Hollywood’s first gay nightclub. It was called Jimmy’s Backyard and it sat in a big craftsman style property on Cosmo Street, just east of Cahuenga. The rooms had been converted to dance floors and on a warm evening, music poured from the house and into the backyard which was filled with LA’s hottest crowd, all with a refreshment and a cigarette in hand. Rae Bourbon, who was one of the most famous drag queens of his time, had a regular gig at Jimmy’s Backyard.
Just down the street, B.B.B.’s Cellar opened up on Las Palmas. It was a untamed and raucous place, race by a drag queen named Bobby Burns Berman. The patrons would be given little hammers, and every time someone fresh walked through the door, they’d bang them on the tables. BBB’s revue of ten men dressing like women was apparently the hottest show in town.
Celebrities like Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Marlene Dietrich and Mae West were all regulars at these clubs.
It’s an era KCRW listener Jim Lingenfelter from Indiana asked about when he submitted this ask to Curious Coast.
Social Spaces Beyond the Institute: The Eldorado
Between 1900 and 1930, dozens of bars, clubs and dance halls in Berlin offered LGBTQ people spaces to socialise, dance, drink and relish cabaret and drag performances. Some of the most famous venues were the “Eldorado”, “Mikado”, “Dorian Gray”, “Toppkeller” and “Monokel”.
The people who ran these venues used images and code words, such as “mondän” (the German world for “worldly” or “sophisticated”), to reach LGBTQ people.
The enormously popular cabaret song “Das Lila Lied” (“The Lavender Song”), written in 1920, was dedicated to Hirschfeld. It is often described as the first LGBTQ anthem.
“We are just other from the others
“Das Lila Lied”, 1920
who acquire loved only in the lockstep of morality […]
and who are only up to the banal.
[W]e […] are all children of a different kind of world;
we only love the lavender night, which is sultry,
because we are just different from the others!”
Hirschfeld frequented bars and clubs himself. He wrote a popular city guide called Berlin’s Third Sex (1904), which offered an introduction to Berlin’s queer and trans night life. The book was an ethnogra
This Short-Lived 1930s Speakeasy Was a Sanctuary for Gay Londoners
And now you can visit a recreation
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If you were a gay person in London in the 1930s, you faced the very actual risk of arrest, prosecution and cruel punishment for expressing yourself in public—and even in confidential. Now, The Guardian’s Mark Brown reports, there’s a chance to explore the underground world of yore at a recreation of a short-lived speakeasy that was once one of London’s most infamous and illegal clubs.
It was called the Caravan Club, and it gained quite the reputation during its concise existence. Just one of an entire world of temporary underground spaces for LGBTQ people to meet, the club was hidden in a basement proximate Covent Garden and was open to members only. Now it’s been recreated for 21st-century visitors to explore, thanks to the actions of Britain’s National Believe and National Archives.
The recreated club captures the dramatic and lavish interior of the venue, which was open only from October 1933 to August 1934 when it was raided by police. It’s located in a current-day bar, shut to the nightclub’s original location and features wall hangings, carpets, a
Back in the 1920s, Berlin had already become a haven and refuge for gays and lesbians from all over the world. There are 170 clubs, bars and pubs for gays and lesbians, and skillfully as riotous nightlife and a queer neighbourhood. But parties aren't the only thing being organised – several political associations are founded in Berlin to fight for matching rights. However, the Nazis' rise to power spells the death knell for this diversity, and it would get several decades for Berlin to send back to its status as a global centre for the LGBTI* scene. Absorb about how Berlin became a hotspot for gays and lesbians over the course of the 20th century, and how its scene attracted people from all over the world – and continues to complete so today.
1897
The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee – the very first homosexual and lesbian organisation in the society – was founded in Berlin. Its founder is the Jewish doctor Magnus Hirschfeld. His guiding principle: “Justice through science”. His goals: freedom from persecution by the express and religious oppression, the fight for emancipation and social recognition. The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, remains the most politically authoritative associa