Wide-Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965

by Nan Alamilla Boyd

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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, LGBT, Queer, Historical, Politics, Gay

334 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2003

Reviews

[Alvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is book makes a vital - even indispensable - contribution to queer history, San Francisco history, and the social scientific study of marginalized populations. But although the content was fascinating, the writing was PAINFULLY bad. I was a sociology major and can tolerate clunky academic writing when necessary, but this was poorly organized and HORRIFICALLY repetitious.

[Jactitation · Rating 2 out of 5]

What I learned: is that I'm going to hire a copy-editor to give my diss the once-over before letting anyone publish it. It's chock full of interesting facts, and I like her way of introducing chapters with an extended interview exerpt that gets at the time, and I have no problem with the way she wants to privilege bar-patron culture (although I wish she'd made the class issue between bar patrons and activists more explicit).

However, the book is a mess. The same evidential annecdotes are used over and over as if we'd never read them before. This undercuts her power, as it seems as if there's actually very little evidence out there for her claims. It also gets boring to read.

Her conclusion, too, about "market forces" seems to come out of the blue. I went back and re-read the introduction--no, that is not the argument she seemed to be starting with, and mostly following through. Shouldn't someone have said, Hey, Nan, what the fuck?

And man oh man did that book need proofreading. I'm a terrible proofreader and often miss words that get omitted, but there were a LOT that I saw here.

Too bad.

[Alison Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew reading this would make me a little sad because of everything the queer community had to deal with during the time period covered, but it also made me sad because I miss my old life in the City so fucking much and I'll never get it back and that's mostly my own fault and it sucks.

Yes, I know this is Goodreads, not a phone call with my therapist.

This was a really interesting and informative read, and clearly very meticulously researched. Learning more about how San Francisco came to be the queer mecca it is today and where a lot of those communities originated from was really cool. I've been into queer history for a long time and I knew some of the details and people and events in here, but there was so much that was new to me and helped round out my understanding. In particular, it was intriguing to see the fluctuating levels of approval (or not) by cis het people of the queer communities that were growing and sometimes really flourishing around them, and how different groups within the community found common cause with others outside of it.

It was neat too to see how the location of the centers of gay life moved over time. The Castro only became what we know it as today in the late 1960s, and prior to that, you had the Barbary Coast along Pacific Street from the wharfs to around Union Square, North Beach which of course is still home to many queer folks and hangouts, the Tenderloin which is where I lived and it was very much Less Gay by my time, and eventually Polk Street and others. All of the various bars and clubs that would open, get shut down, and reopen defiantly helped anchor these neighborhoods, and still do.

I liked the inclusion of oral history portions, and I do wish that the full text had a bit more of a personal lens on it. At times it does get sort of dry and a little too into the weeds regarding political machinations and things like that. But for anyone interested in queer history in the Bay Area, this is a very valuable read.

[E. V. Gross · Rating 4 out of 5]

Repeating what many other reviews already state: this book is well-researched and deeply informed, however, the writing style is very repetitive which can be grating at times and make the book a little dry (which seems hard given the subject matter). It reads more like a scholarly paper or dissertation than a book. But I did really appreciate the oral histories and the underscoring of how race + class are always inextricable from not only queer subjugation but also liberation.

But, that being said, I think the book could've benefitted from looking at what gay, lesbian, and transgender bars of color were doing at this time - this account almost makes it seem that gay bar culture was all white with a few folks of color sprinkled in here and there as passive participants when we know that queer enclaves of color have always existed—especially in urban space—on the margins or under the radar of dominant culture.

But, a project like this can only cover so much ground so I see this less as a fault of the book and more as something for other historians and researchers to hopefully take up in the future.

[Evan Ash]

Love a book where the author mentions in the conclusion that they were actually arguing something that they never mentioned before!

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really well researched book, and really fun to read about San Francisco in the 1930's - 1960's. What a wild time it must have been.

[Dasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book traces the key role that bar culture played for gay, lesbian, and gender transgressive individuals in San Fransisco. A key element of this development was the role tourism in allowing queer performativity to flourish at times - thus highlighting the city's tension between vice and vigilance. Market factors therefore played an important role in the thriving elements of the queer community. The last few chapters then turn their attention to the homophile movement and the shifting role of bar culture post-1950s in organizing and right to protest/gather. Elements of religion are also pulled in, as exemplified by the CHR calling out San Fran's police for brutality towards homosexuals, which was a bonus for me.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a solid book-length account of how San Francisco grew into such a queer epicentre. The author focuses on the growth of gay and lesbian venues, looking especially at how the town's evolution during and after prohibition allowed a queer bar scene to flourish. Her view that this has been underestimated in the growth of queer activism is balanced or enhanced depending on your POV by examining the advocacy and welfare organisations for lesbians and gay men in the city. I found the book consistently interesting. I found it from reading Malinda Lo's Last Night at the Telegraph Club, and was surprised at how accurate that novel is in elements I had assumed exaggerated. I was also intrigued by the way tourists flocked to venues advertised as gay bars, which in reality were performative for outsiders, but that this is turn fed a 'real' queer culture, through employment, limited protection (tourist dollars buys some state tolerance) and drawing queers to the city. The vibrancy and the strength of these people determined to have love, friendship and spaces to feel themselves comes through strongly: a good reminder that some things are worth both fighting and partying for.

[CJ Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was looking for historical books on San Francisco between the busy Gold Rush days and the big earthquake when I found this. It turned out not to be useful for that, as largely this deals with the period between the repeal of Prohibition (1933) to the backlash over the SFPD raid on the New Year's Ball in 1965. This reads like an academic text, so be prepared to have the same idea over and over. (I will never forget that San Francisco's economy is greatly impacted by tourism centered on sexual and racial transgression.) Each chapter starts out with an interview with a local personality central to the LGBTQ community.

[Tynan Brooks]

Definitely has some editorial issues, as the other reviews note. Still, I like the book's general structure: focusing on the diverse forms of queer life in San Francisco as they built up to a sustainable movement is a useful lens for tackling this history.

[John Ferreira · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. It was a lighter read than I would have expected. I feared it would have been too academic to enjoy. Although not full of antidotes, it does have some personal histories before each chapter, and some sprinkled in the different chapters. It focuses mainly on lesbian life in San Francisco from the early part of the 20th Century to 1965. Although there are mentions of bars and organizations that gay men frequented, went to, and were a part of. I live in San Francisco, so it was fun to read about areas and streets where "gay places" once were. I happened into a bar while reading this book, where once upon a time, had been the space of a lesbian bar. I also got a bit of history of San Francisco during the time period written about that is not told in other history books. It's great to read books like this. Once reason is that I learn how others did things years before, and in less tolerant times. And, still they aspired, and made changes.

[Tabitha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book on the tails of Chauncey's Gay New York (also an interesting book), and the two really complimented each other. Boyd's book picks up the narrative of the Gay and Lesbian Rights movement in the U.S. at the dawn of the twentieth century and goes up to the opening years of the 1960s, years which saw incredible gains in the rights of Gays and Lesbians before New York City experienced the awakening of Stonewall. It is the comparison between New York City, whose events in the rights movement often overshadow the struggles in other parts of the country, that I found so intriguing. The first homophile organizations centered around San Francisco, which was home to the Mattachine Society (though it was originally founded in Los Angeles in 1962) and the Daughters of Bilitis, the Society for Individual Rights (SIR), and the Tavern Guild of San Francisco. The coordinated efforts of these organizations created the 'wide open town' Boyd describes. Not only does the book provide a comprehensive look at the events and actions of the twentieth century, but it also includes great factoids. My favorite? 1866 San Francisco contained 31 saloons for every 1 house of worship. Its hard not to like a city with such priorities.

[Whitney Borup · Rating 5 out of 5]

A history of the emergence of the gay community in San Francisco. She talks about the differences between gay bar culture and homophile political movements and where/when they merge. I love that city.

[Whit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-researched book that shows the interdependence of bar culture and homophile groups in laying the groundwork for a gay rights movement based on civil rights.

[Frank Butterfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bought this book for research. Absolutely love the stories, the details, and the footnotes! But, I would read this book even if it weren't for research.