ONTD Political

Bathing Beauties 
" Labeled "Mae Snyder."  This could be two women just standing close for the camera, but take a look at the backward tilt of the one woman's hand, reaching back affectionately to touch the other woman. Intimate. I don't know which one is Mae. This photo is from John Lampert's collection of gay and lesbian vintage photos."

Affectionate Young Women
The back of this photo is dated "Dec. 19, 1913."

Women in a Hammock 
"Nothing on this image tells me who these women are, and I can't make out their faces well enough to determine their ages. Friends, sisters, mother-daughter pair? Lovers? I don't know, but the intimacy portrayed here is heart-warming nonetheless."

Butch-Femme Party 
"This great image is really brought to life by the details. View the close-ups of couples to get a better sense of this portrait. "

1940s 1950s lesbian couple

via missing_linck's phototream | Flickr

1930s lesbian couple at club

via missing_linck's phototream | Flickr

1950s lesbian couple

via missing_linck's phototream | Flickr

Sailing is a drag, 1902

via The Library of Congress / bobster855's photostream | Flickr

photo from Sharon Weinman via "Gender Bending Women, early-20th c."

Starving in the Midst of Plenty
"Is this a guy card or what? This girls are famous -- the are the stars of the "Sometimes Girls Kiss Each Other" series.  There is no date on this card, but the fashions appear to be from the 1900-1910 era. It's hard to imagine the environment that made this image -- and it's counterpart -- so popular. Go figure. "

chez moune niteclub 1963
via missing_linck @ Flickr

female guest at le monocle--1932
via missing_linck @ Flickr

Matilda Alice Powles (13 May 1864 – 16 September 1952), was an English male impersonator. At the age of 11, she adopted the stage name Vesta Tilley becoming the most famous and well paid music hall male impersonator of her day. She was a star in both Britain and the United States for over thirty years.

Full Wiki article

Winifred Emms (4 April 1883 – 28 September 1972), best known by her stage name Hetty King, was an English entertainer who played in the music halls over a period of 70 years. [...] By 1905, she was appearing in music halls, with her solo act, as a male impersonator, often dressed as a "swell". Her career spanned both World Wars when she performed in the uniform of either a soldier or a sailor. In the First World War her acrt included, in 1916, "Songs the soldiers sing" when she sang some of the less rude of the songs invented by soldiers in the trenches.

Full Wiki article

1920s 1930s drag king
via missing_linck @ Flickr

A FEMME AND HER "MR. DANDY" IN OLD JAPAN
by Okinawa Soba via flickriver

Blues pianist Tony Jackson (above) was one of the many homosexual migrants who decided to leave their native South to take advantage of Chicago’s freedom. [...] Despite his great popularity as a musician, Jackson often complained about the tough homosexual life in New Orleans [birth city]. In search of a place of residence more receptive to his music and sexual orientation, the musician migrated to Chicago in 1912. ^[5] But before reaching Chicago, Jackson stopped in Louisville, KY where he met one of the leading pianists of the town, Glover Compton (seen at bottom) with whom he had a long-term friendship. ^[6]

Full: Tony Jackson, A Gay Blues Pianist from Chicago
Full: Tony Jackson (pianist) - Wikipedia

Gladys Bentley (12 August 1907 – 18 January 1960) was an American blues singer during the Harlem Renaissance. [...] She appeared at Harry Hansberry's "Clam House" on 133rd Street, one of New York City's most notorious gay speakeasies, in the 1920s, and headlined in the early thirties at Harlem's Ubangi Club, where she was backed up by a chorus line of drag queens. [...] Bentley was openly lesbian during her early career,^[1] but during the McCarthy Era, she started wearing dresses, married a man (who later denied that they ever married), and studied to be a minister, claiming to have been "cured" by taking female hormones.^[2][3] She died, aged 52, from pneumonia in 1960.

Full Wiki | Video clip excerpt from the documentary, Before Stonewall.

Bessie Smith, 1936
"Empress of the Blues" is the regal title rightly bestowed upon Bessie Smith, whose history has been filled with persistent, colorful legends. Gifted with a powerful voice and sophisticated musical artistry, she conducted her life by her own set of rules and had affairs with both men and women.

full bio | account of her harrowing death
Photo by Carl Van Vechten, the National Archives via bobster855 @ Flickr

1940s 'louise'
via missing_linck @ Flickr

Queer Religious Leaders:  Clarence Cobbs
Commonly called “Preacher,” Reverend Clarence Cobbs was the leader of the First Church of Deliverance, the most popular church in Bronzeville. While he never publicly revealed or discussed his homosexuality, neither did he hide it.

Cont'd @ Queer Bronzeville collection | OutHistory.org

Queer Religious Leaders:  Mary Evans
Mary Evans, second pastor of the Cosmopolitan Community Church was rumored to be a lesbian because of her relationship choices. Evans never married but had two long-term relationships with other women. She met Harriet Kelley, her first long-term friend, when she was a young preacher in Indiana. Edan Cook, daughter of William D. Cook, was her long-term friend for the rest of her life. Evans often qualified her as her “sister.”

Cont'd @ Queer Bronzeville collection | OutHistory.org

Queer Religious Leaders:  Elder Lucy Smith
Lucy Smith was a symbol of the important role Black women played in Chicago’s religious world. Smith was the “overseer” of an entire “General Conference of Churches” of which her “All Nations Pentecostal Church” was the main church. 

Historian Wallace Best noted that several sources from the 1930s characterized Lucy Smith, as well as many other female religious leaders, as “plain,” “buxom,” “plump and brown,” or “homely,” commenting on their “deep voices.” Samuel Strong concluded that “women preachers were somewhat mannish, overweight, and hoarse, and usually lesbian.”

Algerian Girls (c.1906) by postaletrice via flickriver
Vintage photographic postcard, c.1906, divided back, written but uncirculated,
published by the photographer Jean Geiser, Alger, Algeria.

Thanks to poetic_pixie_13 for the photo hook-up <3

Two women, 1899
From the Library of Congress /  bobster855 @ Flickr

Winnebago women
Photo taken circa 1862 -1875
New York Public Library / bobster855 @ Flickr

photograph by diego rivera, 1941
from Frida Kahlo: The Camera Seduced via flickriver

Photo untitled
via WanderingCaravan | Blogspot.com

"Secret Prom Date, 1959"
via WanderingCaravan | Blogspot.com

"Afro American Men: Soldier and lover, 1950s"
via WanderingCaravan | Blogspot.com

"Afro Americans, late 1920s,
gay and straight mix"
via WanderingCaravan | Blogspot.com

Young writers of Middle Asia
with the American writer [Langston Hughes]
"Young writers of Central Asia, Hughes [notable Harlem Renaissance-era writer] in the middle. On the backside of the photo there are descriptions in Cyrillic, which the [Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library] hasn't bothered to decipher."

Bobby Marchan (born Oscar James Gibson, 30 April 1930 in Youngstown Ohio — died 5 December 1999) was a well-respected American rhythm and blues bandleader, MC, singer-performer, recording artist, and female impersonator, who initially began performing in New Orleans nightclubs, specifically the Dew Drop Inn and the Club Tijuana in the mid 1950s.^[1]

Wikipedia | Queer Music Heritage stub

Petite Swanson was a member of Valda Gray's troupe of female impersonators, who for much of the 1940s were the main attraction at Joe's Deluxe Club in Chicago. She recorded four sides in 1947 for the Sunbeam label, and I believe only two were released. Very rare indeed.

Petite Swanson info stub @ Queer Music Heritage

↓ The following newspaper scans came from QUEER BRONZEVILLE: THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN GAYS AND LESBIANS ON CHICAGO'S SOUTH SIDE via the following stubs:

Queer Business: The Case of Joe Hughes
Gay life in 1940's Bronzeville: The Story of "Nancy Kelly"