WHILE the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion in New York’s Greenwich Village is generally considered the spark that ignited the gay liberation movement in the U.S., San Francisco was the true epicenter of gay life for much of the previous century, as demonstrated by the following chronology of quick takes that briefly highlight some of the pioneering individuals, organizations, publications, and events that took place in San Francisco. Jack Bee Garlandwas born in San Francisco in 1869, exactly one century before the Stonewall Riots. Assigned female at birth, he lived as a male—known variously as Elvira Virginia Mugarrieta, Babe Beam, Jack Beam, Jack Maines, Beebe Beam, and Ben Garland—in the city’s Tenderloin District, where he had erotic relationships with young men, an early example of a trans man who was sexually attracted to other men. He enlisted in the U.S. Army, worked as a journalist, nurse, and adventurer, living as a man for nearly forty years before dying at 67 in 1936. Twenty-eight-year-old Oscar Wilde visited San Francisco on March 27, 1882, sporting lavender pants, seal fur cuffs, an ivory cane, and his biting wit. TheSan Francisco Chroniclereported: “The city is divided into two camps, those who thought Wilde was an engaging speaker and an original thinker, and those who thought he was the most pretentious fraud ever perpetrated on a groaning public.” Wilde’s bonmot about San Francisco inThe Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) is often quoted: “It’s an odd ESSAY One Hundred Years of Togetherness JIMVANBUSKIRK Jim Van Buskirk was the program manager of the James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center at the San Francisco Public Library (1992-2007). thing, but everyone who disappears is said to be seen at San Francisco. It must be a delightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world.” MarieEqui andBessie Bell Holcombleft their Oregon homestead in 1897 and moved to San Francisco. Marie pushed through boundaries of class, gender, and sexual orientation on her way to becoming a medical doctor. As the only volunteer female doctor on the Oregon relief mission aiding victims of the 1906 earthquake, Marie was put in charge of an obstetrics unit in a 300-bed hospital. Countless newspapers detailed stories of Marie’s compassion and professionalism, and the U.S. Army awarded her with a medal and citation for her relief work. American author and editor Charles Warren Stoddardset his 1903 autobiographical novel For the Pleasure of his Company: An Affair of the Misty City, Thrice Toldagainst San Francisco’s bohemian social scene. Best known for his travel writing about Polynesia, Stoddard praised South Sea societies’ receptiveness to homosexual liaisons, and he lived in relationships with men, including with Francis Millet and Yone Noguchi [discussed elsewhere in this issue]. His only novel begins with the words “Here you have my Confessions” and supplies enough information to enable the reader to trace out the whole story of his life. John Chaffee died in San Francisco on July 31, 1903, and his life partner Jason Chamberlain—having received word by mail—shot himself in the head with a shotgun on October 16, 1903. The two had left Boston together in January 1849 and arrived in San Francisco at the height of the gold rush. Despite the stable jobs and good pay, they left together for Calaveras County to try their luck at gold mining and in 1853 settled in Second Garrote, a small rural settlement in Groveland, Tuolumne County, where Chaffee mined and Chamberlain farmed and maintained an apple orchard. The pair lived there for fifty years and had planned to be buried side by side, but Jason was buried in Groveland and John in Oakland. Bret Harte probably used the couple as models for the characters in his 1869 short story “Tennessee’s Partner.” TheDash, considered the city’s first gay bar, opened at Pacific Avenue and Kearny Street in 1908. The city may have had gay bars before The Dash, but none as notorious. The bar featured cross-dressing waiters who performed sex acts for a dollar in nearby booths. After a high-profile judge was linked to the bar, March–April 2024 23 Oscar Wilde in San Francisco. George Frederick Keller. The Modern Messiah, 1882.
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