Aviation on the American Frontier

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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Aviation on the American Frontier

For over 100 years, aviation has been a romantic mix of adventure and technology. Whether for crop-dusting, mail delivery, homeland security, or travel from one coast to the other, the airplane has been an indispensable player in the story of 20th century America. In the 1920s, aviation became a national obsession; and daring pilots, with their colorful planes, would join cowboys, pioneers, suffragettes, wildcatters, and gangsters in the pantheon of American icons.

Alaska

For some corners of the United States, airplanes were the only way in or out. The far-flung Alaskan frontier was perfectly-suited for planes. Even though the bi-plane was exhibited in 1913, it wasn’t until the 1920s that Alaska saw its share of commercial aviation and the birth of the bush pilot.

Russell Merrill posing next to his bi-plane
Alaska’s Bush Pilots Russel Merrill transported animal furs via bi-plane before he disappeared in 1929. Air tragedy would come to the cold wilderness frequently in the coming years…Image sourced from Alaska’s Bush Pilots.

As planes improved, so did the commercial viability of Alaska — still decades away from becoming the 49th state. The Alaskan frontier had unmatched natural resources yet to be exploited.

Woolaroc

Osage Hills, in northeast Oklahoma, is home to Woolaroc, oil magnate Frank Phillips’ sprawling 3,700-acre retreat. The centerpiece was a rustic log cabin that hosted family, friends, politicians, business associates, and a few Hollywood stars. Woolaroc would also be the site of a legendary aviation tale.

An image of the Woolaroc plane
Averaging 96 miles per hour and covering 2,400 miles in 26 hours, Art Goebel won the Dole Race and made the Woolaroc world famous. Image sourced from Woolaroc.

Just like most Americans of that era, Frank Phillips was enamored with aviation and charged his chemists at Phillips Petroleum with improving plane fuel. In an effort to promote his new division, NuAviation fuel, Phillips entered two planes in the dangerous Dole Race from California to Hawaii.

Billy Parker, Laura Ingalls, and Wiley Post inspect Laura’s Lockheed Orion in Bartlesville at the municipal airport.
Billy Parker, Laura Ingalls, and Wiley Post inspect Laura’s Lockheed Orion in Bartlesville at the municipal airport. Frank Phillips and Phillips Petroleum courted the daring pilots of the 1920s and 1930s as their exploits always garnered headlines. To have Phillips NuAviation fuel a part of record-breaking flights could yield lucrative business deals for the company. Image sourced from Woolaroc.

The Accidental Museum

Frank Phillips’s interest in planes may have bled over into his business, but it was always personal for him. At Woolaroc, Phillips built a hangar for the Woolaroc Travel Air 5000 monoplane that Art Goebel piloted to victory in the Dole Race from California to Hawaii in 1927. It wasn’t long before the hangar became home to the oil executive’s expansive collection of American Western and American Indian art, expanding to 40,000-square-feet

Willy Post dressed in a cowboy getup including chaps, a revolver, vest, eyepatch, and cowboy hat
During the 1920s, Frank Phillips hosted the annual Cow Thieves and Outlaws reunion at his Woolaroc ranch outside Bartlesville. Wiley Post is shown here dressed in the appropriate if not outlandish garb, as many guests did. Image sourced from Aviation in Tulsa and Northeast Oklahoma

Wiley Post

During World War I, Oklahoman Wiley Post joined the US Air Service. After the war, an oilfield accident left him with a big cash settlement, allowing the nascent aviator to buy his first plane. Always pushing the limits, Post became the first to fly solo around the world. He and fellow aviation enthusiast Frank Phillips worked towards innovations in high altitude flights, including the world’s first practical pressure suit. At Woolaroc, Post met humorist Will Rogers, and the two became close friends. And in the summer of 1935, the pair flew to Alaska, but tragedy struck. While arriving in Barrow, Alaska, their plane crashed, killing both men instantly.

An autographed photo of Will Rogers and Charlie Short
Oklahoma humorist Will Rogers (right) and Charlie Short pose for the camera in this 1934 photograph. Will Rogers was one of the most vocal proponents of aviation. Although never a pilot himself, he flew every chance he got and always weighed in on aviation stories of the day on his syndicated radio program and in his newspaper column. TASM, courtesy Tulsa Airport Authority. Image sourced from Aviation in Tulsa and Northeast Oklahoma.

Tulsa

Despite the tragedy, Oklahoma remained a hub for aviation innovation. Duncan McIntyre, who later dubbed the “father of Tulsa aviation,” came to Tulsa in 1919 and opened  McIntyre Airport. Local oil men like W. G. Skelly became interested in aviation and its potential for the petroleum industry. When Tulsa Municipal Airport opened in 1928, Skelly located his Spartan Aircraft Company just one mile down the road. Oklahoma’s oil boom made the new airport one of the busiest in the world. In the early 1930s, Tulsa was home to training facilities and manufacturing. At the dawn of World War II, boomtown built Air Force Plant No. 3, where thousands of aircraft were sent for modification. In the coming decades, Tulsa remained the site for military aircraft maintenance. Both North American Aviation and Rockwell International opened facilities in Tulsa, where nearly 50 percent of the external structure of the Saturn V moon rockets were manufactured. Not bad for a boomtown on a dusty prairie.

An image showing the vast B-24 manufacturing plant
The B‐24 line is in full production in this photograph. The area where the A‐24 line was has been filled with parts for the B‐24s. This view certainly accentuates the length of the bomber plant as B‐24s simply fade into the distance. At peak production, Tulsans were producing 12 B‐24s per week. TASM, courtesy Boeing Company. Image sourced from Aviation in Tulsa and Northeast Oklahoma.

Behind The Scenes at The Seneca Falls Convention

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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Behind The Scenes at The Seneca Falls Convention

This month, 172 years ago, a group of women gathered in Seneca Falls, New York, to throw the world’s first convention celebrating women’s rights. The convention, in the hosts’ own words, would discuss “the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman.”

This was a brave and bold goal in 1848, and it would be many decades before women secured such basic rights as the right to vote. But the Seneca Falls convention soon inspired other events in America and around the world. Here are some rare images of some of the women who helped organize this groundbreaking convention.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Image sourced from Seneca Falls.

Above is a sketch of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who learned about the inequality that faced women as she listened to women ask for help in her father’s law office. Stanton would be one of the key organizers of the Seneca Falls convention, along with a circle of Quaker women.

Lucretia Mott. Image sourced from Seneca Falls.

Lucretia Mott, pictured here, was a Quaker that Stanton had met while in England at an international abolition convention. Mott was an elected delegate but was refused admission to the convention floor. Stanton and Mott became lifelong friends and proponents of women’s rights at this convention.

Mary Ann M’Clintock. Image sourced from Seneca Falls.

Mary Ann M’Clintock, another Quaker, met with Stanton, Mott, and others in the spring of 1848 for tea. At this gathering, Stanton voiced her frustration with the status of women. Before long, the first women’s rights convention was planned.

Jane Hunt. Image sourced from Seneca Falls.

Jane Hunt, who hosted M’Clintock’s tea, was the wife of a prominent abolitionist who was also interested in Women’s Rights.

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Image sourced from Seneca Falls.

In this older photo, one can see Susan B. Anthony on the left and Stanton on the right. They were the two primary leaders of the women’s rights movement. Both pressed for the right to vote, which they saw as a key issue.

(From left to right) Carl Rogers, Bert Mackey, Theodosia Moran, Dr. William Follette, Devillo Pollard, Anita Politzer, Earl Clark, and L.D. Stafford pose in front of the dedication of the Nineteenth Amendment plaque. Image sourced from Seneca Falls.

In 1923, a couple of years after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, Seneca Falls celebrated the convention that had occurred so many years ago. The dedication of a plaque is pictured here, although the owner of the original building refused to allow the plaque to be placed on his building. The battle for women’s rights was still not over — is still not over today. But in many ways, it started in Seneca Falls.

The Lost Colony of North Carolina

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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The Lost Colony of North Carolina

Beginning in the 1400s, all of Western Europe was keen on colonizing North America. France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Portugal sought to claim the land and resources of the New World for themselves; and all did so, to varying degrees. For decades, North America was large enough for all of the plundering nations to snatch a piece of the un-colonized continent for themselves. Twenty years before the famous Jamestown colony of 1607, a group of English settlers arrived off the coast of North Carolina, only to be abandoned and disavowed by their countrymen. The legend of the lost colony was born.

In 1497, Englishman John Cabot, sponsored by Henry VIII, explored the Eastern Seaboard of the future United States. But it wasn’t until Queen Elizabeth herself sent Sir Humphrey Gilbert on two voyages to the New World in 1578 that England got a taste for what was waiting there. Six years later, Sir Walter Raleigh launched a more successful attempt at establishing a colony in the New World. After years of conflict on the seas, England and Spain were heading for an inevitable war.

English Colonizers

Queen Elizabeth had a different vision for colonizing the New World that contrasted with the Spanish. When engaging the Native tribes, she insisted on trade and friendship, and not conquest.

“The Spaniards have exercised most outrageous and more than Turkish cruelties in all the West Indies, whereby they are everywhere there become most odious unto them who would join with us or any other most willingly to shake off their most intolerable yoke.” — Richard Hakluyt, Discourse Concerning Western Planting 

In 1584, English scouts made contact with the Croatoan and the Secotan tribes in what is now known as North Carolina. The English were showered with food and gifts through their trip and traded for pearls, tobacco, and leather. The British exploration party spent six weeks in the New World, establishing good trade relations with the Natives, all the while on the lookout for Spanish ships — this was more of a military operation than a trading venture.

The next year, British ships returned to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where the native Croatoans continued to trade with them. Construction of a series of forts along the beach guarding the inlets of the Outer Banks commenced. Though not intent on creating a permanent English settlement in the New World, the English looked to loot their Spanish counterparts. Camping with the Croatoans, the British could monitor the treasure-filled Spanish ships coming from Florida and the Caribbean en route to Spain.

A Permanent Colony

With the fourth English voyage to the New World, a permanent settlement with women and children would join the expedition, with a goal of establishing a port town — they hoped to colonize the Chesapeake Bay area, with its deep harbor. As they arrived at Roanoke Island to collect 15 missing men left behind the previous year, the Anglos were welcomed by the Croatoan, who agreed to help broker peace with hostile Native tribe the Secotans.

Abandoned

But the colonists did not move on from Roanoke to Chesapeake. Former Portuguese pirate Simon Fernando, who had offered his help, left them on the fledgling island colony and informed the Spanish forces nearby. The British Crown had a singular vision to defeat the Spanish Armada, and the colonists would be left to fend for themselves. The war would continue until 1603. But John White was still determined to find a way to get back to the colony, which included his daughter and granddaughter. When Governor John White and his crew finally made it back to the island, they found a large tree with the letters CRO carved on it. At the abandoned settlement, they found a man-made palisade, next to it on a tree the word CROATOAN was carved. Before Governor White had left earlier, these were his instructions. The friendly Croatoan was known to venture nearby, along the coastline, White’s next stop. Bad weather blew the rescue party twenty-three miles out to sea and damaged their ship. The crew refused to turn back for Croatoan and set sail for England. John White never saw his daughter or granddaughter again but took some solace that they were safe with the Croatoan.

Future search parties found no evidence that the colony had relocated to Chesapeake or in the woods west of there. Did the colonists perish, or did they assimilate with the local Natives? Some clues came in 1701 when explorer John Lawson surveyed the Native tribes in Carolina. Now dubbed Hatteras Island, Croatoan had some evidence of the abandoned colony. In fact, there were gray-eyed Indians with English-style clothes, and some had white ancestors who could read and knew of explorer Sir Walter Raleigh. The riddle of the lost colony remains unanswered but has inspired archeologists to keep digging.

The Lost Colony and Hatteras Island

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Check out The Lost Colony and Hatteras Island.

How the British Lost the Battle for Fort Ticonderoga

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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How the British Lost the Battle for Fort Ticonderoga

In the spring of 1775, a small band of American soldiers set out for the shore of Lake Champlain, recruiting others to their expedition along the way and ultimately joining forces with Ethan Allen and his legendary Green Mountain Boys. Together, they launched a daring surprise attack on the massive British outpost: Fort Ticonderoga.

It’s an amazing story that’s often styled as the Revolutionary War’s “first American victory.” But it’s also a story of British incompetence — of a disinterested and distracted government not taking the steps to respond to an inevitable disaster.

Missed Warnings

As early as 1767, Guy Carleton, the British governor of Quebec, had said that it was “indispensably necessary” to keep the region’s lake posts in repair. But over the year,s upstate New York had been relatively quiet. Across the lake, in the Grants, there was only the “Bennington Mob,” and they were small, not necessarily against the Crown, and located eighty miles away.

Elsewhere, in places like Massachusetts, the situation was getting so tense that on May 2, 1774, Frederick Haldimand, a British military leader, demanded that his aides examine the state of the forts at Crown Point and Ticonderoga. On May 13, the report arrived: “Fort at Ticonderoga is in ruinous situation . . . in many places there are very capital breachers.” The report failed to mention that, from a military point of view, the cannons packed with grapeshot were lined up in such a way that they could not repel a ground attack from a small force.

Two days later, on May 15, Haldimand wrote to England and proposed moving two loyal regiments from Canada to Crown Point, for “rebuilding that fort which from its situation not only secures the communication with Canada but also opens easy access to the back settlements of the Northern colonies and may keep them in awe.” Apparently, Haldimand’s superiors did not see any merit in this idea. Certainly, they did not act with speed.

“As Little Expense As Possible”

Later that year, as tensions escalated, there were many instances of the colonists trying to acquire arms. In October, another British commander noted that he was “fully sensible of the bad state of the buildings at Ticonderoga.” He ordered “some small repairs,” but “at as little expense as possible.”

On November 2, England finally sent orders to put the forts “in such a state as may effectually answer the purposes for which they were originally intended.” By the time the letter finally arrived in America, in December, winter had set in, and all action had to wait.

It should have been increasingly clear that the colonists were getting desperate for arms. In the spring of 1775, Carleton received another demand to reinforce Crown Point — but it did not even mention Fort Ticonderoga. There was no sense of urgency to improve the defenses for this remote upstate New York fort, even with its appetizing prize of more than one hundred cannons.

The Battle

The rest, of course, is history. On May 10, 1775, less than a month after the battles at Lexington and Concord, Ethan Allen and his fellow Americans surprised the fort, capturing it and its weaponry. Those British cannons were eventually sent to Boston, where they helped the colonial army’s successful siege. Meanwhile, the loss of the fort made it much harder for Britain to coordinate its Canadian forces.

It was a wonderful victory for America. But it was also an embarrassing loss for Britain — the latest international example of what happens when a government plan for serious threats, though it would hardly be the last.

The Hartford Circus Fire: Tragedy Under the Big Top

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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The Hartford Circus Fire: Tragedy Under the Big Top

Who doesn’t love going to the circus? Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, lovingly known as “The Greatest Show on Earth,” has entertained millions across the globe with its sideshow attractions, exotic animals, and death-defying performances. And their traveling big top tent dominated at 200 feet wide by 450 feet long, with a snow-white canvas roof towering five stories high. Underneath, three rings and two stages were surrounded by a 25-foot-wide oval “Hippodrome track” separating the performance area from the spectators. At the Barbour Street circus grounds in Hartford, Connecticut, as many as 7,000 spectators would cram into the festive tent for a single show. Greatest Show, indeed!

A Typical Matinee

On July 6, 1944, the afternoon show featured a parade to kick things off, followed by an opening act of dozens of showgirls in bright yellow military costumes being “trained” by performers in lion costumes. Then came the real animals, including trained lions, polar bears, Great Danes, panthers, leopards, and pumas. Thirty feet up the Flying Wallendas began their famous high-wire act. Just the day before, a Hartford building inspector was satisfied with the Barbour Street circus grounds — the erection of the big top, the exits, and the seats were all installed in their typical fashion. The Hartford Police officers assigned to the site reported no problems and observed no fire hazards.

A photo of people running out of the circus tent that is on fire.
In this image, the paraffin-coated big top canvas has been almost completely consumed by fire. The remaining ropes are about to burn, and the support poles will fall to the ground, crushing everything in their path. Photo by Spencer Torrell, from author’s collection. Image sourced from The Hartford Circus Fire.

“FIRE!”

At about 2:40 P.M., an usher noticed a small fire, roughly five feet off the ground on the canvas sidewall of the circus tent, and dangerously close to bleachers. Three ushers rushed for the nearby water buckets, but the fire was now ten feet up the sidewall and racing towards the canvas tent roof. The evacuation did not commence quickly. Over in the first circus ring, animal acts were concluding as trainers heard screams but saw no fire. As the audience realized what was happening, they pushed and panicked, screaming on the way to the exit. Immediately, animals fled out of the runway, as people were crawling out from under the sidewall. The canvas roof above the entrance was now in flames. Local police that had been on hand, helped the circus workers and ushers clear equipment that obstructed the path out of the tent. As a breeze was feeding the fire, flames shot toward other corners of the big top. A steel animal runway blocked egress at the Hippodrome track. The stairway to it was jammed, but people still tried climbing over the obstacle. Some officers on-site began tossing children over the obstruction. When the flames reached the big top’s center pole, the entire north section of the roof was compromised and collapsed on those poor souls who couldn’t get out in time. Black smoke filled the sky.

A photo of the circus tents shrouded in black smoke as onlookers stand back and watch as people try to escape.
View from the southeast corner of the circus lot near the performers’ dressing tent, looking west, about three minutes after the fire started. Thick black smoke fills the sky as scraps of burning canvas float to the ground. Photo by L.B. Ulrich, from author’s collection. Image sourced from The Hartford Circus Fire.


“People started going down the bleachers throwing chairs left and right as they went. When I got my leg caught, someone fell on me and my mother turned around and pulled me to safety.” — survivor Edmund Hall Hindle


Local firefighters arrived to witness bleachers still burning, and the entire big top canvas consumed. Firemen sprayed water on the ruins and hoped for survivors. Circus employees, policemen, and civilians rallied to remove the victims on boards, and survivors were carried to hospitals. Hartford’s State Armory building was used as a temporary morgue, where officers began the gruesome task of identifying the dead. Bodies were separated into four groups: boys, girls, adult males, and adult females. The official death toll was 168, with others dying months after the circus, bringing the final tally to 170.

The Days Following

Even though contemporary building codes lacked provisions for “circuses,” a permit had been legally issued to Ringling Brothers. In the aftermath of the disaster, nearly all communities required fireproof tents and an increased number of public exits. No smoking was strictly enforced. Even though the state police commissioner was critical of the Hartford Fire Department, he found no negligence. The cause of the fire was probably a discarded cigarette. Arson was not to blame. Reports noted a lack of fire prevention equipment, insufficient personnel, and blocked exits. In a subsequent trial, five circus employees were found liable for the loss of lives in the circus fire.

A photo of a circular memorial on the ground with the names of the victims engraved around it.
The bronze memorial medallion at the Hartford Circus Fire Memorial is embossed with the names of each of the victims of the circus fire. Contributors were allowed to purchase personalized bricks, which surround the medallion, located on what was once the center ring of the big top. Photo by author. Image sourced from The Hartford Circus Fire.

Memorial

The Hartford Circus Fire Memorial Foundation installed a bronze medallion at the site of the circus fire, sixty-one years after the preventable disaster, where the center ring of the big top sat. The memorial reminds the community of the catastrophic fire and those who perished. 

“In loving memory of those who perished on this location fifty years ago, July 6, 1944, and with heartfelt condolences to their survivors.”

The Stonewall Uprising & LGBTQ Heroes

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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The Stonewall Uprising & LGBTQ Heroes

51 years ago today, police officers and patrons of the Stonewall Inn–a well-known gathering place for New York City’s queer community–clashed and memorable, momentous fashion. Like most gay clubs at the time, the Stonewall Inn did not have a liquor license. And also like most gay bars, it was owned by members of organized crime families who used bribery to keep the police at bay and raids down to a minimum. But on June 28, 1969, tensions came to a head. Police raided the bar and began to arrest anyone who looked “visibly gay,” and after many overtly abusive actions, the two sides came to blows.

Objects were hurled, punches were thrown and the fight escalated, as crowds of angry men faced off against the New York Tactical Police Force, which was called in to control the crowd. The riots raged into the next day and started again the following night along Christopher Street. The fighting continued sporadically during the next few days, spurring activists across the country to organize for LGBTQ rights. The Stonewall Uprising is widely considered to be the birthday of the modern gay liberation movement.

In the decades since, countless people have dedicated their lives to protecting the rights of the LGBTQ community, but LGBTQ trailblazers are found in even the earliest days of American history. As we end the celebrations of Pride month, let’s look back at some of the folks you may not have heard of who made an impact on the history of LGBTQ rights in America.

American LGBTQ Trailblazers

Margaret Chung (1889 – 1959)

Breaking gender and racial boundaries, Margaret Chung was the first known female Chinese doctor in the United States. She graduated from the University of Southern California’s (USC) medical school in 1916. Chung, who was also known as “Mike” in some circles, reportedly never married and wore masculine clothes. She also had romantic relationships with women such as Sophie Tucker and Elsa Gridlow. (Courtesy LAPL.)

Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992)

No celebrity redefined female sexuality in the 1920s and 1930s more than Marlene Dietrich. She projected an androgynous appearance, often wearing masculine clothing. Promotions for her film Morocco featured Dietrich in a tuxedo. For the film Blonde Venus, posters showed her in white pants and blue blazer. These advertisements appeared during a time when a woman wearing pants was considered sexual radicalism. While studio bosses hid male homosexuality, when it came to Dietrich, they promoted her androgynous style as part of the hype around her films. Offscreen, Dietrich kept no secrets about her love affairs with women. (Courtesy ONE.)

Gladys Bentley (1907-1960)

Having found success in New York speakeasies in the 1920s, Gladys Bentley moved to Los Angeles in 1937 after the repeal of Prohibition saw a decline in speakeasy nightlife. In Los Angeles, Bentley revived her career as gay bars proliferated during World War II. Her blues and jazz acts featured her dressed in a man’s tuxedo. An open lesbian, Bentley later denied her homosexuality as the national mood increasingly became homophobic during the McCarthy era.

Bayard Rustin (1912 -1987)

A co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and co-organizer of the 1941 March of Washington, Rustin was an activist in the early movements for gay rights. Due to the homophobia directed at him, he usually had to organize behind the scenes, uplifting civil-rights leaders who were not openly gay. In the 1980s, he was able to become a more public advocate on behalf of gay causes. In November 2013, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which Rustin’s partner, Walter Naegle, accepted on his behalf.

Harry Hay (1912-2002)

When Harry Hay convened the first meeting of the Mattachine Society in 1950, it marked the start of the modern LGBT movement. Hay conceived of gay people in an entirely new way. He and the Mattachine Society argued that homosexuals were an oppressed cultural minority. Born into nuclear families and exposed only to heterosexual organizational structures with masculine men serving as fathers and feminine women serving as mothers, homosexuals who did not fit this mold were lost in a foreign culture with no role models or alternative family structures. Mattachine advocated “consciousness building” among gay people to help them discover their natural identities and build connections among other homosexuals. This platform was extremely radical for its time and was quickly challenged by many homosexuals who believed they were no different from heterosexuals, except for their sexual activities. Still, it was this platform that became the basis for nearly all future LGBT identity formation and cultural development. Mattachine also laid the groundwork for future LGBT organizing.

Christine Jorgensen (1926 – 1989)

Christine Jorgensen (right) was an American transgender woman who was the first person to become widely known in the United States for having sex reassignment surgery. Jorgensen grew up in the Bronx, New York City.

Barbara Gittings (1932-2007)

Barbara Gittings (left) stands alongside the Homophile Acton League (HAL) banner c. 1970. The Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), a lesbian organization founded in California in the 1950s, attracted lesbian newcomers after Philadelphia police raided Rusty’s.

Lenoard Matlovich (1943 – 1988)

Technical Sergeant Leonard Philip Matlovich (far right) was an American Vietnam War veteran, race relations instructor, and recipient of the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. He was the first gay service member to purposely out himself to the military to fight their ban on gays, and perhaps the best-known openly gay man in America in the 1970s next to Harvey Milk.

Marsha P. Johnson

Marsha P. Johnson (August 24, 1945 – July 6, 1992) was an American gay liberation activist and self-identified drag queen. Known as an outspoken advocate for gay rights, Johnson was one of the prominent figures in the Stonewall uprising of 1969. A founding member of the Gay Liberation Front, Johnson co-founded the radical activist group Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.), alongside close friend Sylvia Rivera.A popular figure in New York City’s gay and art scene, Johnson modeled for Andy Warhol, and performed onstage with the drag performance troupe Hot Peaches.[6] Known for decades as a welcoming presence in the streets of Greenwich Village, Johnson was known as the “mayor of Christopher Street.” From 1987 through 1992, Johnson was an AIDS activist with ACT UP.

Gilbert Baker (1951-2007)

At the 1980 Castro Street Fair we find Gilbert Baker, who created the Rainbow Flag for the 1978 Gay Pride Parade, kissing someone who looks a lot like actor Richard Chamberlain. What do you think? (Photo Robert Pruzan, courtesy GLBT Historical Society.)

Harvey Milk (1930-1978)

Harvey Milk (right) was an American politician and the first openly gay elected official in the history of California. Here, Milk is shown with his partner, Scott Smith.

Before moving to California in 1973 and opening Castro Camera in the famous Castro neighborhood, Milk was a conservative Republican on Wall Street, a closeted gay man living with a series of male lovers. After opening the shop, the exceedingly gregarious Harvey introduced himself to all the other merchants and offered help to whoever needed it, soon earning the nickname the “Mayor of Castro Street.”

Upset by his own problems with the city government, Harvey decided to run for the board of supervisors in 1973. He lost, but found that he loved campaigning. (Photo Harvey Milk Archives, Scott Smith Collection, San Francisco Public Library.)

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