Lesbian "Ladder" in Smithsonian's American Stories

In 1956, thirteen years before Stonewall, the lesbian group Daughters of Bilitis began publishing a monthly journal called The Ladder and one issue from 1968 now appears in the Smithsonian's new exhibit American Stories. Over 100 artifacts on display cover just shy of 400 years of history, from the Pilgrims to Obama, so the queer presence is significant. Seeing the inclusion this weekend made me doubly proud because it might never have happened without my partner's spearheading the effort to get Frank Kameny's papers in the Smithsonian's collection in 2006 and his subsequent public criticism in 2010 when they were far too slow in putting any of the artifacts on view. 

Unfortunately, in conveying four centuries of American history too much of the exhibit is entertainment: Kermit the Frog, a witch cloak from Wicked, Archie Bunker's chair, Dorothy's ruby slippers, which are the welcoming object in the display area and the only artifact on the webpage.

Happily, another exhibit celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington features a big wall of Bayard Rustin which does mention his homosexuality and later has LGBT rights marches as part of the legacy of the 1963 march. The exhibit is created by the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History, still on schedule to open near the Washington Monument in 2015.

Comments

[Glenn I]

My gratitude to your partner, then. Altho I won't be getting to the Smithsonian any time soon it pleases me to think that when I do I will feel some love.