June 25, 2009
Smithsonian Marks Anniversary of Stonewall Riots
The cover of a Homosexual Rights pamphlet published in 1956. (Courtesy of NMAH Archives Center Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Collection.)
One of the first Smithsonian efforts dedicated to gay and lesbian Americans is tucked away on the first floor of the National Museum of American History. The small show, located outside of the Archives Center, denotes the beginning of the modern gay civil rights movement. The display was assembled in recognition of the 40th anniversary of the riots in Greenwich Village, New York. It will be on view through August 2.
On June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar on the lower east side. Raids were a fact of life for the gay men and women who sought community in the nightlife, but years of oppression and aggressive police actions, sparked a flame among the bar’s patrons. For the first time, gay men and women fought back, resulting in five days of protest.
No artifacts from that night are on display, but what visitors can see are samples of some of the victories won and lost since the riots. Artifacts include advertising for the Showtime television show Queer as Folk, a Gay Games program, and HIV/AIDS paraphernalia. For this exhibit, the Smithsonian’s Franklin Robinson chose items from the Archives Center, which specializes in collecting primary sources for research, documenting a few aspects of gay history and culture in the United States.
“We hope the exhibit will spur useful and conductive conversations for the people who view it,” says Robinson. And in fact it has already, just two days after the cases went on view, a D.C. charter high school teacher contacted the American History museum to say that his ninth-grade students were studying gay rights and other movements and that he would be bringing his class to see the display.
As the nation struggles with the question of gay marriage and gays in the military, the museum’s collection as it represents gay history, is a story waiting to be told. The collection, Robinson says, is shaped entirely by donations. Two years ago, Frank Kameny, a pioneer of the gay rights movement, gave the Smithsonian his protest signs and papers. John-Manuel Andriote, author of “Victory Deferred: How AIDS Changed Gay Life in America,” has also donated his extensive research and interviews.
Because there is no staff member at the Smithsonian, yet, who actively collects objects or materials related to gay history, perhaps figures from historical and current civil rights battles need to reach out to the museum. This first exhibit is a historical moment itself, but should not be the beginning and end of the conversation about gay Americans.
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Is this little exhibit the best the Smithsonian can offer? I’m deeply disappointed by this “exhibit.” It feels random, gives no historical context for the items displayed. Surely there is, or will be, more. Yes?
I have to agree with the previous poster.
We were delighted and excited to see this exhibit when we saw it on the SI’s website. So we bravely (on a Sunday in peak tourist season) went down to the Smithsonian *specifically* for this exhibit.
Well, you need to know that we had a hell of a time finding it. I have since been told by the director of the local Gay History group that there were THREE cases of material. Well, that would’ve been nice to know of there on site and to have seen them. A friend reported to us that when he asked a docent for the location of the exhibit he was taken to this one window case and not told about any other part of the exhibit. So not only NO signage, but the staff didn’t know of the full extent of the exhibit.
I was delighted to see all the covers of ONE magazine. Many of the covers confirmed the long-standing issues that have long been in the fore-front of our struggle. The early issue of “One” about Gay servicemen and the cover on Whitman were nice reminders. But the slapdash nature of the items and the lack of any detailed information left us with a lot of questions.
For example, based on this one exhibit case (the only one we know of) I have to ask why you chose “RFD”, a historically Gay men’s magazine (I served as an editor for RFD so I know the magazine quite well) to showcase Lesbian presence? You chose the one issue of RFD on Lesbian issues with a photo of kissing women. It was an odd choice in an exhibit case with all male magazines and images. Do you not have copies of landmark Lesbian publications like “Off Our Backs” or “The Ladder” in your collection?
Again, if they were in one of the other two (invisible) cases, you’ll forgive the above-average museum-goer for thinking that this exhibit was badly designed and miss-weighted towards the Gay male side of the story.
I hope that next year you’ll not only be able to have an exhibit but be able to have signage alerting people to its location and the extent of its size. Would it be crazy to desire an actual room of its own? At the very least how about a title on the wall above the glass case telling you this is what it is?
I’m sure there was a HUGE amount of conversation about even pulling of this exhibit at the SI, given its conservative nature, so maybe I should be glad for even these small crumbs. But I’m not. I’m dissatisfied with this very hush-hush, closeted non-occurrence of an exhibit.
Our history is part of American history and deserves to be told in the country’s pre-eminent history museum. I commend you for the attempt to do this, but you need to be more bold. Tell people what you’re doing more clearly.
Dan Vera
Washington, DC
Just a few comments on the previous posts. The cases highlight four of the Archives Center’s LGBT related collections to mark the Stonewall 40th. Each label clearly states what each collection contains. Simply said, as Dan Vera has summised, there is a lot more behind the cases than can be told in a post. The cases are in front of the Archives Center across from Julia Child’s kitchen, there was no effort to closet or hide this display, it is on all the main SI websites and blogs. In fact, given the short timeframe (AC case displays are only up for two months) staff has gone out of its way to try and get the word out.
Signage, specific signage for any exhibit is limited in the museum. The Archives Center case displays only go up for a two month period so it is “bare bones.” This may also explain why our docents perhaps did not know more about the display. They are volunteer and do their best to know what is happening in the museum, they are briefed daily on the various displays. The other cases are directly beside the main case and main label.
Each object in the main case was chosen for a specific reason. The main case, a small space, is designed to show the diversity of our LGBT Collection which is a collection of wide ranging ephemera, newsletters, etc. The display is image heavy in content so museum goers would be drawn to look at the case rather than pass by. The RFD magazine with the lesbians was a visual, as opposed to putting in a “Daughters of Bilitis” newsletter, for instance, that would have to be read. The LGBT Collection does not contain “Off Our Backs” or “The Ladder” but the Archives Center would be happy to accession issues if someone offers them for donation. The other two cases focus on three different collections, one highlights The Shamrock Bar in Bluefield, WV, a oral history/photography documentation by Carol Burch Brown, a noted photographer, who is lesbian. The other two collections are John Manuel Andriote’s Victory Deferred Collection, a noted gay author, and the extensive HIV/AIDs Collection on pamphlets and material related to the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Here is a recent communication from another museum goer who had a different experience (edited for length), ” . . . it never occurred to me how important museums are in terms of legitimizing history and culture until I saw something that reflected a group of Americans that I have recently become a part of: the Stonewall display cases.
When I saw them I was elated and moved to tears. It is my fondest hope that in ten years, for the fiftieth anniversary, the NMAH will have a full exhibit devoted to this important historical event.”
It is extremely disappointing that the exhibit is said to be so small. Hopefully there will be an influx of new materials soon for such an important recording of LGBT history.
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