We regularly marvel at how snapshots of LGBTQ life from the past are able to do what even the most impassioned history lesson cannot — provide a relatable visual texture to the lives we might have led had we entered the world at a different blip in time.
Movies are even more immersive for obvious reasons, however few and far between.
In a recent New Yorker piece, a treasure trove of queer cultural preservation is profiled, starting with the personal home video collection of Harold O’Neal, who was born in 1910 and spent much of his life in San Francisco.
Related: PHOTOS: These Vintage Gay Pride Photos Are Absolutely Everything
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Harold was a rehabilitation officer for the Veterans Administration and later worked in personnel for the Army Corps of Engineers, and like many gay men and women of his time, led a very different private life than the one he broadcast publicly.
Also an amateur filmmaker, over the years he recorded the fabric of his hidden-in-plain-sight life — the parties, the drag shows, the intimate moments with his partner. These things we take for granted today, but were still somewhat radical in the ’40s and ’50s.
Related: PHOTOS: Vintage Gay Couples Help Preserve Our Vibrant Queer History
The clips spent decades tucked away in boxes in O’Neal’s home, until he responded to a documentary filmmaker’s request for footage of the Castro. While the filmmaker ultimately only used a few brief clips of O’Neal’s, he recognized the historical value of the deeply personal collection.
Now the movies live at the G.L.B.T. Historical Society, and you can watch a couple of them, as well as some other archival gems from other sources, below:
1. Sunbathing in Vallejo, 1947:
2. Houseparty, 1946:
3. San Francisco lesbian bar Mona’s Candle Light around 1950 (discovered in an unmarked can at a San Jose flea market):
4. Tape from the collection of author Allan Bérubé of Garrisson von Habsburg, San Francisco, 1991. Garrison died two years later at the age of 29:
Head here to read the full, very worthwhile New Yorker piece.
Stache
The first ones were very haunting. Funny that they all dressed up back then. Actually kind of like that.
The SF one was cool. I liked when he leaned down to check his answering machine for messages. I remember that. You can also see how Aids was so part of life back then. A real snapshot of how it was in 1991. I wish they had more videos like that.
Stache
I moved to SF in 1997. Pretty much a new era by then.
dwes09
A totally different place back in the 1970’s, and older friends used to talk about what it was like in the 50’s and 60’s when the center of Gay life was North Beach and the Polk Street area. Even in the 70’s there were vestiges of the gay influence in those places, and Eureka Valley was just becoming the Castro.
judysdad
Cool, but jeez, what a bunch of queens!
DarkZephyr
@judysdad: Do you have ANY clue as to how difficult it was for them back then? How WONDERFUL those all to brief moments where they could BREATH freely and be themselves must have FELT to them? They probably felt so damned good in those small moments that they went over the top. Why would you act like that is something shameful?
Stache
@judysdad: Unfortunately the masculine jocks we all dreamed of were way deep in the closet. The last say 20 years we’ve seen a change in the age of them coming out.
Doughosier
1991 doesn’t seem that long ago to me…