Mona's 440 Club
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Mona's 440 Club
Mona's 440 Club was the first lesbian bar to open in San Francisco, California in 1936. It continued to draw a lesbian clientele into the 1950s. Mona's and the gay bars of that era were an important part of the history of LGBT culture in San Francisco. Mona's Union Street, Columbus Avenue Mona and Jimmie Sargeant, a married couple, opened Mona's in 1934 on Union Street, taking advantage of San Francisco's liberal attitude, endless supply of tourists, and the end of prohibition. In 1936, the couple moved the bar to a basement location on Columbus Avenue in North Beach. Originally, the couple imagined the club as a bohemian hangout for writers and artists. They covered the floors with sawdust to help create the "bohemian" atmosphere. Over the time, the vision of the club changed. The couple hired singing waitresses, and some of the female waitresses dressed in male drag. The bar became modeled after other successful female impersonation or drag clubs like Finnochio's. I ...
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San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of California cities by population, fourth most populous in California and List of United States cities by population, 17th most populous in the United States, with 815,201 residents as of 2021. It covers a land area of , at the end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated large U.S. city after New York City, and the County statistics of the United States, fifth most densely populated U.S. county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. Among the 91 U.S. cities proper with over 250,000 residents, San Francisco was ranked first by per capita income (at $160,749) and sixth by aggregate income as of 2021. Colloquial nicknames for San Francisco include ''SF'', ''San Fran'', ''The '', ''Frisco'', and '' ...
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Sex Tourism
Sex tourism refers to the practice of traveling to foreign countries, often on a different continent, with the intention of engaging in sexual activity or relationships in exchange for money or lifestyle support. This practice predominantly operates in countries where sex work is legal but there are countries where laws prohibit sex work. The World Tourism Organization of the United Nations has acknowledged this industry is organised both within and outside the structured laws and networks created by them. Sex tourism is commonly regarded as a transnational challenge, as it can be seen to target marginalised demographics in developing nations, such as South East Asia and Brazil. The chief ethical concerns arise from: the economic gap between tourists and residents, the sexual trafficking of children and women and the parties taking advantage of the ability to engage with minors. These groups and individuals are subject to the foreign prostitution laws of the destination's juris ...
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1936 Establishments In California
Events January–February * January 20 – George V of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India, dies at his Sandringham Estate. The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King Edward VIII. * January 28 – Britain's King George V state funeral takes place in London and Windsor. He is buried at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle * February 4 – Radium E (bismuth-210) becomes the first radioactive element to be made synthetically. * February 6 – The IV Olympic Winter Games open in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. * February 10– 19 – Second Italo-Ethiopian War: Battle of Amba Aradam – Italian forces gain a decisive tactical victory, effectively neutralizing the army of the Ethiopian Empire. * February 16 – 1936 Spanish general election: The left-wing Popular Front coalition takes a majority. * February 26 – February 26 Incident (二・二六事件, ''Niniroku Jiken''): Th ...
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Peg's Place (bar)
Peg's Place was a San Francisco lesbian bar (1950s–1988) and the site of an assault in 1979 by off-duty members of the San Francisco vice squad, an event which drew national attention to other incidents of anti-gay violence and police harassment of the LGBT community and helped propel an unsuccessful citywide proposition to ban the city's vice squad altogether. Historians have written about the incident when describing the tension that existed between the police and the LGBT community during the late 1970s. The bar Peg's Place was located at 4737 Geary Boulevard in the Richmond District of San Francisco and was popular during the 1970s and 80s. In 1975, it was described as a "sedate location for gay women to socialize", featuring "unprepossing décor, a fake gas fed fireplace, pool and a Pong machine." A former patron, interviewed in 2015, said the bar in its early days was a place where "you could wear pants, but not blue jeans...I think they wanted you to be--maybe they call ...
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Maud's (bar)
Maud's was a lesbian bar at 937 Cole Street in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, Haight-Ashbury District which opened in 1966 and closed in 1989. At the time of its closing, which was captured in the film, ''Last Call at Maud's'', it was claimed to be the oldest lesbian bar in the United States. Its history, documented in the film and other media, spanned almost a quarter-century of LGBT events. History 1960s Maud's was opened in 1966 by Rikki Streicher, a LGBT culture in San Francisco, San Francisco lesbian and gay rights activist who would later go on to open another women's bar, Amelia's, and become a co-founder of the Gay Games. It was originally called "The Study", and later "Maud's Study." As women were not allowed to be employed as bartenders in California until 1971, Streicher hired male bartenders and tended bar herself. Streicher stated about the creation of Maud's "I've always felt that bars were the most honest, open, free place that women could go," and that she fo ...
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The Lexington Club
The Lexington Club, often referred to as The Lex, was a dive bar, primarily catered towards queer women, in the Mission District in the American city of San Francisco, California. It was recognized as one of the central landmarks for LGBTQ culture, especially for lesbians and queer women, in San Francisco. The club was founded in 1997 and closed at the end of April 2015. History The Lexington Club was opened in 1997 by Lila Thirkield as a response to the numerous options for gay men but lack of options for lesbians and other queer women in San Francisco. She noticed that 16th and Mission had a "significant dyke presence" there and decided that it would make a good spot for her lesbian-owned business. Other such businesses and services in the area catering to queer women included The Women's Building, the Osento bathhouse, Old Wives Tales bookstore, and Amelia's bar, which had closed in 1991. The Lexington's site had previously housed a Mexican bar, Sunset. In October 2014, Th ...
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Johnny Mathis
John Royce Mathis (born September 30, 1935) is an American singer of popular music. Starting his career with singles of standard music, he became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum status and 73 making the ''Billboard'' charts. Mathis has received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for three recordings. Although frequently described as a romantic singer, his discography includes traditional pop, Brazilian and Spanish music, soul, rhythm and blues, show tunes, Tin Pan Alley, soft rock, blues, country music, and even a few disco songs for his album ''Mathis Magic'' in 1979. Mathis has also recorded six albums of Christmas music. In a 1968 interview, Mathis cited Lena Horne, Nat King Cole, and Bing Crosby among his musical influences. Early life and education Mathis was born in Gilmer, Texas, on September 30, 1935, the fourth of seven children of Clem Mathis and ...
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Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world's most populous megacities. Los Angeles is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With a population of roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits , Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic and cultural diversity, being the home of the Hollywood film industry, and its sprawling metropolitan area. The city of Los Angeles lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to it's east. It covers about , and is the county seat of Los Angeles County, which is the most populous county in the United States with an estim ...
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Drag King
Drag kings are mostly female performance artists who dress in masculine drag and personify male gender stereotypes as part of an individual or group routine. A typical drag show may incorporate dancing, acting, stand-up comedy and singing, either live or lip-synching to pre-recorded tracks. Drag kings often perform as exaggeratedly macho male characters, portray marginalised masculinities such as construction workers and rappers or they will impersonate male celebrities like Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and Tim McGraw. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, several drag kings became British music hall stars and British pantomime has preserved the tradition of women performing in male roles. Starting in the mid-1990s, drag kings started to gain some of the fame and attention that drag queens have known. History and terminology While the term ''drag king'' was first cited in print in 1972, there is a longer history of female performers dressing in male attire. In China, the pra ...
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Beverly Shaw
Beverly Shaw (ca. 1910–May 26, 1990) was an American nightclub singer whose career centered on lesbian clubs in California. She was also the owner of a gay nightclub in Los Angeles, California, United States. Biography Shaw was from Los Angeles, California. She began her career in San Francisco, California, singing torch songs at the lesbian bar Mona's (where she performed up to the mid 1940s) and the Chi-Chi Club. During World War II, she drove a taxi to support herself and sang as a headliner at Mona's at night. Shaw moved back to Los Angeles in the early 1950s. There, she sang at the Flamingo Club for a few years before buying her own nightclub in North Hollywood, Club Laurel. She turned Club Laurel into a popular upscale gay night spot catering to the film community and ran it for 14 years. She placed a photograph of herself in the front window of Club Laurel captioned "Miss Beverly Shaw, Sir!", later saying that she borrowed the 'sir' from a Groucho Marx interview with Tal ...
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Moms Mabley
Loretta Mary Aiken (March 19, 1894 – May 23, 1975), known by her stage name Jackie "Moms" Mabley, was an American stand-up comedian and actress. Mabley began her career on the theater stage in the 1920s and became a veteran entertainer of the Chitlin' Circuit of African-American vaudeville. Mabley later recorded comedy albums and appeared in films and on television programs including ''The Ed Sullivan Show'' and ''The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour''. Early life Loretta Mary Aiken was born in Brevard, North Carolina, US, on March 19, 1894. She was one of 16 children born to James Aiken and Mary Smith, who had married in 1891. Her father owned and operated several successful businesses, while her mother kept house and took in boarders. Her teenage years were tumultuous. Aiken had given birth to two children that had resulted from her being raped at age 11, by an elderly black man, and at age 13, by a white sheriff. Both children were given up for adoption. Career Early career ...
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Midge Williams
Virginia Louise "Midge" Williams (May 27, 1915 – January 9, 1952) was an African-American swing and jazz vocalist during the 1930s and 1940s. Although not as famous as other jazz recording artists, Williams was a respected singer and her group, Midge Williams and Her Jazz Jesters, made several well-received recordings during the late 1930s. Early life Williams was known by her nickname "Midge" to distinguish her from her mother, also named Virginia Louise. Her father was John Williams. Born in Oregon, she spent her early years in the African American agricultural community of Allensworth, California, United States, in Tulare County. Williams' grandfather, Joshua Singleton, was the son of the black separatist leader Benjamin "Pap" Singleton. Joshua Singleton moved his family to Allensworth when the colony was founded in 1909, and the Singletons became prominent members of the Allensworth community. Virginia Louise Williams, Midge's mother, helped run Singleton's grocery store a ...
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