Gay by the Bay: A History of Queer Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area - Softcover

Stryker, Susan; Van Buskirk, Jim

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811811875 ISBN 13: 9780811811873

Publisher: Chronicle Books, 1996

Synopsis

A fabulous montage of word and image, this is the first book ever to chronicle the origin and evolution of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender culture in the San Francisco Bay Area. Capturing the international center of the gay experience as never before, and published to coincide with the opening of the Gay and Lesbian Center of the new main San Francisco Public Librarythe only publicly funded archive of its kind in the worldGay by the Bay contains over 200 full-color and black-and-white photographs of historical memorabilia, including correspondence, posters, buttons, and other artifacts. With anecdotes about Bay Area gay luminaries, past and present, and a foreword by acclaimed author Armistead Maupin, Gay by the Bay offers a scintillating look at a continually dynamic and evolving community.

About this title

About the Author

Susan Stryker is a Bay Area writer, activist, and scholar, and has been a visiting faculty member in the women's studies department at U.C. Berkeley.

Jim Van Buskirk is director of the San Francisco Public Library's new Gay and Lesbian Center. His reviews of gay and lesbian materials have appeared in numerous publications.

Armistead Maupin is well known for his best-selling series Tales of the City, enjoyed by millions in both book form and as an acclaimed T.V. miniseries.

Reviews

San Francisco, or Sodom by the Sea, as it has sometimes been called, has had a thriving gay and lesbian community for as long as people have been inhabiting the Bay area. Published to coincide with the April 18 opening of the Gay and Lesbian Center of the San Francisco Public Library, Gay by the Bay offers a deluxe tour of the city's queer history in words and many, many pictures. From fantastic 16th-century accounts of Amazon warriors to the radicalization of the Castro in the 1960s to the rallying cries of Queer Nation and the broad-based diversification of the gay and lesbian community in the 1990s, this title lovingly captures the flavor of a city most queers call home. Because of the limited geographical scope of the book, purchases will probably be limited to the Bay area, although it should be required reading for any gay or lesbian studies student and should be a necessary purchase for libraries with strong gay and lesbian collections. [See the interview with LJ reviewer Jim Van Buskirk on p. 102.]-Jeffery Ingram, Newport P.L., Ore.
--Jeffery Ingram, Newport P.L., Ore.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0811811875
• ISBN 13: 9780811811873
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176