Gay Bar. With an Introduction by Blanche M. Baker.

BRANSON, Helen P.

Published by San Francisco: Pan-Graphic Press, 1957

First edition, first printing. Helen Branson ran a gay bar in Los Angeles in the 1950s, at a time when California statutes prohibited homosexuals from gathering in bars. Branson was a heterosexual divorced grandmother, who describes herself as looking like "your sixth grade teacher or the librarian in the Maple Street branch library". She provided a wood-panelled haven for her "boys" (a full-page illustration caricatures Branson as a mother hen, protecting her chicks from patrolling police), and in her book "tells the humor, the heartbreak, the piercing reality" (front flap) of her customers' lives. The introduction is contributed by Dr Blanche Baker, a psychologist notable for her then-rarely shared belief that homosexuality was not an abnormality, but a normal variation in human love and sexuality. Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine and front cover lettered in green. With dust jacket. With one full-page caricature of Branson as a mother hen. Spine ends a touch rubbed and bumped, else a fine copy in very good jacket, lightly toned with a few small chips and nicks to extremities, front joint split but holding, price sticker on front flap ($6.99), still a very attractive example. Seller Inventory # 161440

Bibliographic Details

Title: Gay Bar. With an Introduction by Blanche M. ...
Publisher: San Francisco: Pan-Graphic Press, 1957
Edition: 1st Edition