1133 Broadway, New York, NY 10010: Chelsea
Prior to the formation of famous organizations such as ACT UP and the Lesbian Avengers, there were homophile organizations: the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis.[1] “Homophile” is a now dated term and stopped being used after the gay liberation movement begins in 1969 but the homophile movement was on the rise throughout the 1950s, alongside the anticommunist crusade in the United States. The Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis were founded in 1950 and 1955 respectively; chapters reached New York City in the late 1950s. Today, the upper-class neighborhood is comprised of tall office buildings, department stores, and a Starbucks on every corner but is also home to an affluent gay and lesbian population. The 2010 Census recorded the highest proportion of same-sex couples in New York City, living in Chelsea.[2] However, in 1959, the northwest corner of West 26th Street and Broadway Avenue was home to the New York City chapters of the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis.[3]
The Mattachine Society set up the groundwork for future LGBTQ organizations to engage in major actions and their efforts should not go unnoticed. They were founded by gay communists in California and their structure of their organization stood out amongst other social issues groups: “a pyramid composed of five levels with the leaders at the top determining policies that would flow downward.”[4] Importantly, both the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis valued anonymity. The Lavender Scare was at its height in the 1950s, where government employees on all levels were being fired due to their sexuality, and gay bars were being raided by the police constantly. Along with the Daughters of Bilitis, they focused on these issues of making society more livable for queer people. Homophile groups worked together and lobbied to repeal discriminatory laws, to end police raids on gay bars. One example is how the Mattachine Society, under leader Dick Leitsch, fought against New York State’s liquor ban on serving homosexual patrons in 1966.[5] While this definitely did not end police raids, this was a significant win for the LGBTQ community. Leitsch also worked with political officials, such as Mayor John M. Lindsay and Commission on Human Rights chairman William H. Booth, to obtain the support and sympathy of powerful individuals. This collaboration decreased the amount of police raids from the 1950s. More importantly, all of these actions showed that progress could happen and was happening for the LGBTQ community. These acts of resistance would lay the foundations for the LGBTQ liberation movement of the 1970s and beyond.
Homophile groups significantly focused on educating people (within and outside the queer community), in order to build and strengthen relationships, and assisting the LGBTQ community with mental health issues. Daughters of Bilitis described themselves as a “women’s organization for the purpose of promoting the integration of the homosexual into society” through four core purposes.[6] First, they sought to education lesbians, particularly those who didn’t have a community yet, especially through maintaining a library about lesbian life. The Daughters of Bilitis firmly believed in educating the public so that they could better accept lesbians into society. As a part of educating themselves and understanding their lesbian identity, members were encouraged to participate in research projects that had interests of better understanding gay people at stake. Similar to the Mattachine Society, the Daughters of Bilitis aimed to change penal code aimed at oppressing lesbians through lobbying and other legal methods of social change.
Barbara Gittings founded the Daughters of Bilitis chapter in New York City. She was deeply concerned with the role of libraries in society and viewed them as social change agents, because books were ways for young people who were questioning their sexuality to learn about themselves. Gittings, following in the Daughters of Bilitis’ mission, maintained a collection of lesbian non-fiction and fiction books.[7] Lesbian pulp fiction specifically played an important role in connecting women to a world where other women were gay and acted on their desires to love women. The Lesbian Herstory Archives created an oral history collection dedicated to women who were a part of various Daughters of Bilitis chapters across the United States, demonstrating how the Daughters of Bilitis’ methods helped women find their authentic selves as lesbians. Interviewers from the Archives documented the experiences of Alma Routson and how lesbian pulp fiction led her to Daughters of Bilitis.[8] Routson was captivated by lesbian pulp fiction in the 1950s, to the point where she had her husband buy her novels when she was sick. (Her husband was easily able to discern her attraction for women and she soon left him.) For Routson, lesbian pulp fiction left other legacies besides helping her to take the step to divorce her husband. This literature informed her about Daughters of Bilitis, bringing her to New York City with her lover. In the interview, she describes the Chelsea office of Daughters of Bilitis as a “little basement” and the women within it as “so warm and lovely”. Routson became a regular member of the organization, as activist, and she built her social network around them.
The Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis functioned as public spaces for the gay and lesbian communities, because they were organizations meant to represent such interests. According to the current property owner of 1133 Broadway, the two groups initially shared rooms together.[9] It is quite possible they did that because neither organization was well-funded and because they had similar interests and political ideologies. Because they shared a room and building for three years, until Daughters of Bilitis moved a few blocks up to Midtown in 1961, helped them to build their social activism while serving the individual needs of gay and lesbian folks.[10] Both homophile groups worked with city officials and other activist groups to promote gay equality. Another reason why the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis were public spaces was because they were not hidden; they were public enough that it was readily possible for questioning folks or people living in more rural areas to locate these societies in larger cities, evidenced by Daughters of Bilitis’ mentions in lesbian pulp fiction.
[1] The word means homophile means “loving the same”, as “-phile” means love and affection in Ancient Greek.
[2] Arun Venugopal, “Census Shows Rising Numbers of Gay Couples and Dominicans in New York | WNYC | New York Public Radio, Podcasts, Live Streaming Radio, News,” WNYC, accessed May 21, 2018, https://www.wnyc.org/story/146106-census-shows-rising-number-gay-couples-and-dominicans/.
[3] “Mattachine Society & Daughters of Bilitis Offices,” NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project (blog), accessed January 15, 2018, https://www.nyclgbtsites.org/site/mattachine-society-daughters-of-bilitis-offices/.
[4] Donald P. Haider-Markel and Raymond A. Smith, Gay and Lesbian Americans and Political Participation: A Reference Handbook (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2002), 73.
[5] “The Mattachine Society of New York and the Daughters of Bilitis,” The New York Public Library’s Online Exhibition Archive, accessed February 21, 2018, http://web-static.nypl.org/exhibitions/1969/daughters.html.
[6] “Purpose of the Daughters of Bilitis,” The Ladder, November 1966, http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/sfbagals/The_Ladder/1966_Ladder_Vol11_No02_Nov.pdf.
[7] “Mattachine Society & Daughters of Bilitis Offices,” https://www.nyclgbtsites.org/site/mattachine-society-daughters-of-bilitis-offices/.
[8] Interviewer: N/A, Interviewee: Alma Routsong, “Alma Routsong, Tape 1 of 2, January 20, 1990,” Herstories: Audio/Visual Collections of the LHA, accessed March 30, 2018, http://herstories.prattinfoschool.nyc/omeka/document/Digital%20routsong_tape1of2_19900109.
[9] “The St. James Building: A Birthplace of the Gay Pride Movement,” accessed May 2, 2018, https://www.kewmanagement.com/gay-rights-movement-mattachine-society/.
[10] Daniel Hurewitz, Stepping Out: Nine Walks Through New York City’s Gay and Lesbian Past (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997), 151-152.