We can read and watch movies about Stonewall all we want - but that is not the center of our history.
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The archive has hundreds of photos of people doing drag in their houses, hanging out with their friends. Our country has shaped queer representation around that, but queer history is not all grandiose. Tell us more about the erasure of queer history and Gerber/Hart’s work.ĪRIEL MEJIA: So there’s the mainstream narrative: We know about Stonewall, we know about the height of the AIDS epidemic, we know about marriage equality. Without the Gerber/Hart archive, the stories in Unboxing Queer History would not exist. I spoke with Mejia and Dentel, the co-creators of Unboxing, in March.
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Listening for the first time, especially after two long, pandemic years, a warmth - a feeling of connection to queerness across space and time - bloomed across my skin like the first sun in February. This self-reflexivity is just one of the triumphs of the show - one the show’s creators hope will have lasting impact. “Learning more about my lineage, I experienced the broad beauty of possibility and entry points and connection to myself in the world,” Mejia says. Mejia agrees: “I’m so interested in where people partied, what they were wearing, what was happening, because those stories tell a much wider history.”Īs the Gerber/Hart team tries to expand the narrative around queer history with Unboxing, they say they’ve already felt the power of that in their own lives. And she’s holding her drink and just kind of looking right at the camera.” She’s got a long dress where it’s baring one shoulder, very long wig, the big chandelier earrings. She reverently describes the boxes of photographs in the Miss Tillie collection: “Glamor studio, lots of feather boas, strappy pumps, fish nets. Episode 5 introduces Lorrainne Sade Baskerville, the Black trans woman who founded transGenesis, the first direct services organization specializing in trans healthcare in Chicago.Įpisode 1 takes listeners through Chicago’s midcentury night life with the story of famous drag performer Miss Tillie, aka the “Dirty Old Lady of Chicago.” This is Gerber/Hart programming and social media coordinator Jen Dentel’s favorite episode. With immersive sound design, Unboxing transports listeners to the water for stories about smelt fishing, camping hijinks and the occasional love affair.Įpisode 7 offers an intimate new perspective on gay liberation activist Bill Kelley through a conversation with his long-time partner, Chen Ooi. But portal diving is what’s really on offer here.Įpisode 6 (my favorite) centers on the Great Angling Lesbian Society (GALS), a community organization started by two lesbians in Chicago in 1994 (one of whom was Sherry Pethers, who became the first out lesbian elected as a Cook County judge in 2004). What history gets lost when these community spaces shutter? Unboxing grapples with this question through intimate interviews and humorous anecdotes, highlighting stories of LGBTQ history and culture in the Gerber/Hart collections through eight lovingly researched, richly produced episodes. People Like Us closed abruptly in 1997 after a change in ownership, but not before it had become known as one of the only places where LGBTQ Chicagoans could find themselves reflected in media - a place to be reminded of the meaning of a dark blue hanky in the left-side pocket, a place to gather, a place to see and be seen.
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Despite some initial consternation - at the time, the Chicago Tribune wrote, “Naturally, it takes a certain amount of nerve to open such an unconventional business” - the store saw nine years of success and attracted queer literary luminaries from across the country, including Rita Mae Brown, Leslie Feinberg and Alison Bechdel. Over 25 minutes, the episode takes listeners back to when Carrie Barnett and Brett Shingledecker opened People Like Us, which also hosted events and became a place for the broader community to learn more about the LGBTQ community.
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The community archive is dedicated to LGBTQ culture and history in the Midwest. Podcast from the Gerber/Hart Library and Archives in Chicago. Mejia’s experience is the subject of Episode 4 of Unboxing Queer History, a new “I’ll stand in front of the door and I’ll imagine Carrie Barnett is actually standing right in front of me,” Mejia says. Clark St., the one-time home of People Like Us Bookstore, Chicago’s first gay and lesbian bookstore.
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One of her favorite places to portal dive is at 3321 N. In these moments, Mejia isn’t geographically lost she’s engaging in a version of time travel, what she calls “portal diving,” to visit the past. “All of a sudden…I don’t know where I am,” she says. When audio producer Ariel Mejia bikes around Chicago, something strange happens to her.