This post finds us where we last left...now entering into the late40's.In the late 1940s, leaders like J. Edgar Hoover pushed for the U.S. to adopt greater conservatism. This photo shows that drag performance could still be mainstream, though. Ironically, J. Edgar Hoover was also rumored to... of being a transvestite.
1947: The Flamingo Club in Los Angeles was one of the hottest performance houses in town, attracting both gay and straight audiences. And despite growing conservatism in the United States, a drag queen could still make a living and please hundreds of fans.
1950: This San Antonio drag queen proves that traditional states like Texas could appreciate drag entertainment.
The 1950s were more “Leave it To Beaver” than drag-friendly, but queens like Kitt Russell still remained. And continued to sell out houses night after night.
1952: Clubs like the Jewel Box Revue and Madame Arthur’s French Fun House continued to delight audiences with nightly drag shows.
1952: The “Fun-Maker’s Ball” proves that drag balls continued to flourish in the 1950s.
The art of “female impersonation” continued to evolve as quickly as the make-up quality. Professional drag queens were expected to be "passable" as actual women.
1956: Drag celebrity impersonations, like this one of Marilyn Monroe, began to appearing in acts,and were proving more popular in drag acts.
1960s: The 1960s were a time of great change and revolution, especially sexually. The era of McCarthyism and Eisenhower was over.
Drag queens began to gather more regularly and openly in some of the country's first gay bars, such as the Stonewall Inn. Even this photo from Kansas City, MO, shows that drag entertainment had spread to the Midwest.
Drag continued to evolve from “female impersonators” and professional performers into a form of creative self-expression for gay men.Drag became less about a making a living and more about finding a community.
1960s: Though not emblematic of the “drag scene,” this unique photo shows a 1960s Los Angeles police troop in drag. There were frequent attacks on older women by muggers, so the police dressed in drag as a trap.
1969: This photo, taken the same year as the Stonewall Riots, shows a similar plan in NYC. This drag-wearing cop might actually have been part of the raids.
1969: In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of New York City.
Such raids were not unusual in the late 1960s, an era when homosexual sex was illegal in every state but Illinois. That night, however, the street erupted into violent protests, lead by a number of drag queens, and street demonstrations that lasted for the next three days. The Stonewall riots, as they came to be known, marked a major turning point in the modern gay rights movement in the United States and around the world. And would bring drag even further out of the closet.
