Zuni, N.M.
Zuni Pueblo
1203B State Highway 53 (off U.S. 40)
On the border of New Mexico and Arizona is the Pueblo of Zuni, which was once home to one of the most famous two-spirited people, We’wha (1849-1896). Today, the Zuni still relate stories about We’wha, an accomplished weaver and potter who was one of the [...]
Archive for January, 2009
We’wha
Posted in New Mexico, historic sites, transgender on January 31, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Glass House
Posted in Connecticut, architects, gay and lesbian on January 30, 2009 | 2 Comments »
New Canaan, Conn.
Glass House
798-856 Ponus Ridge Rd.
Philip Johnson (1906-2005) – the celebrated architect who designed the sculpture garden and east wing of the Museum of Modern Art, among numerous other structures – built this home in 1949 in one of the wealthiest areas of Connecticut. The idea for a “glass house” came from an argument [...]
Beaumont’s Own “Babe”
Posted in Texas, athletes, bisexuals on January 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Beaumont, Texas
Babe Didrikson Zaharias Museum and Visitors Center
1477 N. Martin Luther King Parkway (at I-10)
Beaumont was home to the young Mildred “Babe” Didrikson (1911-1956), one of the greatest athletes of all time. The Didriksons moved here when Babe was a child, after a flood destroyed their Port Arthur home. As one biographer put [...]
Harlem’s “267 House”
Posted in New York, bisexuals, gay and lesbian, novelists, poets on January 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Harlem, N.Y.
267 House
267 West 136th Street
Zora Neale Hurston once wryly dubbed the rooming house that queer writers Wallace Thurman, Bruce Nugent, and Langston Hughes all called home “Niggerati Manor.” The tenement building (also known as “267 House”) was owned by Iolanthe Sydney, a black philanthropist who offered rooms rent-free to artists in order [...]
Tennessee in St. Louis
Posted in Missouri, gay and lesbian, playwrights on January 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
St. Louis, Mo.
Tennessee Williams home
4633 Westminster Place (private)
Born in Mississippi, Thomas Lanier “Tennessee” Williams (1911-1983) spent most of his childhood and young manhood in St. Louis, after his father, a shoe salesman, secured employment there. But Williams’ father often drank or gambled away his paycheck, forcing the family to live in [...]
Jacob’s Pillow
Posted in Massachusetts, bisexuals, dancers on January 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Lee, Mass.
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival
Ted Shawn Theater
Route 20 (about eight miles east of Lee)
In 1915, modern dance pioneers Ted Shawn and Ruth St. Denis founded the Denishawn School of Dancing and the Denishawn Dance Company in Los Angeles, whose most illustrious student was Martha Graham. In her autobiography, Graham wrote that Shawn was prone to [...]
The Shocking Mary MacLane
Posted in Montana, gay and lesbian, memoirs on January 18, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Butte, Mont.
Mary MacLane home (private)
419 North Excelsior Avenue
In 1902, the little town of Butte became a household word with the publication of The Story of Mary MacLane. The diary of MacLane (1881-1929), a 20-year-old originally from Canada, revealed her shockingly passionate thoughts and desires. The diary was an instant hit even by today’s [...]
Bessie Smith grave
Posted in Pennsylvania, bisexuals, gravesites on January 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Sharon Hill, Pa.
Bessie Smith grave
Mt. Lawn Cemetery
84th Street and Hook Road
Blues great Bessie Smith (1895-1937) was born into poverty in Tennessee and was discovered singing on street corners at a tender age by Ma Rainey. Though Smith later married a man, she enjoyed numerous sexual relationships with lesbians and bisexual women on the [...]
