Kirjahaku

In recent years, San Francisco has been synonymous with gay and lesbian pride, and the various achievements of the gay and lesbian community are personified in the city by the bay. The tumultuous and ongoing struggles for this community's civil rights from the 1950s to the present are well documented, but queer culture itself goes back much further than that, in fact all the way back to the California gold rush.

Famous and forgotten, they're all our fabulous ancestors. From Charles Warren Stoddard, the first openly gay San Franciscan, to Felicia "Flames" Elizondo, the exuberant transgender rights advocate, the LGBT community is integrally woven into the fabric of the city's history. Household names like Queen Califia, Charley Parkhurst, Elsa Gidlow, Jose Sarria and Harvey Milk are celebrated worldwide, while Bert LaRose, Mabel Edison and Clarence Lockett are now largely forgotten. Whether '49ers, bohemians, beatniks, boomers, hippies, clones or conformists, their fascinating stories contributed to the development of a vibrant community, many simply by being themselves. Join Dr. William Lipsky as he recounts their struggles and achievements in the City by the Bay.

On January 27, 1894, as the rest of the country bundled up against the winter weather, the people of San Francisco opened the California Midwinter International Exposition and invited the world to enjoy The Land of Sunshine, Fruit and Flowers. The San Francisco Fair, held in the burgeoning city's Golden Gate Park, was the first U.S. hosted Exposition west of the Mississippi River. When the Fair closed in June of 1894, more than two million people had seen its incredible exhibits as well as this promising new land. The Fair celebrated a city that less than 50 years before had been a village of fewer than 250 people, a city that now was the commercial, financial, and social capital of the West. In San Francisco's Midwinter Exposition 1894, author William Lipsky presents the history, creation, and people of the Fair in over 200 vintage images. From the exotic exhibits on the Fair's midway, to the structures and architectural wonders presented at the Fair, Dr. Lipsky presents a striking visual history of this influential moment in San Francisco and California history.