Making Gay History | LGBTQ Oral Histories from the Archive

By Eric Marcus

Personal Journals Society & Culture History Sexuality

What's Making Gay History | LGBTQ Oral Histories from the Archive about?

Vintage voices of people who changed the world. Making Gay History mines Eric Marcus’s decades old audio archive of rare interviews — conducted for his award-winning oral history of the LGBTQ civil rights movement — to create intimate, personal portraits of both known and long-forgotten champions, heroes, and witnesses to history.

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Coming of Age During the AI...

09.10.2021

Being HIV+ was a virtual death sentence. So why get tested? But by 1988 there is a promising, if toxic, drug shown to extend life. Eric and Barry schedule their first test just as Eric starts work on his oral ...

Making Gay History | LGBTQ Oral Histories from the Archive episodes:

09.10.2021 Coming of Age During the AIDS Crisis: Chapter 6: Making History Being HIV+ was a virtual death sentence. So why get tested? But by 1988 there is a promising, if toxic, drug shown to extend life. Eric and Barry schedule their first test just as Eric starts work on his oral ...
08.27.2021 Coming of Age During the AIDS Crisis: Chapter 5: In or Out “You’re doing too many stories on AIDS.” The word had come down from on high at CBS This Morning. Eric didn’t want anyone to think he was biased, but as the only out gay person on the production staff, he ...
08.12.2021 Coming of Age During the AIDS Crisis: Chapter 4: Complications of AIDS “I hope you both die of AIDS,” the young man in the pickup truck yells at Eric and Barry as they wait for the light to change while on a run in Central Park. By 1985, the AIDS crisis has ...
07.30.2021 Coming of Age During the AIDS Crisis: Chapter 3: 318 West 22nd Street A straight drug addict. A gay waiter on a ventilator. Eric is confronted with the reality of AIDS when he volunteers for the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. Decades later, he speaks with his client’s widow, for whom AIDS is a ...
07.15.2021 Coming of Age During the AIDS Crisis: Chapter 2: Not Alone Even as the epidemic spreads, a rousing AIDS fundraiser at the circus, a new boyfriend, and journalism school combine to bring joy, a sense of community, and purpose into Eric’s life. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, ...
07.01.2021 Coming of Age During the AIDS Crisis: Chapter 1: Buried Headline “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals,” said the New York Times headline on July 3, 1981. It was the first time Eric Marcus read about what came to be known as AIDS. Nothing for me to worry about, he decided, ...
06.24.2021 Coming of Age During the AIDS Crisis: Preview AIDS first made national news 40 years ago. MGH host Eric Marcus was 22 at the time, a gay kid in search of love and a career in New York City. In this six-part audio memoir, Eric explores his memories ...
05.27.2021 Bonus: Remembering Kay Lahusen In memoriam: Kay Lahusen, January 5, 1930 - May 26, 2021. Kay was a monumental figure in the LGBTQ civil rights movement. From the earliest homophile protests to gay liberation and beyond, she never stopped fighting for equality—with Barbara Gittings, ...
01.07.2021 MGH & Studs Terkel: Episode 8: Meg Christian Olivia Records cofounder Meg Christian helped ignite the women’s music movement of the 1970s with lesbian classics like “Ode to a Gym Teacher.” Meet Meg, in song and conversation, in our final episode drawn from the Studs Terkel Radio Archive. ...
12.24.2020 MGH & Studs Terkel: Episode 7: Leonard Matlovich When Leonard Matlovich was thrown out of the Air Force for being gay, he sued for reinstatement. It was 1975 and it was the first case of its kind. Hear the LGBTQ rights pioneer—and startlingly frank one-time racist—in conversation with ...
12.10.2020 MGH & Studs Terkel: Episode 6: Jill Johnston Sparks flew when radical lesbian feminist Jill Johnston sat down for an interview with Studs Terkel in 1973. Jill had just published a controversial manifesto called “Lesbian Nation,” which advocated that women break with men entirely. It was provocative stuff—even ...
11.26.2020 MGH & Studs Terkel: Episode 5: Mattachine Midwest A half-century ago, Studs Terkel interviewed three members of the homophile group Mattachine Midwest: the organization’s president, a student activist, and lesbian pulp author Valerie Taylor. Join them for a wide-ranging and laugh-filled conversation about gay liberation both personal and ...
11.12.2020 MGH & Studs Terkel: Episode 4: Quentin Crisp From a young age, Quentin Crisp was determined to be himself—makeup, painted nails, dramatically dyed hair, and all—even if it consigned him to a life of poverty and isolation. Hear the author, raconteur, and provocateur in a 1970 conversation with ...
10.29.2020 MGH & Studs Terkel: Episode 3: "Les-Lee" Canadian female impersonator John Falk Tomkinson appeared around the globe under the stage name Les-Lee for over three decades. In 1967 Studs Terkel interviewed the performer to talk about his art and upbringing, and his experiences of being “different.” Visit ...
10.15.2020 MGH & Studs Terkel: Episode 2: Lorraine Hansberry In 1959 Lorraine Hansberry became the first Black woman to have a play produced on Broadway. Soon after “A Raisin in the Sun” made history, the 28-year-old writer and activist talked to Studs Terkel about racial and gender inequity and ...
10.01.2020 MGH & Studs Terkel: Episode 1: Christopher Isherwood Author Christopher Isherwood left England for Germany in 1929. His stories about his years there inspired the musical “Cabaret,” which shaped the image of decadent interwar Berlin in the popular imagination. But as he told Studs Terkel in this 1977 ...
10.01.2020 MGH & Studs Terkel Radio Archive: Preview Making Gay History is back! Join us as we mine the Studs Terkel Radio Archive in Chicago for stories from our proud LGBTQ past to bring you eight intimate conversations conducted between 1959 and 1981 by the legendary oral historian. ...
06.18.2020 Revisiting the Archive: Episode 13: Larah Helayne & Jean O’Leary When high schooler Larah Helayne heard MGH’s episode with Jean O’Leary, it changed the course of her life. Plans to become a nun gave way for a new role as an LGBTQ trailblazer. In this season finale, we celebrate the ...
06.14.2020 Introducing Those Who Were There: Voices from the Holocaust: Leon Bass MGH is Eric Marcus’s first love. But he also co-produces Those Who Were There. Have a listen to this episode featuring Leon Bass. He faced racism growing up in 1930s Philadelphia, in the Army during WWII, and discovered its ultimate ...
06.07.2020 Revisiting the Archive: Episode 12: Bayard Rustin Making Gay History stands with the countless Americans protesting systemic racism and the deaths of black and brown people at the hands of the police. And we draw inspiration from civil rights heroes like Bayard Rustin, an out and proud ...
05.29.2020 Revisiting the Archive: Episode 11: Larry Kramer June 25, 1935 - May 27, 2020. In the early ’80s, author and playwright Larry Kramer was one of the first people to sound the alarm about AIDS. He became one of the loudest voices in the fight against the ...
05.23.2020 Revisiting the Archive: Episode 10: Perry Watkins When Perry Watkins was drafted in 1968, he assumed the Army would reject him for being gay. They didn’t. When they got rid of him after 15 years of service, he fought back. As we face the systemic inequalities Covid-19 ...
05.16.2020 Revisiting the Archive: Episode 9: Joyce Hunter In 1939 Joyce Hunter was born into a world so hostile it’s a wonder she wasn’t crushed. Instead, the challenges and brutality she faced proved to be the launchpad for an expansive life of pioneering activism and accomplishment. A guiding ...
05.09.2020 Revisiting the Archive: Episode 8: Morris Foote In late 1955, the police of Boise, Idaho, started a sweeping investigation into an alleged “homosexual underground.” Fearing arrest, Morris Foote fled town, not to return till 20 years later. A story of Pride from the U.S. heartland to remind ...
05.02.2020 Revisiting the Archive: Episode 7: Ellen DeGeneres Today, Ellen DeGeneres needs no introduction. But as she explained in a 2001 MGH interview, her very public 1997 coming out took a dramatic professional and personal toll. When life goes off the rails, there’s no knowing what the future ...
04.25.2020 Revisiting the Archive: Episode 6: Kay Lahusen's Gay Table When did you make gay history? Join host Eric Marcus, pioneering photojournalist Kay Lahusen, and a group of LGBTQ history-making elders for their monthly retirement community dinner. Happy memories from the recent pre-pandemic past. To see photos from the dinner, ...
04.18.2020 Revisiting the Archive: Episode 5: Vito Russo Vito Russo’s legacy—as a film historian, activist, and co-founder of GLAAD and ACT UP—is hard to overstate. In this 1988 interview, legacy was also very much on Vito’s mind: it was the height of the AIDS epidemic, which had claimed ...
04.11.2020 Revisiting the Archive: Episode 4: Shirley Willer “I’ve spent a large percent of my life being angry.” That was Shirley Willer, reflecting on the death of a close friend and fellow nurse who in 1947 received fatally inadequate hospital care because he was gay. Shirley channeled her ...
04.04.2020 Revisiting the Archive: Episode 3: Wendell Sayers Wendell Sayers understood isolation. Born in western Kansas in 1904, Wendell was the first black lawyer to work for Colorado’s attorney general; living openly as a gay man wasn’t an option. When he attended meetings of the Mattachine Society in ...
03.28.2020 Revisiting the Archive: Episode 2: Edythe Eyde Musical uplift for anxious times. When Eric Marcus interviewed lesbian publishing pioneer Edythe Eyde in 1989, she treated him to a concert for one on her front porch singing her gay songs from the '50s and ‘60s. You can’t not ...
03.21.2020 Revisiting the Archive: Episode 1: Frank Kameny In 1957, Frank Kameny was fired from his job at the U.S. Army Map Service for being gay. He went on to fight the federal government for 14 years and never lost his resolve. And he won! Inspiration for us ...
12.27.2019 Bonus: From the Vault: Sylvia Rivera & Marsha P. Johnson, 1970 In 1970, a young radio reporter recorded an interview with Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, and other members of the newly formed Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries—STAR. Nearly 50 years later, MGH unearthed their remarkable conversation in a basement archive. Visit ...
12.19.2019 Season 6: Episode 5: Damien Martin Damien Martin grew up in foster care and on the streets of Philadelphia, so he knew all too well about the needs of vulnerable youth. In 1979, when he and his partner, Dr. Emery Hetrick, heard about a 15-year-old gay ...
12.05.2019 Season 6: Episode 4: Nancy Walker In 1976 Nancy Walker joined the Gay Community News, an influential Boston-based weekly paper. She was in her 40s, an outspoken New Yorker, and a moderate pragmatist. Not surprisingly, Nancy and the younger, more radical GCN staff often locked horns... ...
11.21.2019 Season 6: Episode 3: Barbara Smith For nearly half a century, Barbara Smith has been speaking truth to power—as a woman against misogyny, as an African American against racism, as a lesbian against homophobia, and as a black lesbian against those in the gay rights movement ...
11.07.2019 Season 6: Episode 2: Vernon E. "Copy" Berg III In 1975, long before “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the Navy asked, and Officer Copy Berg told: “Yes, I am gay.” When Copy chose to challenge the military’s ban on homosexuals, the Pentagon fought back with all guns blazing. Visit our ...
10.24.2019 Season 6: Episode 1: Ruth Simpson There’s a war on out there. That was Ruth Simpson’s Stonewall takeaway—and she was ready to fight. But when Ruth pushed the NY chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis to be more political, the FBI and the police took note. ...
10.24.2019 Season 6: Preview Making Gay History mines Eric Marcus’s 30-year-old audio archive of rare interviews to create intimate, personal portraits of both known and long-forgotten champions, heroes, and witnesses to LGBTQ history. In this preview, we offer a taste of what’s to come ...
06.28.2019 Bonus: Stonewall 50 Minisode: Craig Rodwell This was the moment Craig Rodwell had been waiting for. He’d been bumping up against the limits of how far the Mattachine Society was willing to challenge the status quo. And when the Stonewall uprising blew things wide open, Craig ...
06.28.2019 Bonus: Stonewall 50 Minisode: Barbara Gittings and Kay Lahusen Stonewall turned the page on the homophile movement. Pre-Stonewall activists like Barbara Gittings and Kay Lahusen were dinosaurs in the eyes of some of the gay liberationists, and they found themselves fighting for a place in the new chapter of ...
06.28.2019 Bonus: Stonewall 50 Minisode: Morty Manford Nineteen-year-old Columbia University student Morty Manford thought it was just another night at the Stonewall Inn, but then the police swept in and the raid was on. Morty shared his memories of that night with Eric Marcus in this archival ...
06.28.2019 Bonus: Stonewall 50 Minisode: Marsha P. Johnson & Randy Wicker A rebroadcast of Eric’s 1989 interview with Marsha P. Johnson and Randy Wicker. Hear conflicting perspectives on Stonewall from this pair of unlikely roommates. Marsha co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries after Stonewall; Randy had led the way in the ...
06.27.2019 Stonewall 50: Episode 4: Live from Stonewall What made Stonewall different? How can we carry the lessons of the uprising with us today? Eric is joined by one archivist and four activists to answer those questions in an intergenerational conversation recorded at the Stonewall Inn on May ...
06.20.2019 Stonewall 50: Episode 3: "Say it Loud! Gay and Proud!" Like so many other acts of queer resistance, the 1969 Stonewall riots could have become a footnote in history. But the protests and organizing that followed launched a new phase in the fight for LGBTQ rights. Hear how queer anger ...
06.13.2019 Stonewall 50: Episode 2: ”Everything Clicked… And The Riot Was On” The Stonewall uprising began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969. Revisit that moment, and the hours and days that followed, with voices from the Making Gay History archive. Relive in vivid detail the dawning of a new ...
06.06.2019 Stonewall 50: Episode 1: Prelude to a Riot Conflict has context. In the first episode of Making Gay History’s Stonewall 50 season, we hear stories from the pre-Stonewall struggle for LGBTQ rights. We travel back in time to hear voices from the turbulent 1960s and take you to ...
05.23.2019 Stonewall 50: Preview A special season of Making Gay History to mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. Hear the voices of the rioters, and of the activists who turned a riot into Gay Liberation—a new and expansive phase in the LGBTQ ...
02.21.2019 Season 4: Episode 11: Martha Shelley Brooklyn-born Martha Shelley was a rebel. She didn’t like being told what to do, wear, or say. She hated the lesbian bars, and even after joining the Daughters of Bilitis she strained against the self-imposed limits of the homophile movement. ...
02.07.2019 Season 4: Episode 10: Dick Leitsch Dick Leitsch came to New York City in the early 1960s to smoke cigarettes, drink cocktails, and pick up handsome young men. He got his wish and then some, but the native Kentuckian also took on the police and political ...
01.24.2019 Season 4: Episode 9: Ernestine Eckstein Ernestine Eckstein is an iconic figure from the 1960s homophile movement—from photos showing her as the only African American woman at the earliest protests, to her trailblazing cover story in The Ladder. Now we can put a voice to those ...

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