Event Timeline: Before 1950
1846: Sodomy, or crime against nature, formally outlawed in Michigan.
1865: Sarah Emma Edmonds publishes Nurse and Spy in the Union Army (Hartford, Ct.: W. S. Williams and Company, 1865).
1882: Oscar Wilde lectures at the Detroit Music Hall.
1893: Dr. Henry Hulst of Michigan advocates hypnosis as an alternative to castration for treating homosexuals.
1903: Michigan outlaws gross indecency between males.
1918: Swedish female impersonator Lind performs at the Majestic Theatre in Kalamazoo.
1924: Sex perversion makes headlines in murder trial of former University of Michigan students Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold.
1927: Visiting a buffet flat in Detroit, blues singer Bessie Smith watches two men perform same-sex lovemaking.
1928: Unpublished novel left at death of University of Michigan grad Avery Hopwood leaves hints of playwright's homosexuality.
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1929: A Detroit physician calls Radclyffe Hall's lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness "completely faithful." |
1934: Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas visit Ann Arbor.
1937: Police chief orders ban on female impersonator acts at Detroit nite clubs.
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1937: Ruth Ellis moves to Detroit and begins hosting lesbian and gay house parties. |
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1939: Michigan enacts criminal sexual psychopath law. |
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1939: Michigan outlaws gross indecency between females. |
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1939: Sweetheart Bar, Detroit's earliest known lesbian bar, opens on Third Avenue. |
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1940: Arrested for an alleged homosexual offense, Bert Chapman begins 31 years in state mental hospitals. |
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1942: Club Frontenac in Detroit postpones female impersonator show due to arrest of stars on morals charges. |
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1942: Sam "Bookie" Stewart opens the Silver Dollar on Farmer Street in Detroit. |
1945: Billie Hill is disowned by her mother after coming out as lesbian at age 20.
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1946: Director of Kent County veteran's center urges Navy to liberalize its strict stance on homosexuality. |
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1946: Man leaps to his death from Detroit Police headquarters after being arrested during raid at the Ten Eleven Bar. |
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1947: Gay comedic entertainer Bramwell "ChiChi" Franklin begins career at Uncle Tom's Plantation in Detroit. |
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1947: Ninth-grader Barbara Grier takes streetcar to Detroit Public Library to seek information on homosexuality. |
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1948: New state regulation prohibits bars from becoming rendezvous or hang-outs for homosexuals. |
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1949: Longtime lesbian bar the Palais opens on Beaubien in Detroit. |
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1949: The Flame Bar opens on Washington in Ann Arbor. |
Images of Gay Men