PRESERVING CLARKSVILLE’S LGBTQIA+ HISTORY

PRESERVING CLARKSVILLE’S LGBTQIA+ HISTORY

BY ANNA WOTEN, CURATOR OF COLLECTIONS & REGISTRAR

The roles of museums are to exhibit from their collections; reflect societies, history, cultural behaviors, traditions and rituals; and to provide their visitors with the equal opportunity to access, understand and recognize their history, identity and cultural background. In order to meet the requirements from a diverse audience, the stories told and the objects exhibited must be selected and interpreted in a way that is all inclusive.

– Kristiane Strætkvern, Chair of the ICOM International Committee of Conservation & Conservator at the National Museum of Denmark

Early last year, the Collections Department at the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center launched its Clarksville LGBTQIA+ History Initiative to expand the Museum’s collections and bolster the institution’s ability to approach more diverse histories. Since then, we have spoken with a number of community members and have begun to collect LGBTQIA+ related history from throughout Clarksville. This practice has been a huge step forward for the Museum in its effort to expand the communities and histories that we represent.

Our LGBTQIA+ History Collection has expanded quickly since the acquisition that started the initiative: the Amanda Leigh Collection. For those involved in, or a fan of, the drag performance scene in Clarksville, Amanda Leigh is probably a familiar name. She has performed here in Clarksville since 1980, shortly after the city’s first gay bar, Cooper’s General Store, opened its doors. Her drag career has continued across the four decades since, until her retirement show this past November at Fusion Bar & Grill.

“It was in Nashville that I saw my first drag show,” Leigh recalled. “It was captivating. I knew immediately that I would love to be a drag performer. I truly had no idea that dream had even a remote chance of coming true.”

What does LGBTQIA+ stand for?

Lesbian: A woman whose primary sexual orientation is toward people of the same gender.

Gay: A sexual orientation toward people of the same gender.

Bisexual: A person whose primary sexual and affectional orientation is toward people of the same and other genders, or towards people regardless of their gender.

Transgender: Someone who is a gender that is not the same as the gender assigned to them at birth. Being transgender is separate from a person’s sexual orientation and gender expression, and these terms should not be conflated to include being transgender.

Queer: This can include, but is not limited to, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and asexual people. This term has different meanings to different people. Some still find it offensive, while others reclaim it to encompass the broader sense of history of the gay rights movement. It can also be used as an umbrella term like LGBT, as in "the queer community."

Intersex: People who, without medical intervention, develop primary or secondary sex characteristics that do not fit “neatly” into society's definitions of male or female. Intersex people are relatively common, although society's denial of their existence has allowed very little room for intersex issues to be discussed publicly.

Asexual/Aromantic: Generally characterized by not feeling sexual and/ or romantic attraction or a desire for partnered sexuality. Asexuality is distinct from celibacy, which is the deliberate abstention from sexual activity.

+ Tons of other communities!

Abby Lee on stage at Cooper’s General Store, 1980

Clarksville LGBTQIA+ History Collection, Customs House Museum & Cultural Center

Amanda Leigh at Cooper’s General Store, 1980

Clarksville LGBTQIA+ History Collection, Customs House Museum & Cultural Center

The Amanda Leigh Collection consists of more than 80 photographs and ephemera documenting early gay nightlife in Clarksville. The collection also contains numerous textile pieces, including some of the dresses worn in the photographs. The Museum plans to add more to this collection, including a series of oral histories further discussing the topic.

When the Museum receives a collection like this one, a number of processes are enacted to properly preserve the objects and archival materials. Photographs are individually sleeved in protective film and stored in archival boxes that protect them from light and other elements that can cause further degradation. Textiles, like the dresses in this collection, are carefully padded to prevent creases (which break down the fibers in the cloth) and placed inside preservation-grade textile boxes. Once stored, all of our collections are closely monitored within environmentally controlled spaces to protect from light, humidity and temperature instability. This care ensures that these items will last for future generations.

The preservation of these items is essential in telling a more holistic history of Clarksville that includes LGBTQIA+ citizens. These artifacts connect back to both a central location in that history, Cooper’s General Store and the broader narrative in United States history.

Drag performers in Clarksville. Left to right: Unknown, Belle Terrell, Dolly Wallace, Micie (1st Miss Gay Clarksville), Mary Sue Alice, 1980

Clarksville LGBTQIA+ History Collection, Customs House Museum & Cultural Center

COOPER’S GENERAL STORE

Cooper’s General Store opened as a private club in October 1979 on Franklin Street in Downtown Clarksville. The letters “C.G.S.” hung above the door to greet patrons and passers-by. Those letters publicly stood for “Cooper’s General Store,” but those in-the-know knew the letters stood for “Clarksville Gay Society.”

“Before Cooper’s, I only had ever knownthree gay people,” said Leigh. “Cooper’s opened, and I, for the first time in my life, was making friends. Not only friends, but friends who I actually had something in common with, gay friends! It was like a whole new world to me.”

Amanda Leigh at Cooper’s General Store, 1980

Clarksville LGBTQIA+ History Collection, Customs House Museum & Cultural Center

Though the club was the first of its kind in Clarksville, it was a product of a broader movement in the United States and abroad. “Gay bars” have existed in various forms in the U.S. since at least the 1920s, with a number of them operating continuously since Prohibition ended in 1933. Early gay bars served an important function for the community: they were a place for the LGBTQIA+ community to socialize and mingle at a time when it was illegal for two men to even be seen dancing together. They were also often a site for “cruising,” the act of searching for a sexual partner by walking or driving around a specific area. Gay bars in the 1960s and 70s onward were used as spaces to organize as the Gay Liberation Movement began to gain momentum after the Stonewall Riots in New York City in 1969, and dozens of other earlier riots like the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot in San Francisco in 1966 and the 1959 riot at Cooper’s Do-nuts in Los Angeles.

Leading up to these riots, police raids were a common tactic used against LGBT spaces. The 1960s, 70s and 80s saw these raids increase in frequency and scale. Patrons of these establishments would be arrested, photographed and sometimes paraded through public places and police stations. Their names and pictures would often appear in newspapers in the following days, leading to catastrophic personal, social and economic fallout. Clarksville was no stranger to these raids, including the infamous 1981 raid at Trice Landing, a popular place for gay cruising.

Ms. Gay Clarksville Winners, Left to right: Kanessa (1983-84), Amanda (1984-85), Ashley Grant (1985-86)

Clarksville LGBTQIA+ History Collection, Customs House Museum & Cultural Center

Amanda Leigh and a patron at the Haberdashery, 1982

Clarksville LGBTQIA+ History Collection, Customs House Museum & Cultural Center

Reportedly, Cooper’s General Store was also a victim of harassment during the brief period that it remained open. Even though it was a private club that operated on memberships, Cooper’s patrons reported that dozens of police officers would enter the club and harass those inside. According to former board members, it was the threat of an upcoming raid that eventually forced Cooper’s to shut its doors in 1980.

“Cooper’s definitely laid the foundation of my life,” said Leigh. “I don’t know what I would have done or who I would have been had Cooper’s never opened – but I am certain I would not be who I am today. My life has definitely not been an easy life, but I can say with complete certainty that Cooper’s General Store was the best thing to ever happen to me.”

What is Drag?

Drag is a type of entertainment where people dress up and perform in highly stylized ways. This often includes exaggerated clothing and makeup of a gender other than the performer’s and the creation of a stage persona. While some drag performers may be transgender, most are not, and the two should not be conflated.

WHY SHOULD WE COLLECT THIS HISTORY?

LGBTQIA+ people have heard innumerable “arguments'' and accusations against their very existence, but one statement in particular seems to come up frequently: “That kind of thing never happened in my day.” Stories from people like Amanda Leigh and places like Cooper’s prove that the idea of LGBTQIA+ relationships and transgender people transitioning is not a new phenomenon brought on by younger generations.

Not Married but Willing to Be, ca. 1885

Courtesy of 'LOVING' the Nini-Treadwell Collection

This misconception is prevalent due to teacher shortages and underfunding, general lack of subject-area knowledge and legislative efforts to suppress certain historical narratives. Because of these efforts, we learn very specific histories in primary and secondary schools. As a result, many historical narratives rely on institutions like museums as “non-traditional” educational spaces.

When we learn about Cooper’s and other LGBTQIA+ histories, we realize that LGBTQIA+ people have existed since long before Stonewall and the Gay Liberation Movement. Countless records of queer and transgender people have existed across cultures and histories for as long as these records have been kept. Many Pacific Island cultures traditionally celebrate genders beyond the western binary of man and woman. We also have records from early American history of people living as the “opposite” gender. While some of these occurrences were surely for safety or other socio-economic purposes, many were documented to be similar to the expression and intent of transgender people today. From 1870 to 1920, “Boston Marriages” were popular here in the United States, and involved the cohabitation and pooling of finances of a pair of women. Some of these marriages were simply financial arrangements for independence, though historical letters and journals show that many were actually romantic in nature.

Colonialism has largely obscured these stories on many continents, including our own, but even recently there has been a concerted effort to erase it. In 1933, Nazi demonstrators raided the Institute of Sexology in Germany, a private research center that housed much of the “modern world’s” research on gender and sexuality. Over the course of a few days, all of the center’s medical records, research notes and approximately 20,000 books were burned. The data and research lost in this raid has never been recovered. Even now, these efforts to obscure and erase LGBTQIA+ histories continue with laws like the ones in recent years in Tennessee, Florida, Texas, Idaho and many other states that restrict when and where the narratives can be told. The responsibility increasingly falls to institutions like museums to make sure history is properly preserved and shared.

wo Women Kissing, ca. 1900

Courtesy of Walter Plotnuck Archives

It is this need for history to be preserved and our passion for Clarksville’s communities that has driven us to begin efforts like the Clarksville LGBTQIA+ History Initiative. With the Amanda Leigh Collection as its anchor, a broader and more diverse collection of queer and transgender history can be built and maintained to tell the stories of LGBTQIA+ Clarksville.

The Museum carries the responsibility of telling the stories of all the diverse communities that make up the foundation of Clarksville. The museum field as a whole has largely neglected this responsibility for the last few centuries, but we are committed to doing better. Many more collecting initiatives are in the works for the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center, and we are excited to continue to preserve and interpret the history of other Clarksville communities.

Two Men on a Rooftop, ca. 1910

Courtesy of 'LOVING' the Nini-Treadwell Collection