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Chicago's Queer Past: Key Stories (Adults)

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Historian John D'Emilio takes us through pivotal people and events in Chicago's LGBTQ+ history.

This talk will cover a broad expanse of Chicago LGBTQ history from the 1920s to the 1990s. It will explore a wide range of events through time, including the visibility of LGBTQ performance artists in the 1920s, the "Lavender Scare" of the McCarthy era, the activism of the gay liberation years, and the impact of the AIDS epidemic and the response to it. The talk will be illustrated with a variety of images from the periods under discussion obtained through archives and other online sources.

John D'Emilio, Professor Emeritus of History and Gender & Women's Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago, retired in 2014. He continues to research and write about the U.S. since World War II, social movements, and the history of sexuality. A pioneer in the field of gay and lesbian studies, he is the author or editor of more than half a dozen books, including Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: the Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States; Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America with Estelle Freedman; Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin, a National Book Award finalist; and The World Turned: Essays on Gay History, Politics, and Culture.

D'Emilio has won fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and received the Brudner Prize from Yale University for lifetime contributions to gay and lesbian studies. A former co-chair of the board of directors of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, he was also the founding director of its Policy Institute. Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy quoted Intimate Matters in the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas case, the historic decision that declared state sodomy statutes unconstitutional.

When not working, John watches old movies, solves sudoku puzzles, and searches for New York-style pizza in Chicago.

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