A Look Back at LGBT History: 1900-1930

 

 

Nov 30, 1900 – Oscar Wilde dies in Paris at the age of 46, a broken man.

Aug 15, 1911 - Crisco shortening, used by many gay men in the 1970's/80's for non-baking purposes, is introduced.

June 30, 1919 - The German film Different from the Others opens in Germany.  It showed how society mistreats homosexuals and is considered by many to be the first movie with a gay theme.

Nov 18, 1922 - Closeted French novelist Marcel Proust dies of pneumonia in Paris at the age of 51.

Sept 24, 1924 - Leopold and Loeb, 19-year-old college students from wealthy Chicago families, receive life sentences for the "thrill kill" murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks four months earlier.  The motivation of the two, who are thought to have had a homosexual relationship, was to commit the perfect crime.  Their case was the inspiration for the films Rope (1948) and Swoon (1992).

 

 

Dec 15, 1928 - Radclyffe Hall's lesbian novel, The Well of Loneliness, is published in the U.S. on the same day that a court in England rules that all copies of it be destroyed.

Sept 7, 1930 - The movie Whoopie opens, introducing moviegoers to Busby Berkeley's grand geometry-inspired production numbers. 

Oct 14, 1930 - 21-year-old Ethel Merman makes a name for herself after belting out I've Got Rhythm in the Broadway musical Girl Crazy.

 

 

To read about gay history and pop culture from other years, double click here.