Before Stonewall

New book documents the early struggles for gay rights in Wisconsin

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In the late 1940s, officials at UW-Madison were in a bit of a panic. They were dealing with what seemed like an “outbreak of homosexuality.”

Before World War II, homosexuality was considered a crime, but in the post-war years, although still illegal, it came to be viewed more as an illness.

In the research for We’ve Been Here All Along: Wisconsin’s Early Gay History  (Wisconsin Historical Society Press), historian Richard Wagner was given access to the disciplinary files of about 50 students accused of homosexuality in the ’40s and ’50s. “They sent everybody who got caught to a shrink,” Wagner says. “The shrink had to certify them before they could go back to classes.”

The students who had been caught tended to react in one of two ways, Wagner discovered. Some students responded by accepting treatment and claiming to be “cured” so they could get on with their lives, Wagner says. But others reacted with defiance. These students tended to say “I don’t want to go to a shrink, I don’t think I’m sick.”

“You can find gay voices that refuse to internalize it,” Wagner says. “That to me is significant because it’s a sense of their own liberation, their own agency.”

The Stonewall riots in New York City in 1969 are often seen as the dawning of the gay rights movement, which made steady and consistent gains afterwards. But in his new book, part one of a history of Wisconsin’s gay community, Wagner makes clear that the Stonewall uprising, important as it was, was built upon thousands of earlier acts of defiance and resistance.

“Gay liberation is really a question of finding identity and building community, it’s not just about fighting back against a police raid,” Wagner says. “Many of these early people, pre-Stonewall, were liberating themselves from the oppression they lived in.”

Wagner grew up in a conservative, Catholic family in Dayton, Ohio. He was closeted when he moved to Madison in 1965 to work on a doctorate in history at UW.

For his dissertation he studied how progressives sought to end red light districts and prostitution. That research helped him explore his own identity by getting him into stacks where books about “social deviance” were kept.

“I would never check out a book on homosexuality, but I could slide down and read them while I was legitimately there in the stacks looking at the books on prostitution,” he says. “Like anyone else, I had a tremendous amount of internalized homophobia that I had to deal with and sort out. In part, that’s what the book is driven by — how do you overcome this erasure of our history?”

He eventually discovered gay social circles in Madison. The Pirate Ship, a bar on Fairchild Street where the Overture Center is now located, was the first gay bar he went to.

“It was just a normal bar,” he remembers. “When another gay venue no longer wanted to accept gays, [gay people] went and approached the Pirate Ship. It had a good business during the day, but not a late night crowd. So they asked if they could go there and the owner said yes.”

Wagner eventually came out to friends and became active in politics. In 1978, when he heard about the murder of San Francisco council member Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay city officials, he was inspired to get more involved. In 1980, he became the first openly gay person elected to the Dane County Board, where he served for 14 years. He remains active in local government, most notably as longtime chair of the Urban Design Commission.

In 1982, he worked with his friend, then-state Rep. David Clarenbach (D-Madison) to campaign for the Gay Bill of Rights, which was signed into law by Gov. Lee Dreyfus. The law — modeled on local legislation passed by Madison, Milwaukee and Dane County — made it illegal to discriminate in housing or employment based on sexual orientation. Wisconsin was the first state to pass such a law.

Since the early ’70s, Wagner has also been collecting artifacts of gay life in Wisconsin and Madison. That includes everything from official government reports to items found at household sales, like scrapbooks kept by gay men.

“I just was throwing them in boxes that ended up in a storage locker,” he says. “When I retired, it turns out that I had about 40 boxes of stuff. So I had a lot of source material.”

Part of the challenge of writing a history of gay culture is that oppression limited what source material is available.

Wagner begins We’ve Been Here All Along by looking at how Wisconsin newspapers covered the sodomy trials of Oscar Wilde in England in 1895, both the wire articles and editorials. All of the coverage was negative.

He also looks at sodomy and indecency trials around the state. There was the 1915 sodomy trial of W.C. Abaly, a Madison doctor, who was accused of giving oral sex to a man in Richland County. Abaly’s conviction — which was eventually overturned by the state Supreme Court — relied on other Madison officials, including the chief of police, who testified about rumors about Abaly’s sexuality.

In June 1948, the Wisconsin State Journal reported the raid of an Adams Street home on Madison’s west side that had been used by a “ring of homosexuals.” The paper described it as being “lavishly decorated in an Oriental motif and contained expensive-appearing incense burners and perfume atomizers.” Twelve men were arrested including the two residents, four UW students, an Oscar Mayer worker, and a Central High student. The home’s owners were convicted of possessing obscene literature.

Examining these old arrests and court cases is a way of understanding the oppression gay people faced.

“You see how it gets reinforced through official structures of state law, the courts and police,” Wagner says. “That’s the context of how homophobia gets built in this state. And then how gay people decide to live is the next question.”

Despite the oppression, many gay people made lives for themselves in Wisconsin. Some flourished.

Life partners Bob Neal and Edgar Hellum created Pendarvis in Mineral Point, where beginning in the 1930s they restored 19th century buildings that they furnished with antiques and opened an acclaimed restaurant. Their work preserved part of Wisconsin’s history and created a tourist economy for the town.

Martha Peterson became the dean of women at UW-Madison in 1956. In that position, she refused to participate in the UW’s purge of gay students in the ’60s and clashed with Dean Theodore Zillman, who was leading the purges.

Peterson left UW in 1967 to become president of Barnard College and later returned to Wisconsin to become president of Beloit College.

Her longtime partner was Dr. Maxine Bennett, who taught at the UW Medical School in the Department of Surgery where she was the only female faculty member.

These and many others profiled in the book weren’t exactly living openly gay lives, Wagner says, but “they were asserting their rights to be active citizens of their community.”

The house that Wagner lives in on Jenifer Street, like the Adams Street house, also has a place in Madison’s gay history. Once owned by writer Keith McCutcheon and his partner Joe Koberstein, it was a safe gathering place for gay men beginning in the 1930s. One member of the circle described it as “a magic group” that was “lively and highly witty.” It had the air of a French salon.

Wagner is fascinated by the way communication networks existed among gay people around the state despite the oppression.

One of the more remarkable examples of this comes from a column that McCutcheon wrote for the Rio Journal in the late 1930s. In veiled terms, it describes men being oppressed in Nazi Germany for their social associations.

“Most of the research on gays in the concentration camps in Germany comes well after World War II. And here in 1939, Keith McCutcheon is talking about them in a guarded form; he doesn’t say they’re gays, but he describes them as young men, with beautiful features, blond hair, blue eyes. Clearly he’s not talking about them because they’re political opponents of the regime,” Wagner says. “Clearly, there was enough of a gay communication network, particularly with all the German Americans in Wisconsin, that this information got to Wisconsin before World War II.”

Wagner chose the title of his book — We’ve Been Here All Along — in part as a challenge to the myth that’s risen up around Stonewall. But he also wanted to show that the struggle for gay rights didn’t just occur on the coasts.

“Not all of gay history happened in New York or California,” he says. “We’re the only state so far that’s elected three out gay people [to U.S. Congress]. How does this occur in the Midwest?”

Wagner says part of the reason lies in Wisconsin’s unique political history. Early in the 20th century, it had a four-party political system with Democrats, Republicans, Progressives and Socialists. One of the reasons the state was able to pass a gay rights bill in the 1980s is because the progressives still had a voice in the Republican party.

The second volume of Wagner’s history, Coming Out, Moving Forward, is being edited now and will be released next year. It will document the movement from the Stonewall uprising until now.

Wagner has seen a phenomenal shift in attitudes about gay rights from when he was a closeted graduate student at UW in late ‘60s.

An enormous victory came in 2015 when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same sex marriage. However, he knows that progress is often messy and gains can be lost — he points to the Trump administration’s policy revoking the rights of transgender people to serve in the U.S. military.

“The greatest flowering of gay culture, prior to the present time, was in Weimar, Germany,” he says, referring to the period between 1919 and 1933. “And it all got wiped out. So I try not to take anything for granted.”

[Editor's note: This article originally stated that Wisconsin's 1982 Gay Bill of Rights was modeled on legislation earlier passed by Dane and Milwaukee counties and Madison. However, it was the cities of Milwaukee and Madison, as well as Dane County, that had passed such legislation, not Milwaukee County.] 

The following abridged excerpts are from We’ve Been Here All Along: Wisconsin’s Early Gay History, the first of two volumes, published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press. The book is available through libraries and book retailers statewide and online at www.wisconsinhistory.org/store. The book is also available as an e-book. The second volume, Coming Out, Moving Forward, is scheduled for release in June 2020.

From Chapter 8: Finding Ourselves

[Madison’s] east side’s gay circle [circa 1948] revolved around the Jenifer Street home of writer Keith McCutcheon and his partner, Joe Koberstein. Ted Pierce, who was appointed messenger in the Executive Office by Governor Phil La Follette in the 1930s, referred to his gay group on Madison’s east side as a salon of the French order. In later writings, Pierce called it “a magic Group centered on the 700 block of Jenifer Street” that was “lively and highly witty.” [Source: Ted Pierce Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, Madison, Wisconsin.]

Pierce used his connections from Jenifer Street to advocate for civil rights. The African American stage and screen actor Canada Lee, who was a Pierce correspondent, stayed with Pierce when he came to town in 1945. A newspaper photo of an NAACP reception for Lee shows McCutcheon among the guests. [Source: Ted Pierce Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, Madison, Wisconsin.]

Among Pierce’s scrapbook souvenirs is a 1950 clipping from a local weekly that provides an enlightening glimpse into the activities of the salon, though without explicitly naming any names. The column’s unnamed author, a member from Rock County, described the group as “deeply concerned over the apparent inability of modern man to live a gracious, refined, and hospitable way of life in the press of unstable times.”

He further noted that “these young men are attempting in a modest way to recreate a friendly leisurely manner of living.” In the 1950s, a boom time of growing factories and tract houses in suburbia, the lifestyle being pursued by these “young men” was notable and unusual. [Source: “Ramblin’ Around” clipping May 17, 1950, Ted Pierce Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, Madison, Wisconsin.]

Among the group, he noted, one “will find representatives in the field of the theater, ballet, art, music, politics, literature, horticulture, and agriculture,” who may converse in French or Spanish “to increase the fluency of their acquired tongues.” They were described as enjoying “Café Diablo,” a sweetened coffee with flaming brandy and whipped cream — not exactly an ordinary drink in mid-America. Even though all the participants were men of very modest income, their homes displayed “refined and impeccable taste.” Some men preferred modern décor (reflective of their residing in the land of Frank Lloyd Wright), some arranged their homes as showplaces of antiques, and some “bolder spirits . . . combined period pieces with the ability of interior decorators.” The group’s members are identified with the non-normative art of creating domestic environments, like the bachelor men of the 1930s in Cooksville, Mineral Point, and New Glarus. [Source: “Ramblin’ Around” clipping May 17, 1950, Ted Pierce Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, Madison, Wisconsin.]

“On the subject of friendship they are equally adamant,” the author wrote. Some had “at home” gatherings on Sundays when friends dropped in, took off their shoes, raided the icebox, discussed aesthetics, and had enlightened conversation. “Whenever a light is burning in any of these homes,” the author writes, “it is like a beacon of hospitality, for owners have endeavored to make their firesides a haven for unexpected guests.”

From Chapter 6: Who Needs A Doctor?

Before “coming out” and “outing” were part of the gay dialogue, [UW-Madison] already had a decided policy. Getting caught as a homosexual could mean a notation on a student’s official transcript that the individual was “not entitled to honorable dismissal.” This was similar to the military’s dishonorable discharge. When former Wisconsin students sought to apply to other institutions, their homosexual pasts followed them, thanks to university officials. Regularly, UW staff sent out letters to officials at other universities, stating, for example, “Mr. D—— was unfortunately involved with a group of our students last spring who confessed to homosexual behavior,” or that a student’s “problem related to a sexual aberration.” (At this time, the university had a policy of acting in loco parentis to control student behavior in nonacademic matters.)

Some letters not only mentioned the incidents but also contained notes from students’ medical records, such as, “He is a passive individual. He recognizes that he is easily disturbed and led by other more aggressive and dominant personalities.” When a student withdrawing from Wisconsin asked if another college would hear about his case, the response was clear. One doctor wrote, “I pointed out to him that it was standard operating procedure for one university to inform another, in the case of a transfer student, not only of his academic work but of anything which might bear on his total personality picture.” [Source: Student Conduct files, UW-Madison Archives, Madison, Wisconsin.]

Students understood that university officials making others aware of their homosexual status could be harmful. One former student pleaded, “My position is particularly trying since without what is termed an ‘honorable dismissal’ from the University, no college however small will accept my application.” ...

Psychiatrists treating students for homosexual problems often believed the students would “benefit rather well and rapidly from psychiatric help.”

“He is amenable to psychiatric treatment,” wrote one. Another described a student who “proved to be a very cooperative patient and anxious to help himself and improve his situation.” … Most students were quick to agree that they would be “happy to cooperate” in getting psychiatric treatment. One admitted, “I made a very foolish mistake which has done irreparable harm to my character and perhaps my future. … To attempt an explanation is impossible; such things cannot be explained.” …

Many students hoping for favorable consideration by the Student Conduct Committee declared that the treatment was working. One claimed that as a result of the psychiatric assistance, he had “abstained from any homosexual activities since that date.” Another felt “certain that he has got his old difficulty well in hand and that we need have no fear on that count.”

The Student Conduct officials firmly required a recommendation from Student Health based on a competent psychiatrist who was a member of the American Board of Psychiatrists before they would expunge a record or readmit a student to the university. [Source: Student Conduct files, UW-Madison Archives, Madison, Wisconsin.]

On the other end of the spectrum, however, some students did not fully embrace the university policy or the therapy. A student from Milwaukee wrote, “I don’t intend to submit myself to a court or committee to be smeared and muckraked by the local newspapers.” Yet another expressed that to acknowledge the need for psychiatry would be “incriminating.” One believed the proposed psychiatric treatment was of “a purely suggestive nature,” although he also said, “I have succeeded in accomplishing the basic requisites for a normal adjustment.” …

Others rejected the judgment that they needed help altogether. “I earnestly believe I am not in need of psychiatric treatment,” said one student.

The consequences of engaging in homosexual activity at the university and getting caught, although not as dire as the proposed treatment of sexual psychopaths, were still severe. Some students simply packed their bags and left. One such grad student sent a telegram to his professor indicating that he would not show up for his teaching assistant sections. In one instance, five students were referred to the Student Conduct Committee and two avoided official action by “voluntary withdrawal.” One student who was dropped in 1953 took seasonal work, hoping to be readmitted. In 1956 he was granted probationary status as a student. [Source: Student Conduct files, UW-Madison Archives, Madison, Wisconsin.]