Before the first lesbian bars, there were queer worlds built in rented rooms, smoky clubs, and parlor parties. In our premiere episode of Our Dyke Histories, host Jack Gieseking joins historians Lillian Faderman and Cookie Woolner trace the roots of lesbian and queer nightlife to the 1920s—a time before the first official “lesbian bars” in the 1930s, when parties, salons, and underground theaters created fleeting but fierce shindigs as sanctuaries. We visit spaces like Harlem’s rent parties and salons, Los Angeles Jane Jones’ Club and Tess’ Café Internationale, San Francisco’s Finocchio’s, Eve Adams’s legendary Eve’s Hangout in Greenwich Village, and even fly off with Amelia Earhart to South Dakota. Through stories of performers like Gladys Bentley, Bessie Smith, and A’Lelia Walker, we reveal how queer women of color shaped nightlife, pleasure, and possibility even under segregation, censorship, and prohibition. These were the rooms and places where we made dykedom public.
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Credits
Producer, Editor, Host, & Creative Director: Jack Gieseking
Co-Producer: Julie Enszer & Sinister Wisdom
Co-Producer & Co-Editor: Cade Waldo
Assistant Editor: Mel Whitesell
Social Media: Audrey Wilkinson
Interns: Michaela Hayes, Syd Guntharp, Sophie McClain, Paige LeMay, and Sarah Parsons
Consulting Producer: Rachel Fagen
Music: Our theme song: "Like Honey" by Kit Orion https://www.kitorion.com/
CC-BY-NC-ND 2025. Write to us at ourdykehistories@gmail.com for permission to use any of our content.
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