History of Lesbians in the United States (by the photos)!

Charlotte Cushman and Matilda Hays

sculptor Edmonia “Wildfire” Lewis

Kitty Ely class of 1887 (left) and Helen Emory class of 1889, Mount Holyoke students, via vintagephoto.livejournal.com

photo by alice austen

via flickr.com/photos/sshreeves

Two women, 1899, via fyeahqueervintage.tumblr.com

via chloeandolivia.wordpress.com

Young couple seated in garden from the Powerhouse Museum Collection, via hersaturnreturns.com

1900, Anna Moor and Elsie Dale

Lily Elise and Adrienne Augarde 1907, via fyeahqueervintage.tumblr.com

Photo from silent film The Amazons (1917) via knowhomo.tumblr.com

via “Gay & Lesbian Richmond” (Adele Clark, bottom center, lived with fellow suffragist Nora Houston “as companions” for years)

Four couples of women pose for a photo, ca. 1910 — Image by © DaZo Vintage Stock Photos/Images.com/Corbis

Education reformer Elizabeth Irwin via historyisqueer.tumblr.com

1918

photo by Dorothy Schmitz via “Gay & Lesbian Atlanta”

Thelma Wood and Djuna Barnes

via flickr.com/photos/peopleofplatt

1921, Chicago, via fyeahqueervintage.tumblr.com

1930s Paris, photographed by Brassai. The photographs were part of a series for his 1933 book “Paris By Night,” which focused on working-class dance halls known as bals-musettes.

via bilerico.com

American blues singer Gladys Bentley (1907 – 1960) poses with bandleader Willie Bryant (1908 – 1964) outside the Apollo Theater where posters advertise a performance by Bryant & his band, New York, New York, April 17, 1936. (Photo by Frank Driggs Collection/Getty IMages)

couple in 1946, photograph by weegee, via museum.icp.org

“San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park
P82-125a.6000 Training school, Bethlehem Shipbuilding, 10/14/43″

1940’s “louise” via flickr.com/photos/missing_linck

“Evelyn “Jackie” Bross (left) and Catherine Barscz (right) at the Racine Avenue Police Station, Chicago, June 5, 1943. They had been arrested for violating the cross-dressing ordinance.” via blog.chicagohistory.org

Betty “Joe” Carstairs via butch-in-progress.tumblr.com

1940s Wrens, via theinkbrain.wordpress.com

Estelle de Willoughby Ions with a YWCA Art Student, 1954, via “Gay & Lesbian Richmond”

via Wide Open Town: A History of Queer SF to 1965, by Nan Alamilla Boyd, courtesy of Mary Sager

Mabel Hampton and Lillian Foster

1945, Male impersonators posing at Mona’s, via Wide Open Town History Project Records Courtesy of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society.

Keannie Sullivan & Tommy Vasu at Mona’s, via foundsf.org

“1950’s gay and lesbian couples” via flickr.com/photos/missing_linck

Founders of The Daughters of Bilitis with friends at Juanita’s in Sausalito. photo by Miss Cecil Davis, courtesy of the GLBT Historical Society

Bonita Jeffries, standing, with her daughter Ira and Ira’s girlfriend Snowbaby (17), celebrating Ira’s 16th birthday “at a nite club.

Kathryn-Hulme-and-Marie-Louise-Habets

guests at the bar of the chez moune nightclub (the longest-running lesbian club in Paris), via fuckyeahqueerpomps.tumblr.com

1967, Joan C Meyers via “Gay & Lesbian Philadelphia”

“Two Friends At Home” by Diane Arbus, 1965

Barbara Gittings in picket line, photo by Kay Tobin Lahusen (1965), via NYPL

Lesbian Wedding, 1968. via The Wide Open Town History Project Records. Courtesy of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society.

Donna Gottschalk holds poster “I am your worst fear I am your best fantasy” at Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day parade, photo by Diana Davies via NYPL

Jannette Louise Spires, Mary Alice Wesley & Brenda Ann Bush, Tampa, Florida

Three members of Lavender Menace at the Second Congress to Unite Women, New York, 1970 May (May 1970), photo by Diana Davies via NYPL

Gay Activists Alliance Softball Team, photo by Kay Tobin Lahusen via NYPL

photo by Diana Davies via NYPL

1971, Albany Gay Rights Demonstration, photo by Diana Davies via NYPL

1970, Sylvia Rivera, photo by Kay Tobin Lahusen via NYPL

1971, Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade, photo by Diana Davies via NYPL

Gente, A Women’s Celebration at the Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA 1975, photo by Cathy Cade via leslielohman.org

Gay rights demonstration, Albany, New York, 1971, photo by Diana Davies via NYPL

1971, manonla evans and donna-burkett in wisconsin

1971, Gay rights demonstration, Albany, New York, photo by Diana Davies via NYPL

1972, ALA Taskforce

1972 – Lesbian Couple, Hollywood, photo by Anthony Friedkin

1972, The Black Lesbian Caucus at NY Gay Pride

1972 – “Lesbian Couple #1” photo by Kay Tobin Lahusen via NYPL

1973 – Gail and Kate Rebuilding Cathy’s VW Engine, Emeryville, CA, photo by cathy cade

1974 – Isis at the IHOP: Seated L to R: Suzi Ghezzi, Stella Bass, Jeanie Fienberg, Nydia Mata, Lauren Draper, Carol MacDonald and Ginger Bianco. Standing is Lolly Bienenfield. via via queermusicheritage.us

Inez Garcia at San Francisco Freedom Day, via leslielohman.org

screenshot via “After Stonewall” documentary

Women embracing at Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, 1976, photo by diana davies

1971 – Gay Pride Parade New York City (Image by © JP Laffont/Sygma/CORBIS)

via lesbianseparatist.tumblr.com

Gay rights march in New York

New York City Pride, 1977

1977, Germantown couple on porch, photo by Kay Tobin Lahusen via NYPL

1977. Photo by Marie Ueda from The Marie Ueda Collection. Courtesy of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society.

the atlanta lesbian feminist alliance softball team

Salsa Soul Sisters meeting, New York City

“Fat Chance” Dance Group, Berkeley, CA 1979, photo by Cathy Cade via leslielohman.org

via “Gay by the Bay”

Dykes on Bikes

“lesbian couple” in the east village, 1981, by amy arbus

San Jose Lesbian March

Old Wives Tale Bookstore in San Francisco, California. Photo by Carol Seajay via lostwomynsspace.blogspot.com

C1 Women’s Lib Rally 1982, © 2008 – Don Ventura

Audre Lorde & Angela

“young dykes” (from the Lesbian Herstory Archives photofiles, marches 1980s folder)

Outside the courtroom, the press interviews Marilyn Barnett, accompanied by her attorney, Joel Ladin (right), after a Superior Court judge ruled that she had no right to a $500,000 beach house she claimed was promised to her by her former lover, tennis star Billie Jean King. Los Angeles, California, December 18, 1981. — Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS

1983, Castro Street Fair

sistah boom

Chicago

the Common Lives team

the indigo girls with winona laduke

Kitty Tsui by Jill Posener for “On Our Backs” magazine

via “Gay & Lesbian Philadelphia”

lesbian avengers via lesbianavengers.com, photo by carolina kroop

1988, Mariana Romo Carmona and June Chan, photo by Robert Giard via NYPL.com

ACT UP! photo by donna binder

Yolanda Duque & Cira Domingues

1993 Gay Pride in New York City, photo by Philip Jones Griffith

via sinister wisdom

ACT UP! protest in Chicago, 1990, photo by flickr.com/photos/genyphyr

copyright Saskia Scheffer

Janet Gail and Carolina Kroon, via lesbianavengers.com, photo by carolina kroon

photo by/of Laura Aguilar

Servicemembers in gay Pride parade, photo by cathy cade

Minnie Bruce Pratt & Leslie Feinberg, photo by Robert Giard via NYPL

via lesbianavengers.com, photo by carolina kroon

Dorothy Allison with Alix Layman and Wolf-Michael, 1995, photo by Robert Giard via NYPL

“Two Sandras” by Joyce Culver

The lesbian tent at the Beijing International Women’s Conference

1993 – New York City Pride

1995, “keisha and lia,” photo by joyce culver

1993 Gay & Lesbian March on Washington, via flickr.com/photos/perspective

1993 – NYC Pride March

lesbian couple fighting for custody of their child, 1995, via The Advocate

van dykes at the 1993 march on washington, via “The Advocate”

Susan Meiselas 1995 USA. New York City. Pandora’s Box. via magnumphotos.com

Greenwich Village 1997 via flickr.com/photos/perspective

punk band Team Dresch, mid-90s

dyke march, 1998