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It seems a lot went down throughout history on this date, August 21st, so let's get right into Throwack Thursday, shall we?
Thanks to Ronni Sanlo and their history website for this information.
Frances Ann Wood (August 21, 1826 – November 10, 1901) was born. She was an educator and founder of Mount Carroll Seminary, which later became Shimer College in Mount Carroll, Illinois. She moved to the area from New York with her female companion, Cinderella Gregory, to start a women's seminary. They lived as one, established the school, and oddly, in their middle ages, Wood married a local named Shimer, who took over the financial end of things after moving in with them. Frances and Cinderella ran the school until 1870. By that time, it had expanded to a 25-acre campus with four connected buildings and numerous outbuildings.
The original literary Bear Daddy, Walt Whitman, wrote this to Peter Doyle: "My love for you is indestructible, and since that night and morning has returned more than before.” What yer boyu Hank wants to know is...what happened on "that night"?!
Famed illustrator and aesthete about town, Aubrey Beardsley was born in Brighton, England. A prolific illustrator, he was dominant in and defined the Art Nouveau style. While he was often associated with Oscar Wilde and his camp, his sexuality was officially unknown, being happily resigned to the classification of "asexual." He was only 25 when he died of tuberculosis, after being generally ruined by his association with Wilde after the notorious writer's imprisonment.
James “John” Finley GruberJames “John” Finley Gruber (August 21, 1928 – February 27, 2011) was an American educator and historian, documenting some of the early work of LGBTQ+ activists in San Francisco and Los Angeles. He considered himself bisexual, having close relationships with both men and women. After he was honorably discharged from the Marines in 1949, he studied English and became a teacher. He died in 2011 in Santa Clara.
Frida Kahlo (July 6, 1907 – July 13, 1954) married Diego Rivera. Known mostly as the famous painter's wife during her lifetime, her own powerfully personal work wasn't discovered until the late seventies by art historians and taken up by political activists and the growing feminist and LGBTQ+ movements. She is now regarded internationally for her naive yet impactful style, exploring identity, post-colonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society, as well as being emblematic of Mexican national and indigenous traditions. She is an icon for Chicanos, feminists, and members of the queer community.
On this date in 1944, Felice Schragenheim (left in the photo above), a Jewish resistance fighter, and her lover of two years, Lilly Wust, the wife of a Nazi soldier away in the war, took the above photos. That night, Felice was taken by the Gestapo. She eventually died in Bergen-Belsen in 1945. Their romance is the subject of the 1999 film Aimee & Jaguar, and the book by the same name. They are also the subject of the documentary Love Story: Berlin 1942.
La Cage aux Folles, based on the 1973 French play of the same name, opens on Broadway to rave reviews and millions in advance ticket sales. With a book by Harvey Fierstein and lyrics and music by Jerry Herman, it ran for four years (1,761 performances), and won six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Score, and Best Book. The Act One closer "I Am What I Am" has been recorded by multiple artists and has become a gay anthem of identity and resilience. Subsequent revivals in 2005 and 2011 both won Best Revival of a Musical Tonys.
Rikki Streicher (left in the pic above) dies of cancer at age 68 in San Francisco. Born in 1922, she opened Maud’s, America’s oldest continuously operating lesbian bar, in 1966. Situated in the Haigh-Ashbury neighborhood, it was well situated to act as a bridge between the city's established lesbian community and the growing hippy movement. Janis Joplin was a well-known patron.
Denver Colorado’s Career Service Authority votes 5-0 to extend health insurance benefits to the partners and children of gay and lesbian city employees.
Twenty lesbian and gay survivors whose partners died in the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center were told they would receive workers’ compensation under a new state law.
The Coquille Indian Tribe in Oregon legalized same-sex marriage, which is not recognized by the state.
Also that year, Hallmark Greeting Cards, based in Kansas City, introduced a line of same-sex wedding cards.
A bill was signed into law designating the LGBTQ Veterans Memorial in Desert Memorial Park in Palm Springs as California’s official LGBTQ veterans memorial. California becomes the first state in the nation to officially recognize LGBTQ military veterans.
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