Mark Sawchuk

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The Artistry of Leather and Desire: Archives Acquire Tool Box Mural

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Striking in its composition, this superb painted mural is yellowed with age and nicotine stains but still brims with sexual energy. The figures are seemingly drawn from a wide cross-section of mid-century society. A tattooed man in a sleeveless T-shirt fixes the viewer with a gaze suggestive of desire. A more bourgeois-looking fellow wears a striped turtleneck, while in the background a man in a full suit and tie looks on. To the left of center, a man wearing a leather cross-stitched shirt gazes at the rear end of a nearby patron, while in the very center a broad-shouldered man in what looks to be a leather motorcycle cap plays it coy, turning away.

The GLBT Historical Society is delighted to formally announce the acquisition of this remarkable work of art, which has joined the archives’ Art and Artifacts Collection. The panel, painted sometime in the mid-1960s, is the work of Chuck Arnett (1928–1988), a ballet dancer turned artist. Arnett painted it as a recreation of a mural he had originally executed on a glass storefront window that graced the wall of the Tool Box, a motorcycle and leather bar on the east corner of 4th and Harrison Streets in San Francisco’s South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood. Opened in 1961, this was one of the first gay leather/motorcycle bars in the city and became a pioneering leather establishment in this neighborhood that would come to be the epicenter of the city’s leather and kink community in the 1960s through the 1990s.

A Calling Card

The interior murals at the Tool Box, all painted by Arnett, were probably the establishment’s best-known calling card. Arnett painted one set of oversized murals along the south-facing, Harrison Street walls, and painted two mural panels on the glass storefront windows on the west-facing, 4th Street walls. One of the original glass murals was accidentally shattered when an angry janitor threw a broom across the room (the janitor later apologized to Arnett), prompting Arnett to paint several replicas on wood, including this one, probably painted in situ or from a photograph of the original. In contrast to the obscurity of the 4th Street panels, the Harrison Street murals became internationally known after photographs of the interior of the Tool Box were featured in a groundbreaking 1964 spread in Life Magazine entitled “Homosexuality in America.”

Though much loved and remarked-upon by patrons, Arnett’s remarkable Tool Box artwork was on display only a brief time; the Tool Box lost ground to other leather bars in the neighborhood and closed in 1971, and the building—with the Harrison Street murals still affixed to the southern wall—was torn down in 1975. Because the original glass panels were not shown in the Life spread nor in 1975 photographs of the building’s demolition, this panel provides valuable evidence of Arnett’s original artistic intent for his complete Tool Box decoration scheme. The panel was purchased and donated to the GLBT Historical Society in 2021. The donor acquired it from a San Francisco couple who had themselves purchased it at a garage sale some 30 years ago, and it had remained in their storage unit until last year.

Documenting Differences

We are still working with experts to determine when Arnett painted this panel and to fully document its provenance. Mike Caffee, an artist and former roommate of Arnett’s, and leather historian Gayle Rubin, have helped the GLBT Historical Society’s archives team with these efforts. In particular, Caffee identifies the leftmost figure as a portrait of biker and photographer Joe Winters. “[He was] drop-dead, movie-star handsome,” Caffee explains. “Chuck was smitten and included him many times in the murals.” Caffee also notes that rather than endowing the man in the white T-shirt with a tattoo of a black panther—a common motif used at the time to cover up older, unwanted tattoos—Arnett chose to give the tattooed figure a campy pussycat tattoo, while the text “My Sin” is borrowed from a women’s perfume by that name sold by Lanvin. Some interesting differences from the original glass panel include the fact that this mural includes men with blond hair, gray clothing, and a visible hand holding a bottle, none of which were present in the glass version.

While we are continuing to consult with experts in the field, we would love to hear more from the public about the Tool Box mural, especially if anyone has photographic evidence of the original glass panels. Our aim is to provide a complete picture of what the Tool Box looked like in its heyday!

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Queer Kinship Among the Seen & Unseen: Exploring Japanese American LGBTQ Lives

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A new online exhibition provides a pathbreaking look at LGBTQ lives and culture in the Japanese American community in the United States. Curated by Stan Yogi and Amy Sueyoshi, a frequent GLBT Historical Society collaborator, Seen And Unseen: Queering Japanese American History Before 1945 is a project of J-Sei, a Japanese American community organization in Emeryville.

The show draws on a variety of sources, including some of our archival collections, to unearth a hidden past when same-sex relationships and female impersonation were accepted parts of nikkei (Japanese American) immigrant culture. The exhibition also explores how, over time, the nikkei community’s atittudes came to mirror white American fears of same-sex intimacy and gender nonconformity. We interviewed Stan and Amy to learn more about how they curated Seen and Unseen. 

Q: The theme of “kinship” among issei (first-generation Japanese immigrants) is an important one. What does it mean in the greater context of nikkei?

Stan: Generational identity has been a defining factor of the nikkei community in the U.S. As we move farther away in time from the issei generation, we run the risk of forgetting that early immigrants were overwhelmingly male. There’s evidence that some had emotionally (not necessarily physically) intimate relationships. Many of us who identify as queer Japanese Americans have been unaware of ancestors who were involved in intimate same-sex relationships or defied gender roles. We hope that our exhibition reveals and informs the larger nikkei community, and queer-identified Japanese Americans specifically, about the rainbow branches of our collective family tree. 

Amy: Issei arrived in the U.S. during a time of intense anti-Japanese sentiment. Before the Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907, which allowed more Japanese women to enter the country as wives, the community was overwhelmingly male. One cannot adequately underscore how much these men relied on each other for companionship and comfort as they made their way in a new land, in a new language, under the brutality of immense animus from whites. Immigrant poet Yone Noguchi wrote that when he tramped to Los Angeles, he was welcomed along the way at any Japanese person’s home for a meal or a night of lodging. 

Q: The show uses a lot of literary and newspaper sources; can you tell us about how you located and interpreted these?

Stan: Literary scholar Andrew Leong, a contributing curator to the exhibition, shared his research about issei leaders who urged compatriots, many of whom led vagabond lives, to settle in America, marry and raise families. He has revealed the queer subtext in creative literature written by issei authors, several of whom depicted men who rejected the call to enter heterosexual marriages and maintained emotional intimacy with other men. 

Amy: In the absence of oral histories, written texts are often the only sources we have, and they are often sparse since many queers could not afford to leave such materials. Literary sources and newspapers are among the few available materials. When I first started my dissertation in 1996, I had to read each newspaper day-by-day, page-by-page to find a queer nugget. Now many of the newspapers are digitized—even the Japanese American press—so it was easier to put together this exhibition, particularly in the context of the ongoing shelter-in-place. 

Q: How does the exhibition change our understanding of LGBTQ history in the United States through 1945?

Stan: Our exhibition helps audiences understand that early Japanese immigrants came from a culture in which male same-sex relationships and female impersonation were accepted. Their children, the nisei, came of age when white Americans’ harshly negative judgements of homosexuality and gender nonconformity were crystallizing. Nisei adopted those attitudes and beliefs. Although issei weren’t necessarily celebrating what today we consider queer sexuality and gender expression, they were more accepting than subsequent generations. The incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II accelerated the community’s desire to prove itself “American,” which included conformity to rigid gender roles and condemnation of same-sex intimacy. 

Amy: A number of scholars, such as Siobhan Somerville, have shown that racism breeds homophobia and transphobia, even within marginalized groups themselves. Many Japanese Americans are terrified of coming out to their families, and postwar Japanese immigrants or shin issei think being queer is an American phenomenon. Most are unaware that our grandparents or great-grandparents were likely more queer-friendly than our parents. Learning about this might reshape how queer Japanese Americans think of themselves.

NOTE: Seen and Unseen is available through the end of June.

Amy Sueoyoshi is dean of the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University.

Stan Yogi is a writer who has coauthored numerous books and essays, which have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Daily Journal and academic journals and anthologies.

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Sampling Ten-Minute Tastes of the LGBTQ Past: Preparing for Queer History Conference 2019

Reprinted with permission from History Happens, the newsletter of the GLBT Historical Society (San Francisco)” with a link to our website (www.glbthistory.org).
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In June 2019, the GLBT Historical Society is co-hosting an unprecedented gathering in San Francisco: the Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender History’s first stand-alone conference, Queer History Conference 2019. Founded in 1979, the committee is an affiliate of the American Historical Association that promotes the study of the LGBTQ past by facilitating communication among scholars in a variety of disciplines. As the conference approaches and participants finalize their papers, History Happens dropped in for a chat with the conference co-chairs, Amy Sueyoshi of San Francisco State University and Nick Syrett of the University of Kansas. What will the Queer History Conference offer to members of the public, whether LGBTQ or not? Sueyoshi: For the nonhistorian, QHC offers a fascinating window into all the innovative work in queer history that’s going on today. Imagine it as a pupu platter, an incredibly large assortment of every and any type of queer history. And you could experience it all through ten-minute tastes, since each panel presentation typically lasts around ten minutes. These conferences are most interesting for self-identified nerds, not just because of the historical material, but also by the sheer beauty of being amongst book-loving queers who find history fascinating. Syrett: There will be about 170 different scholars making presentations on a whole range of topics. While many of them will be talking about their research, we also have panels dedicated to digital and more traditional archives projects, teaching queer history at the K–12 level and public history projects. Even the more academic panels will be talking about new research and finds in the archives and should be accessible to the general public.  What can you tell us about the range of topics and approaches you’re seeing in the panel proposals? Syrett: We’re delighted that scholars are coming from all over the world for the conference and that they will be talking about LGBTQ history from all continents, with the exception of Antarctica. While a majority of the research focuses on the 20th century, we also have scholars doing research on subjects as far back as the 15th century. The list of topics includes activism; drag and other queer performers; AIDS and healthcare; religion; various identity politics (trans, lesbian, bi, poly, queer people of color); homosexuality and legal regulation; politics; film and TV representation of LGBTQ people; queer youth; families; pornography; intergenerational sex; bathhouses; BDSM; public sex; and queer beauty and leather contests. What contributions have public historians and community-based historians made to the field of LGBTQ history? Sueyoshi: Community historians and public historians are part of the vanguard making queer history visible and accessible. I’m reminded of Allan Bérubé, a community historian who wrote about gays and lesbians in the military — one of the first books on queer history that I read. More recently, public historian Megan Springate coordinated the historic LGBTQ theme study for the National Park Service. Who would have ever imagined that the NPS would ever care about queer landmarks? Syrett: Public and community-based historians have done all kinds of wonderful things for LGBTQ history. Community-based historians have done an excellent job of showing that queer history really is everywhere, not just in the big cities famous for it. Public history projects in small and midsized cities and towns have documented the queer history of all kinds of places between the two coasts. Public historians have also done so much to educate the public about queer history before Stonewall, demonstrating that there have been same-sex loving and gender nonconforming people long before the mid-twentieth century.
Mark Sawchuk is the communications manager at the GLBT Historical Society.