Making Gay History | LGBTQ Oral Histories from the Archive

When Leonard Matlovich was thrown out of the Air Force for being gay, he sued for reinstatement. It was 1975 and it was the first case of its kind. Hear the LGBTQ rights pioneer—and startlingly frank ...

24 Dec 202022min

Sparks flew when radical lesbian feminist Jill Johnston sat down for an interview with Studs Terkel in 1973. Jill had just published a controversial manifesto called “Lesbian Nation,” which advocated ...

10 Dec 202023min

A half-century ago, Studs Terkel interviewed three members of the homophile group Mattachine Midwest: the organization’s president, a student activist, and lesbian pulp author Valerie Taylor. Join the...

26 Nov 202023min

From a young age, Quentin Crisp was determined to be himself—makeup, painted nails, dramatically dyed hair, and all—even if it consigned him to a life of poverty and isolation. Hear the author, racont...

12 Nov 202025min

Canadian female impersonator John Falk Tomkinson appeared around the globe under the stage name Les-Lee for over three decades. In 1967 Studs Terkel interviewed the performer to talk about his art and...

29 Okt 202019min

In 1959 Lorraine Hansberry became the first Black woman to have a play produced on Broadway. Soon after "A Raisin in the Sun" made history, the 28-year-old writer and activist talked to Studs Terkel a...

15 Okt 202021min

Author Christopher Isherwood left England for Germany in 1929. His stories about his years there inspired the musical "Cabaret," which shaped the image of decadent interwar Berlin in the popular imagi...

1 Okt 202024min

Making Gay History is back! Join us as we mine the Studs Terkel Radio Archive in Chicago for stories from our proud LGBTQ past to bring you eight intimate conversations conducted between 1959 and 1981...

1 Okt 20206min