Holdings Information
Bibliographic Record Display
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Author/Creator:Padgett, Marty, 1969- author.
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Title:A night at the Sweet Gum Head : drag, drugs, disco, and Atlanta's gay revolution / Martin Padgett.
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ISBN:9781324007128
1324007125
9781324007135
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Edition:First edition.
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Publication:New York, NY : W. W. Norton & Company, [2021]
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Physical Description:xiv, 361 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 21 cm
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Yale Holdings
Holdings Record Display
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Summary:"An electric and intimate story of 1970s gay Atlanta through its bedazzling drag clubs and burgeoning rights activism. Coursing with a pumped-up beat, gay Atlanta was the South's mecca-a beacon for gays and lesbians growing up in its homophobic towns and cities. There, the Sweet Gum Head was the club for achieving drag stardom. Martin Padgett evokes the fantabulous disco decade by going deep into the lives of two men who shaped and were shaped by this city: John Greenwell, an Alabama runaway who found himself and his avocation performing as the exquisite Rachel Wells; and Bill Smith, who took to the streets and city hall to change antigay laws. Against this optimism for visibility and rights, gay people lived with daily police harassment and drug dealing and murder in their discos and drag clubs. Conducting interviews with many of the major figures and reading through deteriorating gay archives, Padgett expertly re-creates Atlanta from a time when a vibrant, new queer culture of drag and pride came into being"--
- Format:Book
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BibliographyIncludes bibliographical references and index.
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Subjects:Greenwell, J. R.
Smith, William E., Jr.
Gays--Georgia--Biography.
Female impersonators--Georgia--Biography.
Gay activists--Georgia--Biography.
Gay culture--Georgia--Atlanta--History--20th century.
Gay liberation movement--Georgia--Atlanta--History--20th century.
Gays--Georgia--Atlanta--Social conditions--20th century.
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General.
Female impersonators.
Gay activists.
Gay culture.
Gay liberation movement.
Gays.
Gays--Social conditions.
Georgia.
Georgia--Atlanta.
Link to this page: https://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/15940066