00:08.939 --> 00:09.939
Yeah.

00:46.240 --> 00:48.159
19th century America.

00:49.150 --> 00:50.849
The Victorian age.

00:52.599 --> 00:54.369
The industrial age.

00:56.360 --> 00:58.180
The era of the frontier.

01:00.729 --> 01:04.650
What was life like for American women in the
19th century?

01:06.980 --> 01:09.550
At first glance, the answer seemed simple.

01:10.519 --> 01:14.519
White middle-class women led domestic, pious
lives.

01:15.680 --> 01:18.239
Filled with housework and childbearing.

01:19.500 --> 01:23.080
Devoid of sexual or political interests.

01:24.779 --> 01:26.410
They knew their place.

01:27.239 --> 01:31.819
In the home, creating a comfortable refuge for
men.

01:32.800 --> 01:34.230
Who knew their place.

01:35.480 --> 01:40.550
Seeking fame and fortune in the public world of
paid labor or politics.

01:42.019 --> 01:44.860
Abundant images recall these stereotypes.

01:46.529 --> 01:48.000
When men were men.

01:48.760 --> 01:50.669
And women were women.

01:52.940 --> 01:59.650
And they suggest the relative freedom that most
white men enjoyed in contrast to the

01:59.650 --> 02:05.919
constraints placed on women's lives by laws,
custom, and clothing,

02:06.449 --> 02:12.089
but this first glance omits so much of our
history for some women.

02:13.580 --> 02:17.660
Like black slaves who worked alongside men.

02:18.960 --> 02:25.880
Others, like immigrants from Europe and Asia,
worked for low wages as

02:25.880 --> 02:28.119
domestics or factory operatives.

02:29.410 --> 02:33.320
And many middle-class white women left their
domestic world.

02:34.479 --> 02:36.679
They participated in reform efforts.

02:37.490 --> 02:40.440
And founded the early women's rights movement.

02:41.850 --> 02:48.160
Demanding equality with men in work, marriage,
and citizenship.

02:51.119 --> 02:57.990
Another small but significant group of American
women rejected the limitations of the female

02:57.990 --> 03:02.229
sphere and claimed the privileges enjoyed by
men.

03:03.089 --> 03:08.139
They worked for men's wages, courted and
married the women they loved,

03:08.630 --> 03:09.630
and even voted.

03:11.179 --> 03:17.490
They did so by adopting men's clothing, hiding
their female identities from most of the world,

03:17.940 --> 03:19.300
and passing as men.

03:20.449 --> 03:24.160
Since biblical times, some women have attempted
to pass as men,

03:24.649 --> 03:27.850
and they have been severely punished if
discovered.

03:28.940 --> 03:31.039
And yet, they took this risk.

03:31.289 --> 03:36.839
They passed to become soldiers or sailors, like
Mary Read and Anne Bonny,

03:37.089 --> 03:39.759
who sailed on pirate ships in the 18th century.

03:40.729 --> 03:43.490
Or they sought careers as doctors.

03:45.479 --> 03:48.800
Or escape from unhappy marriages.

03:50.630 --> 03:56.270
Were some of these women lesbians?
Although the term lesbian would not be used

03:56.270 --> 04:02.160
until the 20th century, many women did pass in
order to pursue the women they loved.

04:04.289 --> 04:11.080
In 19th century America, passing women tried to
explain in words or deeds why they

04:11.080 --> 04:13.750
chose their masquerade.

04:14.119 --> 04:19.269
Do you blame me for wanting to be a man free to
live life in a man-made world?

04:19.720 --> 04:21.760
So wrote Cora Anderson.

04:23.260 --> 04:30.040
An American Indian woman who passed as Ralph
Kerwinio. In the future centuries,

04:30.290 --> 04:36.140
it is probable that woman will be the owner of
her own body and the custodian of her own soul.

04:37.010 --> 04:43.059
But the well cared for woman now is a parasite,
and the woman who must work is a slave.

04:44.339 --> 04:49.059
Do you blame me for hating to again resume a
woman's clothing and just belong?

04:49.739 --> 04:54.260
Is it any wonder that I determined to become a
member of the privileged sex,

04:54.369 --> 05:00.970
if possible?
Cora Anderson or Ralph Carwinio twice married

05:00.970 --> 05:07.089
women.
Marie White on the left and a Dorothy Klinowski

05:07.089 --> 05:12.410
on the right.
I made up my mind to dress in men's attire to

05:12.410 --> 05:17.279
seek labor as I was used to men's work and only
get $1 per week,

05:17.570 --> 05:21.570
and I was capable of doing men's work and
getting men's wages.

05:21.649 --> 05:24.890
I resolved to try to get work away among
strangers.

05:25.869 --> 05:32.420
So spoke Lucy Anne Lobdell, who lived together
with another woman as husband and wife for over

05:32.420 --> 05:37.940
a decade.
When I was about 20 I decided that I was almost

05:37.940 --> 05:39.329
at the end of my rope.

05:39.779 --> 05:43.850
I had no money, and a woman's wages were not
enough to keep me alive.

05:44.640 --> 05:50.420
I looked around and saw men getting more money
and more work and more money for the same kind

05:50.420 --> 05:53.540
of work.
I decided to become a man.

05:53.829 --> 05:54.980
It was simple.

05:55.549 --> 05:58.779
I just put on men's clothing and applied for a
man's job.

05:59.070 --> 06:03.510
I got it and got good money for the times, so I
stuck to it.

06:04.269 --> 06:11.059
The words of Charles Warner, who masqueraded as
a man in upstate New York for over

06:11.059 --> 06:12.369
60 years.

06:14.260 --> 06:19.779
These passing women enjoyed the economic and
sexual privileges reserved for men.

06:20.609 --> 06:22.369
They could also vote.

06:23.369 --> 06:29.339
In New York City, Murray Hall, a woman who
passed as a man for 25 years,

06:29.869 --> 06:36.390
became an influential politician in the Tammany
Hall Democratic machine during the 1880s and

06:36.390 --> 06:37.579
1890s.

06:38.589 --> 06:40.619
Twice she married other women.

06:43.040 --> 06:47.220
Whatever their motives for passing, to earn a
decent wage,

06:47.470 --> 06:54.359
to marry women, or to enjoy political rights,
all passing women were in constant danger

06:54.359 --> 07:00.390
of exposure, arrest, and incarceration in a
jail or insane asylum.

07:01.910 --> 07:08.299
To avoid these risks, women who chose to live
as men had to perfect their masquerade.

07:09.279 --> 07:11.440
They had to be physically strong.

07:12.399 --> 07:14.040
Confident on the streets.

07:15.279 --> 07:18.589
And know how to flirt with women.

07:19.929 --> 07:22.440
For some women, this came easily.

07:23.260 --> 07:25.220
Others learned these skills gradually.

07:26.380 --> 07:33.369
A newspaper account of Bill, a Missouri laborer
who became local secretary of the

07:33.369 --> 07:38.809
International Brotherhood of Boilermakers,
typified the successful passing woman.

07:39.790 --> 07:40.910
She drank.

07:41.220 --> 07:44.529
She swore, she courted girls.

07:44.850 --> 07:47.040
She worked as hard as her fellows.

07:47.799 --> 07:49.579
She fished and camped.

07:50.179 --> 07:53.390
She even chewed tobacco.

08:03.200 --> 08:09.239
American migrants and foreign immigrants poured
into the Western states during the 19th century.

08:10.779 --> 08:16.290
Displacing or exterminating Native Americans
and, in California and the Southwest,

08:16.940 --> 08:20.489
seizing the lands of earlier Spanish and
Mexican settlers.

08:21.570 --> 08:24.000
Few women ventured to the West on their own.

08:24.929 --> 08:29.690
Usually families migrated together or single
men sought a quick fortune.

08:31.100 --> 08:35.940
Or a new start in life in the mining and cattle
towns of the frontier.

08:37.809 --> 08:41.200
Yet some women did strike out on their own in
the West.

08:42.450 --> 08:44.330
They traveled or worked alone.

08:45.080 --> 08:48.109
And, in some cases, they passed as men.

08:48.820 --> 08:54.070
In San Francisco, their stories were recorded
in numerous newspaper accounts.

08:55.200 --> 09:01.140
In 1847, San Francisco was a quiet village of
300 inhabitants,

09:01.630 --> 09:06.659
but the following year, the discovery of gold
created a boom town.

09:07.780 --> 09:13.489
By 1850, over 30,000 migrants swelled the
population.

09:14.580 --> 09:18.010
The few women on the streets included
merchants' wives.

09:19.059 --> 09:20.179
Prostitutes.

09:21.070 --> 09:23.359
And some passing women.

09:24.349 --> 09:29.849
In 1852, for instance, police arrested
Charlotte Arnold,

09:30.260 --> 09:33.969
a dressmaker, for disorderly conduct.

09:34.380 --> 09:37.489
She's a masculine species of the feminine
gender.

09:38.309 --> 09:39.340
Reporters claimed.

09:40.309 --> 09:47.090
In the courtroom, a judge instructed her to
behave with that propriety

09:47.090 --> 09:48.820
characteristic of your sex.

09:49.770 --> 09:55.700
San Francisco newspapers called another passing
woman a freak of fancy.

09:56.609 --> 10:00.760
And recognized the political significance of
her act.

10:01.280 --> 10:06.559
Our municipal laws have affixed a penalty to
this manner of deceiving the opposite sex.

10:07.510 --> 10:12.809
Our city laws have little regard for the
Bill of Rights adopted by the Women's

10:12.809 --> 10:14.830
Convention in the Atlantic states.

10:16.080 --> 10:22.080
But the laws could not prevent San Francisco
women from wearing men's clothing.

10:23.270 --> 10:30.219
In the 1850s, the well-known Lily
Hitchcockoitte visited night spots dressed in

10:30.219 --> 10:31.270
male attire.

10:31.979 --> 10:34.979
But she avoided arrest because she was wealthy.

10:37.419 --> 10:42.049
Charlie Parkhurst, a famous Wells Fargo
stagecoach driver,

10:42.659 --> 10:47.669
worked as a man for over 20 years and voted as
well.

10:49.070 --> 10:55.950
Louisa Matson was arrested near San Jose in
1895 for passing as businessman

10:55.950 --> 10:57.200
Milton Matson.

10:58.020 --> 11:02.510
She secretly moved to San Francisco and became
SB Matson,

11:02.880 --> 11:06.200
a man who worked in the San Francisco Public
Library.

11:07.000 --> 11:11.159
For years she courted a schoolteacher named
Helen Fairweather.

11:12.950 --> 11:19.450
Countless other women adopted male attire,
passed as men in order to earn a living,

11:19.989 --> 11:21.500
and loved other women.

11:22.849 --> 11:27.520
Two of their lives were especially well
documented in the newspapers.

11:27.890 --> 11:33.599
Jeannie Bonnet, who held the record for the
most arrests for wearing men's clothing.

11:34.940 --> 11:36.809
And Babe Bean.

11:37.669 --> 11:41.849
The trouser puzzle of Stockton, California.

11:54.729 --> 12:00.719
Jean Bonnet, or Jeanie as she was known, was
born in Paris in 1849.

12:02.119 --> 12:06.159
Her family moved to San Francisco and performed
in the French theatrical troupe.

12:07.789 --> 12:10.429
Jeannie became a well-loved child actress.

12:11.119 --> 12:15.780
The Bonets lived in the French community that
formed next to Chinatown in the 1850s.

12:16.909 --> 12:21.059
Her independent spirit became the subject of a
local newspaper report.

12:21.789 --> 12:27.690
By the time she was 15, Jeanie Bonnet evinced a
disposition to go it alone,

12:28.099 --> 12:33.140
spurning the advice of relatives and friends
and hastening down the broad road to moral

12:33.140 --> 12:36.890
destruction, she became imbued with the spirit
of heroism,

12:37.179 --> 12:41.229
and she cursed the day she was born a female
instead of a male.

12:42.239 --> 12:47.150
Jeannie was committed to the industrial school,
San Francisco's first reformatory,

12:47.679 --> 12:49.239
possibly for petty thievery.

12:50.690 --> 12:54.049
Upon her release, she organized a gang of boy
thieves.

12:55.400 --> 13:02.190
The newspaper described Jeanie as a man hater
with short cropped hair and an unwomanly voice.

13:02.190 --> 13:08.260
A masculine face which harmonized excellently
with her customary suit of boys' clothes,

13:08.750 --> 13:14.270
including a jaunty hat which she wore with all
the grace of an experienced hoodlum.

13:15.630 --> 13:19.500
Although she was arrested over 20 times for
wearing male attire,

13:19.989 --> 13:24.219
Jeanie Binet often refused to pay her fine and
went to jail instead.

13:24.510 --> 13:28.150
The police and courts condemned her choice and
declared.

13:29.179 --> 13:35.460
Such clothing leads to a woman's moral ruin
because it enables her to go and do as she

13:35.460 --> 13:40.719
pleases.
In 1875, when Jeannie was 26 years old,

13:41.409 --> 13:43.760
she began visiting San Francisco brothels.

13:45.130 --> 13:49.849
She organized an all-woman gang with members
from the brothels.

13:50.010 --> 13:54.559
These women swore off prostitution, had nothing
to do with men,

13:54.890 --> 13:58.049
and supported themselves by petty thievery and
shoplifting.

13:59.299 --> 14:03.780
Jeannie's special friend, probably her lover,
was gang member Blanche Bruneau.

14:04.909 --> 14:10.260
Blanche had arrived in San Francisco from Paris
in 1875 with a man named Arthur Deni,

14:11.390 --> 14:14.280
who had been living off Blanche's earnings as a
prostitute.

14:15.219 --> 14:17.090
Jeannie persuaded Blanche to leave him.

14:18.429 --> 14:23.780
She had resolved to step in between as many
women of Blanche's character and men of Denis's

14:23.780 --> 14:26.590
stripe as she possibly could and cause a
separation.

14:28.280 --> 14:32.460
Jeannie's life was threatened, and she was
physically attacked many times by pimps who

14:32.460 --> 14:36.609
were furious at her for stealing away the
prostitutes they considered their own property.

14:38.109 --> 14:44.109
After Blanche left Arthur and Eve, she took a
room at the San Miguel Saloon, 4 miles outside

14:44.109 --> 14:48.099
of San Francisco.
Blanche and Jeannie sometimes spent the night

14:48.099 --> 14:52.330
there together.
The owner of the saloon had known Jeannie for 6

14:52.330 --> 14:53.849
years and thought she was a man.

14:54.900 --> 15:00.809
On September 14th, 1876, Jeannie spent the
night with Blanche at the saloon.

15:01.299 --> 15:05.450
After dark, Jeannie sat in Blanche's room
smoking her pipe,

15:06.140 --> 15:08.700
drinking a cognac and talking with Blanche.

15:10.380 --> 15:14.539
She then got into bed and waited with her head
propped on her arm for Blanche to join her.

15:15.719 --> 15:20.640
Blanche sat down on the edge of the bed and
bent down to tie her shoes when a blast of

15:20.640 --> 15:25.919
buckshot came flying through the window,
tearing through Jeanie's body in six places and

15:25.919 --> 15:27.179
killing Jeanie Bonnet.

15:28.250 --> 15:30.900
The murder case was never solved.

15:31.179 --> 15:34.640
Police and the press believed it was plotted by
angry pimps.

15:35.690 --> 15:39.469
But only one pimp was questioned and later
released for lack of evidence.

15:40.460 --> 15:44.409
The day after the murder, the city morgue was
thronged with people.

15:45.130 --> 15:47.049
The newspapers described the scene.

15:48.500 --> 15:55.219
Most of them were attracted by a strong desire
to gaze upon the face of such a strange girl.

15:56.380 --> 16:02.929
The body was arrayed in white, contrasting
strongly with her sun-browned and

16:02.929 --> 16:04.280
weather-beaten face.

16:04.960 --> 16:11.940
Her short hair was combed back neatly, and some
kind soul placed a white flower in

16:11.940 --> 16:12.979
her hands.

16:15.309 --> 16:21.229
Jeannie Bonnet was buried in the Oddfellows
Cemetery near San Francisco's Lone Mountain.

16:30.950 --> 16:36.239
In August 1897, the police in Stockton,
California,

16:36.969 --> 16:41.419
a small but growing city 75 miles east of San
Francisco.

16:42.239 --> 16:46.640
Arrested a 22-year-old woman masquerading in
men's clothing.

16:47.559 --> 16:49.000
She did not speak a word.

16:49.679 --> 16:52.500
But she wrote out her story for police and
reporters.

16:53.669 --> 16:57.070
She had lost her speech in an accident, she
explained.

16:58.109 --> 16:59.929
Her neighbors called her Jack.

17:00.890 --> 17:05.709
But her name was Babe Bean, and she had hiked
alone from Southern California.

17:06.829 --> 17:12.869
Babe Bean lived on a houseboat or ark on
McCloud's Lake near Stockton.

17:13.729 --> 17:20.448
She wore a blue suit, white silk shirt, large
shoes, and a hat pulled down over her eyes.

17:21.430 --> 17:24.880
I have been wearing men's clothing off and on
for five years,

17:25.109 --> 17:29.800
she wrote, for as a man I can travel freely,
feel protected,

17:29.810 --> 17:31.010
and find work.

17:32.650 --> 17:38.760
Babe Bean refused to reveal her family origins,
but she claimed they were one of the best in

17:38.760 --> 17:42.449
the land.
She spoke affectionately of her father who was

17:42.449 --> 17:47.459
dead and her brother whose clothes she used to
wear, of her mother,

17:47.579 --> 17:51.209
she explained.
I loved my mother with all my heart,

17:51.459 --> 17:55.739
but I feared even to talk to her at times lest
my rough manner might offend her.

17:56.660 --> 18:01.760
From a tomboy full of ambitions, I was made
into a sad and thoughtful woman.

18:01.979 --> 18:03.849
I commenced to be rebellious.

18:04.180 --> 18:08.489
My mother feared for my future and thought that
nothing but a convent would save me,

18:08.619 --> 18:09.739
and there I remained.

18:10.500 --> 18:15.900
How I yearned for that freedom I dreamed of and
how often I wished I could enjoy the liberty

18:15.900 --> 18:18.130
that the world sees fit to allow a boy.

18:18.969 --> 18:25.119
At the age of 15, she decided to marry her
brother's best friend in order to escape the

18:25.119 --> 18:27.160
convent and see the world.

18:28.579 --> 18:32.599
What I have suffered for that act, no one can
ever know,

18:32.890 --> 18:38.040
she explained.
Within a few months, she divorced her husband.

18:38.290 --> 18:41.520
And set out on her own, passing as a man.

18:42.050 --> 18:46.930
For four years, she lived in the mountains, on city
streets, and in hobo camps.

18:47.760 --> 18:51.819
The people of Stockton became fascinated with
the phenomenon of Babe Bean,

18:52.390 --> 18:57.780
the ark dweller in man's attire, and they
began to treat her with affectionate curiosity.

18:58.550 --> 19:03.550
For months, her every movement made front page
news in the Stockton newspapers.

19:04.219 --> 19:09.650
Stories of the trouser puzzle reached the San
Francisco and Boston papers.

19:10.569 --> 19:16.560
The Stockton Bachelor's Club made Babe Bean an
honorary member and the guest of honor at a

19:16.560 --> 19:20.859
dinner.
One newspaper article told of Babe Bean's

19:20.859 --> 19:22.689
popularity with women as well.

19:24.000 --> 19:27.949
Several fashionable ladies invited her to spend
the evening with them,

19:28.439 --> 19:32.319
but Babe Bean said that she declined to put
herself on exhibition.

19:33.319 --> 19:39.920
Many women, both young and old, drove or walked
past her ark in order to catch a glimpse of her.

19:41.699 --> 19:46.300
She never got along with feminine women, and
tomboys were her closest chums.

19:47.880 --> 19:49.589
Was she then a woman hater?

19:50.439 --> 19:56.109
No, indeed, she wrote on her pad, underlining
the indeed several times.

19:57.599 --> 20:01.439
Babe Bean was hired by the Stockton Evening
Mail as a reporter.

20:02.079 --> 20:05.510
And assigned to cover the baby show at the San
Joaquin County Fair.

20:06.189 --> 20:10.040
An annual event where mothers displayed their
newborn babies for prizes.

20:11.219 --> 20:15.869
First, she made it clear that she was not
interested in having a child herself.

20:16.619 --> 20:21.489
Then she described what each baby wore and how
sickly or healthy each looked,

20:21.890 --> 20:25.609
and she defended the right of a black woman to
enter her child in the contest.

20:27.270 --> 20:33.469
Soon after her discovery, some criticisms of
Babe Bean's freedom appeared in the editorial

20:33.469 --> 20:37.540
pages of the newspaper signed by the Girl of
Stockton.

20:38.550 --> 20:43.989
What puzzles us girls is why Babe Bean should
be allowed to dress that way.

20:44.239 --> 20:48.630
Well, if any of the rest of us wanted to walk
out in that kind of costume for a change,

20:49.000 --> 20:51.510
we would be arrested quicker than quick.

20:52.209 --> 20:56.910
There used to be a law against females dressing
like males,

20:57.400 --> 21:00.869
but it seems not to apply to Babe Bean.

21:01.250 --> 21:05.510
If Babe Bean is a girl and continues to dress
in boys' clothes,

21:05.810 --> 21:11.959
the rest of us ought to have the same privilege,
and we are going to do it some fine evening.

21:12.160 --> 21:15.750
There are going to be about 25 young women on
the streets of Stockton,

21:16.079 --> 21:18.199
all dressed in men's clothing.

21:18.540 --> 21:23.599
And we're going to go to the ark and get Babe
Bean and duck her in McLeod's Lake till she

21:23.599 --> 21:28.030
cries enough.
Then she can talk if she wants to.

21:28.609 --> 21:29.780
Babe Bean replied.

21:30.540 --> 21:35.770
It is your privilege to dress as you see fit,
whether it is after the fashion of Venus or

21:35.770 --> 21:37.410
after the fashion of Babe Bean.

21:38.050 --> 21:42.920
I wish to state that boys' clothes are still
selling in Stockton at reduced prices.

21:43.079 --> 21:44.959
You are quite welcome to that information.

21:46.280 --> 21:48.829
She added that she was quite capable of
defending herself.

21:49.829 --> 21:53.739
Another, more supportive letter appeared in the
newspaper.

21:54.640 --> 22:00.180
I do not know Babe Bean, but she's a woman, and
I don't think it's a woman's place to try to

22:00.180 --> 22:03.839
injure a sister because she does not happen to
live just as we do.

22:04.469 --> 22:08.760
And if she wants to wear men's clothes and have
16 pockets,

22:09.130 --> 22:10.449
it's none of our business.

22:12.040 --> 22:17.339
In 1898, when war was declared between the
United States and Spain,

22:17.709 --> 22:23.280
the front-page articles about Babe Bean were
replaced by accounts of Stockton's own recruits

22:23.589 --> 22:25.939
leaving for Cuba or the Philippines.

22:26.229 --> 22:32.550
Babe Bean disappeared from Stockton, but a
small man named Jack Garland was one of those

22:32.550 --> 22:36.270
who boarded a transport ship for the
Philippines.

22:36.589 --> 22:40.349
Garland served as a lieutenant during the
Spanish-American War.

22:41.229 --> 22:48.150
He later moved to San Francisco where, in 1906,
he served as a male nurse during

22:48.150 --> 22:53.040
the great earthquake and fire, providing
emergency medical care to homeless San

22:53.040 --> 22:57.619
Franciscans.
Garland received personal commendation from the

22:57.619 --> 23:00.699
military commander of the city, General Funston.

23:01.969 --> 23:08.410
For the next 30 years, Jack Garland lived in
San Francisco rooming houses and acted as a

23:08.410 --> 23:12.239
kind of freelance social worker aiding homeless
and hungry people.

23:13.030 --> 23:17.650
He was affectionately known as Uncle Jack by
those who knew and loved him.

23:18.020 --> 23:24.849
On the evening of September 18th, 1936, this
little old man with a big heart

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collapsed and was taken to a hospital where
attendants did not realize at first that he was

23:30.180 --> 23:34.670
really a woman.
They were deceived by his masculine clothes and

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voice, by the profuse tattooing on his arms,
and by friends who called him Uncle Jack.

23:41.849 --> 23:44.530
Two days later, Jack Garland died.

23:45.400 --> 23:49.969
His death revealed not only his true sex but
also his true identity.

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Sixty-six-year-old Uncle Jack, alias Babe Bean, had once
been Elvira

23:57.859 --> 24:04.760
Virginia Mugarrieta, the daughter of Jose Marcos
Mugarrieta, who founded the Mexican

24:04.760 --> 24:06.329
consulate in San Francisco.

24:07.219 --> 24:13.180
Her mother, Eliza Alice Garland, was said to be
the daughter of a Louisiana Supreme Court

24:13.180 --> 24:19.959
Justice.
Jack, Babe, Elvira was buried in San Francisco.

24:19.959 --> 24:21.229
With the rest of her family.

24:33.359 --> 24:39.439
By the time of Bay Bean's death, women's lives
had changed dramatically since the Victorian

24:39.439 --> 24:44.500
era.
In the early 20th century, more women than ever

24:44.810 --> 24:46.010
worked for wages.

24:47.199 --> 24:48.569
Attended college.

24:50.630 --> 24:54.060
and trained for formerly male professions.

24:55.560 --> 25:00.510
In addition, millions of women participated in
political movements.

25:01.989 --> 25:03.540
They organized workers.

25:05.130 --> 25:06.530
Supported pacifism.

25:07.709 --> 25:09.140
Demanded suffrage.

25:09.949 --> 25:15.390
And after 1920, they voted as citizens.

25:16.780 --> 25:23.130
By the 1920s, the stereotype of the prudish
Victorian woman had given way to the image of

25:23.130 --> 25:28.069
the new woman.
The flapper who smoked, drank,

25:28.319 --> 25:30.560
and had heterosexual relationships.

25:31.449 --> 25:38.430
At the same time, many women friends formed
loving relationships at

25:38.430 --> 25:40.349
school or in the workplace.

25:41.979 --> 25:46.619
Some set up mutual households known as Boston
marriages.

25:47.020 --> 25:53.569
We do not know if all of these women were
lesbians, but the evidence suggests that some

25:53.569 --> 25:58.739
no doubt were.
In a few social settings, women did live

25:58.739 --> 26:05.719
explicitly lesbian lives in exile in France, in
Bohemian neighborhoods such as Greenwich

26:05.719 --> 26:10.790
Village, or in urban black communities such as
Harlem.

26:15.130 --> 26:19.530
I'm a good mama, don't mocking me.

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And let me.

26:25.880 --> 26:31.449
Despite these economic, political, and sexual
changes in women's lives,

26:31.689 --> 26:35.209
the phenomenon of passing women did not
disappear.

26:35.989 --> 26:39.609
In fact, newspapers frequently reported stories
about them.

26:41.800 --> 26:48.750
In 1925, the marriage of Peter Stratford and
Elizabeth Rowland made headlines.

26:49.650 --> 26:56.400
Other articles revealed the lives of passing
women such as Nora Barnes,

26:56.569 --> 27:02.040
Pauline Allen, Francis Orlando, Minerva Phipps,
and Mabel Eagan Radcliffe.

27:03.390 --> 27:08.589
During the Depression of the 1930s, women
hoboes sometimes passed as men.

27:11.050 --> 27:17.729
After 1920, women who occasionally wore men's
clothing and those who passed as men began to

27:17.729 --> 27:20.810
socialize more openly in cafes and nightclubs.

27:21.930 --> 27:26.040
The best known were in Paris, the original
lesbian bars.

27:26.900 --> 27:33.189
In America, two Chicago nightclubs run by women
were closed by the police during the

27:33.189 --> 27:39.869
1930s because women in male attire were nightly
patrons of the places.

27:40.270 --> 27:45.069
Many of the couples who frequented these clubs
had been married to each other by a black

27:45.069 --> 27:46.910
minister on Chicago's South Side.

27:48.010 --> 27:54.439
And in San Francisco lesbians met at Mona's
where it was

27:54.439 --> 27:58.130
said girls will be boys.

27:58.439 --> 28:02.630
Public attitudes towards passing women changed
in the early 20th century,

28:02.920 --> 28:05.760
imposing stricter penalties on cross-dressing.

28:06.709 --> 28:10.689
In addition to the older legal sanctions
against passing,

28:11.089 --> 28:17.130
new medical and psychiatric theories labeled
these women as sexual deviants.

28:18.469 --> 28:23.310
On the one hand, the doctors did at least
recognize that women could have sexual desires

28:23.310 --> 28:26.229
for and relationships with other women.

28:26.959 --> 28:32.640
But on the other hand, they attempted to
discourage these relationships by categorizing

28:32.640 --> 28:33.880
them as sick.

28:35.000 --> 28:40.170
The psychological labels they invented for
passing women would haunt lesbians,

28:40.270 --> 28:43.630
feminists, and female friends for generations.

28:44.280 --> 28:50.469
Inverts, tributists, sapphists, men, women,
hermaphrodites, gyanders,

28:50.510 --> 28:56.380
feminosexuals, uranias, women who suffered from
various disorders,

28:56.589 --> 28:58.910
and delusional masculinity.

29:00.010 --> 29:05.800
Passing women had their own positive language
to describe themselves within the social

29:05.800 --> 29:12.680
networks they created in the 1870s.
The word dike referred to a man who

29:12.680 --> 29:17.800
was all dressed up or diked out, perhaps for a
night on the town.

29:18.800 --> 29:25.510
By 1900, the word bullyker had come into use in
the red light district of Philadelphia

29:26.030 --> 29:32.949
to mean lesbian lovers, and in 1935, black
blues singer Bessie

29:32.949 --> 29:39.819
Jackson recorded a song titled BD Woman,
meaning bull

29:39.819 --> 29:43.680
dagger woman.
Which described gay women as a group.

29:45.170 --> 29:51.609
Her song is a fitting conclusion to this story,
for it is a rare black lesbian voice from the

29:51.609 --> 29:57.609
past and a testament to the newly visible urban
lesbians who inherited the

29:57.609 --> 30:01.250
tradition of women who passed as men.

30:10.329 --> 30:12.439
In a time.

30:13.170 --> 30:15.089
the women they need.

30:20.119 --> 30:24.859
man the women's.

30:32.449 --> 30:36.109
All.
A low down and dirty.

30:39.290 --> 30:42.770
Women Oh

30:49.050 --> 30:53.060
I you on.

30:59.170 --> 31:00.739
Got a like a.

31:02.510 --> 31:03.640
It was just like.

31:07.410 --> 31:12.079
We women, women, you know they will.

31:16.520 --> 31:21.880
We the women.
Women, you know, they show is.

31:26.880 --> 31:29.109
They, I drink up many ways.

31:34.880 --> 31:39.630
We women, you know, work and make do.

31:43.520 --> 31:44.619
The women.

31:46.209 --> 31:49.439
You know, they can make that.

31:53.500 --> 31:58.050
And when they get ready to spend it in the day.