Take a trip through time with Chicago Queer History Tours

Looking for a new educational experience this summer? Take a field trip to downtown Chicago!

We proudly recommend the Chicago Queer History Walking Tour series, offered by educator Daniel Williams from May 9 through August 29!

NOTE: all walking tours are free. No advance registration is required.  Simply show up at the starting point at the scheduled starting time.

Tips are gratefully accepted, but not expected.  All tours are sponsored by the University of Illlinois Chicago Gender and Sexuality Center.

SCHEDULE OF TOURS

May 9 - Police, Gangsters, and Gay Bars
When: Saturday, May 9, 1 pm
Start: Chicago Water Tower (801 N Michigan Ave)
End: 2nd Story Bar (157 E Ohio)
Distance: apx 2 mile

The University of Chicago sociologist Ernest Burgess observed that the city contains "zones of transition" that sat between areas of the city with clearly defined purposes and which people often used for activities which society frown upon. These areas were often the places that fomented queer culture in the industrial city - but that required an interaction between queerness and other criminal behavior. Learn about the interaction between queerness, the state's monopoly on legitimate violence, and organized crime as we investigate the delicate negotiations and compromises required to keep queer institutions open in the city in the 20th century.

May 23 - Sex and Rebellion
When: Saturday, May 23, 1 pm
Start: Bank of America Building Plaza (110 N Wacker Dr on the North Side)
End: 2nd Story Bar (157 E Ohio St #2)
Distance: apx 2 miles

It's IML weekend, and to commemorate this week is all about the ways queer people use sex to rebel. Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner argue that society's insistance on keeping sex private and personal perpetuates the idea that straight, cishet lives are the norm. So this week we're going to explore the ways that queer lives were made public in the past. Learn about cruising in the 1870s, Lesbian hangouts from prohibition that revolutionized jazz, and the first major protest against Anita Bryant, along with other sexy sites of queer joy from the past.

June 13 - Public and Private Queerness
When: Saturday, June 13, 1 pm
Start: Chicago Water Tower (801 N Michigan Ave)
End: Chicago Water Tower (801 N Michigan Ave)
Distance: apx 2 miles

Historian John D'Emilio observed that the rise of the industrial city in the 19th century created the conditions that allowed queer community to form. For the first time in modernity, queer people could separate their public and private lives and begin to gather together to form queer culture. We'll explore a gay gangster, the mysterious disappearance of a federal judge, a pre-prohibition drag bar and much more.

June 20 - Dive Keepers on North Clark Get Warnings
When: Saturday June 20, 1 pm
Start: Chicago Water Tower (801 N Michigan Ave)
End: 2nd Story Bar (157 E Ohio St #2)
Distance: apx 2 miles

In 1948 the Chicago Tribune reported that Capt. John J. Walsh was cracking down on gay bars in the River North neighborhood. Walsh insisted that the bar owners remove any coverings on the windows of the bars so the cops could observe what was going on inside. This insistence of observation recalls what Michel Foucault called "panopticonism," a way that the state exerts control by ensuring that everyone knows they can be observed at any time. This walking tour covers the sites Walsh visited with his warnings and tells the stories of what happened before, and after the crackdown.

June 27 - The First Chicago Pride Parade
Time: Saturday, June 27, 1 pm
Start: Washington Square Park (Bughouse Square) 901 N Clark St
End: Daley Plaza (50 W Washington St)
Distance: apx 2 miles

On June 27, 1970 Chicago's Gay Liberation Front organized the world's first ever Pride Parade. The unpermitted parade was originally planned to start in Washington Square Park and end at the Chicago Water Tower, but the 150 or so marchers spontaneously extended the route down Michigan Ave, ending at Civic Center Plaza in the shadow of City Hall - followed by 8 police cars and 2 paddy wagons. Fifty-six years later, join me as we recreate the route and learn about some of the Chicago queer history along the way.

July 11 - AFABs and Femmes
When: Saturday, June 7, 1 pm
Start: Fountain of the Great Lakes, South Garden of the Art Institute of Chicago (111 S Michigan Ave)
End: 2nd Story Bar (157 E Ohio St #2)
Distance: apx 2 miles

Historian John D'Emilio argues that queer women's social spaces and practices developed in very different ways to queer men's because of decreased access to capital, social power, and public space. That difference often obscures the lives of queer women in the historic record. This week we'll work to uncover the contributions of women, fems, and AFABs to Chicago queer history. Follow in the steps of artists, lawyers, performers, and gender creatives who called Chicago home and helped shaped the city we live in today.

July 25 - State Street
When: Saturday, July 25, 1 pm
Start: Dearborn Park (865 S Park Terrace)
End: Chicago The Old Marshal Fields (111 N State St)
Distance: apx 1 mile

State Street is Chicago's Main Street and Queer Chicagoans have long used it for a variety of purposes. Learn about sex work in the city's "Levee District" in the first decade of the 20th Century, a tattooing college professor who helped shape the city's leather scene, 19th century male and female impersonators who where the toast of the town and other stories of Chicago Queer History

August 15 - Sex and Rebellion
When: Saturday, August 15, 1 pm
Start: Bank of America Building Plaza (110 N Wacker Dr on the North Side)
End: 2nd Story Bar (157 E Ohio St #2)
Distance: apx 2 miles

This week is all about the ways queer people use sex to rebel. Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner argue that society's insistence on keeping sex private and personal perpetuates the idea that straight, cishet lives are the norm. So this week we're going to explore the ways that queer lives were made public in the past. Learn about cruising in the 1870s, Lesbian hangouts from prohibition that revolutionized jazz, and the first major protest against Anita Bryant, along with other sexy sites of queer joy from the past.

August 29 - Dive Keepers on North Clark Get Warnings
Time: Saturday August 29, 1 pm
Start: Chicago Water Tower (801 N Michigan Ave)
End: 2nd Story Bar (157 E Ohio St #2)
Distance: apx 2 miles

In 1948, the Chicago Tribune reported that Capt. John J. Walsh was cracking down on gay bars in the River North neighborhood. Walsh insisted that the bar owners remove any coverings on the windows of the bars so the cops could observe what was going on inside. This insistence of observation recalls what Michel Foucault called "panopticonism," a way that the state exerts control by ensuring that everyone knows they can be observed at any time. This walking tour covers the sites Walsh visited with his warnings and tells the stories of what happened before, and after the crackdown.


About the tour guide

Daniel Williams is a local political scientist who studies how politics shapes the ways queer people use the city. After a decade-long career in queer political advocacy in Texas, Daniel moved to Chicago to pursue his PhD. In addition to teaching college courses and research, Daniel engages in "public scholarship" intended to help the public understand that queer people have always been here.

Follow Daniel Edward Williams on Instagram.