What can we learn from mapping Damron's Address Books?

Damron’s guides lasted beyond 2005, the cutoff for our Mapping the Gay Guides project. However, later guides and their included sites hold important stories. CSUF GRA Austin Robes explores LA’s New Jalisco Bar. How did this space become a symbol of queer Latinx resilience?

Graduate researcher Camille Wise explores a unique safe space for gay Asian men amidst racial and sexual tensions in Los Angeles.

What makes a bar 'super?' Our co-director Eric Gonzaba dives into spaces marked as “superbars,” a new type of venue for gay Americans listed in the Damron guides beginning in the 1970s.

Beginning in 1973, Damron gave us hints of the gay Latino world, but these spaces were not given their own amenity feature. How can we look for some Latino LGBT spaces using Mapping the Gay Guides?

Bob Damon began denoting spots that included pool tables in his 1977 guide, but why?

Our team examines Bohemia, NY's only listing from the available data. What queer history can we learn from the Central Hotel?

CSUF graduate researcher Christian Castillo explores the “fuzz” surveillance of a popular San Diego park.

CSUF graduate researcher Giulia Oprea uses the Damron guidebook data to track the shifting ownership of a landmark Long Beach gay bar.

Despite our data reflecting mostly a gay male perspective, what sort of lesbian histories exist within these travel guides? CSUF graduate researcher Laura Fauvor explores sites of queer women in San Francisco.

It’s rare to come across a commercial queer space that is still in operation, it’s even rarer to come across a gay-friendly business that exists in ALL years of our available data.

Despite stereotypes of the South as some inherently ignorant and homophobic place, New Orleans has a vibrant queer culture, and there’s nothing modern about that.

What do the Damron guides tell us about black gay spaces in the South? Are there limitations in exploring race in our data?