West Hollywood's Gay Pride Parade
In honor of the recent Supreme Court ruling that same-sex couples have the right to marry, here is a look at West Hollywood’s Gay Pride Parade as documented through the years by the Los Angeles Times. (Blog post by Jen O'Leary)
Gay Pride Parade on Hollywood Blvd. in Los Angeles, 1977. Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive, Negative 285693. UCLA Library Special Collections
Gay Pride Parade, West Hollywood, 1983. Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive, Negative 298763. UCLA Library Special Collections.
Women bikers in Gay Pride Parade, West Hollywood, 1986. Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive, Negative 303874. UCLA Library Special Collections.
West Hollywood's Gay Pride Parade
In honor of the recent Supreme Court ruling that same-sex couples have the right to marry, here is a look at West Hollywood’s Gay Pride Parade as documented through the years by the Los Angeles Times.
Twyla Tharp’s Medium of Choice, Television
On page 27 of the vol. 31, no. 13, March 25, 1983 issue of TV Guide, choreographer, Twyla Tharp talks about a tool that she feels is essential to her work, television. Tharp comments on her vision of the use of videodiscs, and predicts that dancers will make and market such discs, “the way recording artists do. People will then have control over when they look at dance and the kind of emotional mood they’re in.” She goes on to state, “I can’t do a piece that doesn’t become a television piece.” A good example of the benefits of the use of television is her work, “The Catherine Wheel” which was broadcast on PBS’s Great Performances. She compares the version of the work, originally
done live on stage, where “the faces and a lot of the acting were virtually invisible to anybody back more than 10 rows” to the perfected televised version. The television broadcast resolved that visual experience problem, allowing for a more seamless incorporation of video effects of fireworks and a computer-generated dancer, while also providing audience members an experience of the whole work, including the performers’ facial expressions and acting.
Written by Peggy Alexander - Curator, Performing Arts, Library Special Collections.
Old Mexico: 1892 Photo Album
Left: Street scene in León
Right: The stone sails at Guadalupe
Library Special Collections has recently acquired a spectacular album of photographs of Mexico from 1892. It contains 185 photographs by Charles A. Mayo and J.E. Weed who were based in Chicago, Illinois. The album was purchased with funds generously provided by the University Librarian Discretionary Fund.
Birdseye view of León (2-part panorama)
Grafton's Tours, of Chicago, ran annual trips to "Old Mexico," and 1892 was the fourth year that they ran the trip. Thy ran their own special train, complete with a choice of sleeping accommodations and full dining cars. The brochure for the tour was at pains to point out that every possible detail of the journey was taken care of by the company, and that absolutely all expenses of the trip were included in the initial cost - $350 - allowing people to get the very most out of being in Mexico on the tour. Grafton's 1893 guide, "Grafton's Tours through Mexico, California and the Sandwich Islands," states that "The refined character of these tours, and the first-class manner in which they are conducted, attract as patrons the very best class of society people."
The tour party at the site of execution of Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph, Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico.
The tour lasted four weeks, and was designed to allow Americans to see the very best that Mexico had to offer, and according to the guide "These tours do not merely cover the direct line of travel between the Rio Grande and the City of Mexico, but diverge and penetrate sections of the sister republic which tourists traveling on regular trains miss seeing. The object in visiting a foreign country is to see as much of it as possible, and these tours have been arranged accordingly."
The guide also noted, as a sign of the times, "It will also be observed that Sunday railway travel is omitted - a feature that will commend itself to many."
The firm of May & Weed acted as "special artists" for Grafton's Tours. The firm accompanied the tour, taking photographs along the way. Customers could then make a selection from the photographs taken and then have them bound in to their own personal keepsake of the journey. The tour stopped in 41 places, including Mexico City, Cholula, Aguascalientes, Guadalajara, Guanajuato, Leon, Puebla, Queretaro, and Zacatecas, all of which are shown in the album.
Birdseye view of Guanajuato (2-part panorama)
Mt. Ixtaccihuatl from Amecameca
Street vendors in Puebla
Pagoda in the plaza in Puebla
The photographs are of particular interest, and of great value, to researchers for all the pictures of Mexican people going about their daily lives. There are views of the townspeople of Aguascalientes, bathing, doing laundry, and swimming in the acequia or canal leading from the town's well-known hot spring, as well as busy street views of Leon, Puebla, Mexico City and Zacatecas. There are also portraits of milk vendors, ox cart drivers, a man and wife perched on a horse, families outside their homes, water and wine carriers, people bathing and washing clothes, a crowd at a fountain, market vendors, cigarette factory workers, women making tortillas, guitar players, burro drivers and many others. Other subjects include railroads, volcanoes, waterfalls, aqueducts, bullfighting, cathedrals, Chapultepec Castle, and the site of the execution of Emperor Maximilian.
Mexican milk peddler and ox cart
Top: Waiting their turn at the fountain
Bottom: Fruit stall at the market
Top: Interior of cigarette factory
Bottom: Loaded donkeys
The library catalog record, with a full description of the album, can be found here. To page the album to view it in our reading room, click on the "Request material" button near the top of the record.
- By Simon Elliott
