Mapping queer America in Damron Guides: Publisher Gina Gatta in a talk at the Bob Mizer Foundation

Not long ago in a gay galaxy not too far away, men and women relied on pocket-sized books to navigate the terrain of U.S. cities as they traveled. The Damron Guides became indispensable in our quest to find friendly hotels, fun bars, glamorous nightclubs, cruisy bathhouses, bookstores and secretive locales.

What became of them, now that pinpoint navigation is a phone click away? And what are the cultural aspects of the historic guides? That’s the subject of a chat at the Bob Mizer Foundation with publisher Gina Gatta and travel writer Jim Gladstone on July 18.
“Mapping Queer America: A Conversation with Gina Gatta and Jim Gladstone on the Legacy of the Damron Guides,” takes place on Friday, July 18 from 7pm to 8:30pm in the Main Gallery of the Bob Mizer Foundation, 920 Larkin Street, San Francisco.

For more than five decades, the Damron Men’s Travel Guide served as a lifeline, mapping out the hidden networks of gay gathering places across the U.S. Gatta published the Damron guides at offices here in San Francisco for more than 25 years. Gladstone, a cultural journalist and Bay Area Reporter contributor, has also written many travel features.

Together, they will explore the origins and cultural impact of the Damron guides, tracing their roots from Bob Damron’s handwritten notes on cross-country road trips in the 1960s to their emergence as indispensable resources for queer travelers navigating a hostile landscape. Visual materials from the archives, personal reflections, and a Q&A session with the audience will be included in the program. An online Zoom link will be made available for at-home viewing.

“The Damron guides were much more than directories,” said Gatta in a press statement. “They were instruments of survival and community. They gave people hope, and a way to find one another in a time when visibility could be dangerous.”

“The first time I visited the Mizer Foundation a couple years ago, it struck me that there was a real affinity between Mizer’s work and the history of the Damron guides, which I’d been interested in for years as one of the artifacts of a queer culture that has virtually disappeared in the internet era,” said Gladstone.

“Many of the same men who found visual representation and validation of their fantasies in Mizer’s photos between the 1940s and the 1980s were able to find one another in real life with the help of the Damron guides, which brought them out of isolation and invisibility,” he added. “That Gina, a lesbian, oversaw this touchstone of gay male culture for longer than Bob Damron himself, is another compelling twist in the guides’ already fascinating history.”

This program is part of the Foundation’s ongoing mission to preserve and present underrepresented histories in queer visual and cultural life. Seating is limited, and advance registration is strongly encouraged.

Mapping Queer America: A Conversation with Gina Gatta and Jim Gladstone on the Legacy of the Damron Guides, July 18, 7pm, Bob Mizer Foundation, 920 Larkin Street. Free (donations welcome) | RSVP encouraged at  https://bobmizer.org/calendar/jim-gladstone-gina-gatta