Archive of Leather Fraternity Membership Files

Archive of Leather Fraternity Membership Files, Los Angeles, California, 1973-1978.

Approximately 1.0 linear foot composed of: 200 membership files (approx. 190 with 4 page membership application, the majority manuscript, others typed); most with a photograph of the member and at least once piece of additional correspondence, for an approx. total of 1000+ pages and 175 photos, ranging in size from 1-½ x 1 in. to 8 x 10 in., most closer to 3-¼ x 2-¼ in.; 9 applications and membership correspondence loose, now housed in mylar; two administrative files, and one sheet of Leather Fraternity stickers. Occasional wear from handling, a few photos darkened or toned, overall very good.

An exceptional research archive of 200 Leather Fraternity member files, almost all containing a 4 pp. confidential membership application with exhaustive details pertaining to the applicant’s sexual history, fetishes, and fantasies. Fraternity demographics represented a diverse age range, experience level, and sexual identification. Most applications accompanied by at least one required photograph, many with two or three, forming a parallel collection of vernacular self-portrait photography, some of it erotic. Together the files represent an astonishing and intimate catalogue of male homosexuality and kink, all self-described in answer to prompts including “My first sexual experience,” “My first S/M experience,” and “What do you think are your best qualifications for your roles as slave/master?”

The Leather Fraternity began in 1973 as a fee-based confidential “introduction referral service” for gay leathermen in Los Angeles. Creator John Embry (1926-2010) was a serial entrepreneur who used the Fraternity newsletter as a crossmarketing device with his S/M mail-order business, Robert Payne’s Leather Emporium. Two years later, he founded the quintessential leather/BDSM magazine, Drummer, with Jeanne Barney as editor-in-chief. In Drummer’s first issue (June 1975), the Leather Fraternity was described as an “international, membership only, fast growing group of hundreds of gay Leathermen,” who would be “hand-matched based on the criteria in the confidential application.” Fraternity classifieds were an important part of the magazine, and until 1977, one had to be a member to respond.

The importance of the Fraternity and Drummer cannot be overstated; together they provided visibility for “the emerging identity of the ‘new’ homosexual,” a “homomasculine” or “hypomasculine” male, radically different from prevailing effeminate gay stereotypes. The magazine and the businesses associated with it created a network “of men who did not always have a sense of belonging elsewhere in the gay men’s community. It served as a communal forum for often isolated individuals and allowed for existing leather and kink institutions to be more easily identified and accessed. But perhaps most importantly, it generated a common culture and shared language that helped integrate local networks into a more national and international conversation. It gave these men images, stories, information, commentary, products and ideas to jerk off to, to relate to, to identify with, and that served to empower and grow a fledgling network of leathermen.” (1)

For two years before Drummer, Embry’s Fraternity newsletter had been connecting men with corresponding kinks. The application was designed to elicit the utmost specificity regarding appearance, preferred roles, dress, toys, substances, and activities. Invited to use additional sheets of paper if necessary, many files include longer, manuscript accounts of their deepest, idiosyncratic fantasies. The potential members placed an extraordinary amount of trust in the Leather Fraternity and Drummer staff. They provided their real names and addresses during a period when most of the described activities were considered deviant, if not outright illegal. Indeed, from 1975-1976 the core staff of Drummer were under 24hr police surveillance.

Police harassment of Embry, Barney, and others culminated the night of April 10, 1976, when the LAPD raided a Drummer charitable mock “slave auction” at the Mark IV Baths. The police “emancipated” the “slaves” and arrested 40 people for violating an 1899 statute forbidding involuntary servitude. Charges were dropped against most defendants, but four eventually plead guilty to felony pandering, including Embry, Barney, and the porn star Val Martin, who had been acting as the auctioneer.

Two substantial administrative files in the archive document the lead up to the auction and its aftermath. Correspondence between Barney and various members shed light on the ongoing conflict both with the LAPD and internally at Drummer and the Fraternity. Eventually, Embry and Barney split ways: he took Drummer to San Francisco in 1977, initiating a legal battle over the Fraternity membership files and dues. Although Barney’s bid to revive the Leather Fraternity newsletter independent of the magazine was ultimately unsuccessful, these files suggest that she continued to accept new members through 1978 and ended up with most, if not all, of the original application materials.

Files organized by last name and box number, this group including names beginning G-Z. It is difficult to speculate on exactly how many files might have existed, but given Embry’s 1975 claim to “hundreds” of members, we believe this may well represent at least two-thirds of the original membership files. Many with additional correspondence, some with considerably more. Most in regard to satisfaction or lack thereof with the membership; dues; missing issues of Drummer (a free subscription was included with membership); and edits to the encapsulated classified ads. Scattered references to responses written to other members that can be cross-referenced within the archive, a few unopened letters.

More images available on request.

$18,000

(1) Race Bannon, “John Embry’s Inductee Speech: Leather Hall of Fame,” 2014. See also Jack Fritscher, Gay San Francisco: The Rise and Fall of Drummer Magazine, 2013.

34 Photographs of San Francisco Gay Motorcycle Club Events

(Sexuality) (Motorcycle Clubs) (California) 34 Photographs of San Francisco Gay Motorcycle Club Events, ca. 1973-1976. Silver prints, each 5 x 7 in., a few slightly curled, one with a small area of discoloration. Very Good+.

Scarce documentation from San Francisco’s male-only gay motorcycle clubs which emerged in the late 1940s and early 1950s in tandem with leathermen culture. The clubs were greatly influenced by gay veterans’ experience in WWII and Hollywood touchstones like The Wild Ones (1954). The organizations celebrated hypermasculinity (as opposed to prevailing effeminate gay stereotypes), leather fetishism, and BDSM.

They were, above all, social clubs. The MCs provided their members with a safe space for unapologetic sexual expression in a period during which their sexuality was still largely criminalized. They maintained anonymity in their records, and were known for their wild “runs”: multi-day bike trips to nearby wilderness areas and campgrounds—where they partied hard and avoided police surveillance. The groups reached their apex in the 1970s, when there were reportedly over 20 gay MCs in California, including the Satyrs MC (LA), Oedipus MC (LA), Blue Max MC (LA), Rainbow MC (SF), Warlocks MC, Renco (SF), San Francisco Serpents MC, The San Franciscans MC, and the Petaluma Cocks MC (SF). In addition to sponsoring and organizing runs (oftentimes for charity), clubs were identified with their specific bars in San Francisco’s leather district.

Patches, colors, and other graphics in this present group of photos identify members from many San Francisco MCs, suggesting they were taken before or after a multi-club run. A number show the presentation of trophies and prizes, presumably from bike events and competitions during the run, and many include members of the South Pacific MC, a visiting club from Australia. Several famous San Francisco leather clubs on Folsom Street’s “Miracle Mile” may be identified in the photographs, including Boot Camp.

The crowded, carousing scenes represent the uninhibited atmosphere of the halcyon days of San Francisco’s leather scene before HIV/AIDS. Rare, only ONE Archives at USC seems to have similar documentation.

ON HOLD

Atlas de las Nubes para el Servicio meteorológico de la República Mexicana

Pastrana, Manuel E. Atlas de las Nubes para el Servicio meteorológico de la República Mexicana formado por Manuel E. Pastrana i del Observatorio Meteorológico Central de México [...]. Boston, MA: Heliotype Co., 1906. Oblong 4to, [9] leaves, 61, [4] pls.; introduction by Pastrana followed by plates, nos. 1-20, 22, 29, 31-34, 41-58, and 60 in color, very good; stamped publisher’s cloth with marbled endpapers; boards rubbed, corners bumped. Numbered 135 in ink on title, from stated edition of 1000.

The first cloud atlas produced for use by the Mexican meteorological service; most images reproduced from photographs taken at La Escuela Industrial Militar Porfirio Diaz in Morelia, Mexico. At the time of printing, the national meteorological service was comprised of 49 observatories, including one in each state. Each reported by telegraph to the central observatory in Tacubaya. The atlas’s classification and captions follow the recommendations of the 1891 International Meteorological Conference, Munich, and the first International Cloud Atlas (Hildebrandsson, Riggenbach, and Teisserenc de Bort, 1896).

Four US holdings listed in OCLC: UT, UNM, SDSU, and Stanford.

$1500

El Ĉina fotografia arto: kompilita de la redakcio de “Ĉina Fotografio.”

(Photography) (China) (Esperanto) El Ĉina fotografia arto: kompilita de la redakcio de “Ĉina Fotografio.” [Beijing], China: Ĉina Esperanto-Ligo, 1963. Square 8vo, 112 pp.; chiefly illus., a few in color, lightly toned with a few small internal marks; publisher’s boards in pictorial dust jacket, corners bumped, dust jacket worn with significant losses.

Anthology of Chinese photography, published by the Chinese Esperanto Association of Peking (Beijing). The Esperanto introduction describes the national character of the emerging Chinese photographic style, one in which art is always in service to the workers, and the communist cause. Photography may also be a “weapon against imperialism.” Full-page reproductions with captions in Esperanto, photographers identified. Various genres represented, including landscape.

Single North American holding in OCLC: UCSD.

$30

Attenzione! Si avvicinano i “liberatori” anglo-assassini…

(Propaganda - Fascist) Attenzione! Si avvicinano i “liberatori” anglo-assassini… [Milan?], nd., ca. 1943. Poster printed in black and red, approx. 22-¾ x 19-¼ in.; toned, creases from vertical and horizontal folds, splitting at center; edges a bit worn, some foxing verso.

Poster warning inhabitants in German-controlled northern Italy of the dangers of the advancing Allied forces. “Reds,” “Jews,” and “hyenas of the air,” are coming for Italian women and children, converting them to their side with sweets and cigarettes.

OCLC locates one holding, at the Hoover.

$225

Elezioni Politiche 1913. Noi Anarchici.

(Anarchism) Elezioni Politiche 1913. Noi Anarchici … Broadside, 13 x 18-½ in.; creased, bottom edge roughly trimmed, typographic irregularities. Np, nd [1912-1913].

Anarchist broadside protesting the quasi-universal male suffrage granted to Italian men over 30 by the “moderately progressive” government of Giovanni Giolitti in 1912. The enfranchisement extended the vote to the very poor and illiterate, with the dramatic impact of trebling the electorate (from 3 to almost 9 million voters) in advance of the 1913 elections. The far left parties (Estrema) did not support the franchise; here anarchists protest it as a bourgeois “swindle,” keeping intact economic tyranny and solidifying the power of the political elite.

Italian anarchists were influenced by Mikhail Bakunin, who wrote “the whole system of representative government is an immense fraud resting on this fiction [of political liberty in the popular vote] ... Political power means domination.” (In fact, the “democratized” 1913 elections resulted in no representative gains by the revolutionary or working class parties of Estrema.)

$175

Collection of Documents Regarding Post-Liberation Italian Governance and Elections

[Partito Liberale Italiano; Democrazia Cristiana; et al.]. Collection of Italian Political Pamphlets, Leaflets, and Documents Regarding Post-Liberation Governance, Elections, and the First Italian Republic, ca. 1945-1946.

Comprised of: three mimeographed documents issued in December 1945 in reference to a proclamation by Prime Minister Alcide de Gasperi shortly after his election, one the proclamation, and two from members of the Allied Commission; three Democrazia Cristiana leaflets, ca. 1945, one printed the day of Mussolini’s death; eight issues (with five duplicates) of the Quadrini del Partito Liberale, by Luigi Einaudi, Paolo Serini, Benedetto Croce, and Marcello Soleri, and others, some reissued by the PLI Sezione Piemontese, with two PLI leaflets, one printing the lyrics to the patriotic anthem “Arise Piedmonte.” Turin. Most 1945, a few 1943-1948.

Quadrini del Partito Liberale not found in OCLC.

$350

Grand Torneo Internazionale di Lotte Feminili al Salone Margherita

(Women) (Sport) Grand Torneo Internazionale di Lotte Feminili al Salone Margherita. Rome, 1912. Concertina booklet, closed: 5-½ x 3-⅜ in., illus. with ten portraits of the fighters, from England, Europe, Russia, and the US; some usual wear, esp. at folds.

Promotional booklet for a women’s wrestling tournament held an evening variety show at a well-known Roman theater. Photographs of each contestant are reproduced with captions identifying their last name, nationality, and weight. The earnest, athletic presentation of the “national champions” in this booklet was unusual for a sport regarded largely as entertainment. This style of presentation may have been related to contemporary interest in the international competition of the V Summer Olympiad, which opened the same month

We could not locate any other record of the tournament or the participants. Women’s wrestling was not included as an Olympic sport until 2004.

$900

30 Years of Amalgamated Cooperative Housing, 1927-1957

(Cooperative Housing) (Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, AFL-CIO) Amalgamated Housing Corporation. 30 Years of Amalgamated Cooperative Housing, 1927-1957 [title from cover]. [New York]: [Amalgamated Housing Corporation], [1958]. 4to, [30] pp.; profusely illustrated, reproducing b/w photos and color charts; in stapled pictorial wraps, lightly worn, VG.

Sponsored in 1927 by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union, the Amalgamated Housing Corporation was the first limited equity housing cooperative in the United States. From its first site in the Bronx it eventually grew to encompass additional communities in Manhattan, including Amalgamated Dwellings and Hillman Houses on the Lower East Side.

The narration of Amalgamated’s success is accompanied by photos, maps, floor plans, and infographics that exemplify mid-century graphic design. Introductions by Jacob Potofsky and Abraham Kazan.

$150

Sous la jupe: illustré

Maindouce, G. Sous la jupe: illustré. Paris: Les Éditions du Couvre-Feu, n.d. [ca. 1933-1935]. 8vo, 115 pp.; erotic fiction illustrated with 28 b/w pls., most printed recto, some also verso; in orig. wrapper with color d.j., d.j. beginning to split at spine, edges worn, else very good. D.j. with misprint “Nombreuses illustrations sujestives” [sic] described by Pia.

Éditions Couvre-Feu was one of a number of imprints founded by Léon [a.k.a. Victor?] Vidal under the larger umbrella of his erotic publishing and fashion group, Société des Éditions Gauloises. Couvre-Feu specialized in pseudonymous fetish, sadomasochist, and bondage literature; illustrated with fetish photography by Studio Biederer and from the archives of Vidal’s other business, the lingerie company Diana-Slip, whose catalogue included anonymous fetish images by Brassaï, Kertesz, and Roger Schall.

Several editions bearing the title “Sous la jupe” were issued by Couvre-Feu between 1933-1935. They differ considerably from this rather avant-garde example and priority has not been convincingly established: one was unillustrated, another included extracts of several erotic stories with only scattered illustrations, a third was a promotional list of erotic publications, and an English variation was issued by Éditions Richepanse in 1935. Nevertheless, it is possible to match some of the “detourned” images in this artistic edition to others by the Studio Biederer and from the Diana-Slip catalogues.

Though recorded in Pia, P., Livres de l’Enfer, this version and d.j. seemingly uncommon, OCLC locates no holdings of this edition in North America.

$450

Radioactivo: Poderoso Fertilizador y Estimulante Para La Vegetación

Banco del Radium [Banque du Radium, Paris]. Radioactivo: Poderoso Fertilizador y Estimulante Para La Vegetación [title from wrapper]. Barcelona: [Banque du Radium] and [R. Cumellas], [1915]. 8vo, 8 pp.; in Spanish, some translated from French, printed in green, with historiated initials, near fine.

Attractive art nouveau promotional booklet for radium soil enrichment, from a period of explosive popular interest in radium. The text compares the “therapeutic” action of radium in agricultural applications to those in human medical treatments—combating unknown “infirmities” and cultivating new vigor.

Published by a Spanish representative for the radio-agricultural firm Banque du Radium, Paris. BDR was established by a friend and sponsor of Marie Curie, the French industrialist Emile Armet de Lisle. Armet de Lisle also published the journal Le Radium.

Uncommon, we locate no other examples of Banque du Radium or Banco del Radium promotional materials in OCLC or the trade.

$225

En La Ruta De La Amistad. México 68: Programa cultural de la XIX Olimpiada

Comité Organizador de los Juegos de la XIX Olimpiada. En La Ruta de La Amistad. México 68: Programa cultural de la XIX Olimpiada. México, D.F.: 1968. Spanish edition. Square 8vo, [44] pp.; each artist’s project illus. in b/w with route map and bios, sl. toned; in pictorial color wrappers with design attributed to Lance Wyman, extremities rubbed, fore-edge thumbed; good.

Catalogue of an ambitious public sculpture project designed to “bring contemporary art and the public together through total planning.” All the works were commissioned by an Olympic Committee and executed in concrete. Participants included: (in order of appearance) Ángela Gurría; Willi Gutmann; Miloslav Chlupáč; Kioshi Takahashi; Pierre Székely; Gonzalo Fonseca; Costantino Nivola; Jacques Moeschal; Todd Williams; Grzegorz Kowalski; Clement Meadmore; Herbert Bayer; Joop J Beljon; Itzhak Danziger; Olivier Seguin; Muhhammad Maliihi; Helen Escobedo; and Jorge Dubón. The monumental works lined the “Route of Friendship” leading to the Olympic Stadium. Most remain in their original sites, despite being abandoned by the government.

A scarce iteration of the iconic ‘68 Olympic graphics. New scholarship credits Beatrice Trueblood, director of Olympic publications, and the architect Pedro Ramirez Vazquez, for the design, in addition to Wyman.

$325

Rauschenberg: Selections

Rauschenberg, Robert. Rauschenberg: Selections. Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Fort Worth Art Center Museum, January 5 – February 2, 1969. Fort Worth, TX: Fort Worth Art Center Museum, [1968]. 4to, [46] leaves, incl. intro, descriptive and critical “collage,” [12] plates with b/w reproductions of artworks from the exhibition, exh. checklist, and bio; in orig. pictorial wraps, spine reinforced with tape, splitting at foot; ex-library with shelf mark sticker to front cover.

In a short intro, the museum’s director, Henry T. Hopkins, writes that he wanted to bring a substantial exhibition of the artist’s work to the state where he was born (and where it had rarely been seen). After meeting the artist to discuss the catalogue and face the “vexing problem of more words on art,” they decided to create a kind of collage of previously published writing. “Ideally the mild frustration produced by reading it will be a reminder of the interplay between art and life and as such, a reflection of Rauschenberg’s chosen realm.”

Rauschenberg put similar ideas to work in his well-known Abrams monograph, published the following year.

$759

Aire. No. 1 (Junio 1937) through No. 4 (Primavera 1938) (all published)

Aire. No. 1 (Junio 1937) through No. 4 (Primavera 1938) (all published). Barcelona: N.p., 1937-1938. 4to, 12-1/2 x 9-3/8 in., four issues: [48], [72], [74], [76] pp.; full-page illustrations throughout, incl. b/w reproductions, experimental typography and design, numerous multicolored printing techniques, with overlays and varied papers, corners bumped with a few creases and scattered toning to interior, No. 1 with horizontal edge loss on two leaves not affecting text or images, No. 4 with small dampstain to forecorner on a few central leaves, not affecting text or images; spiral-bound color pictorial wraps, Nos. 2 and 4 a bit foxed and worn at the edges and wire, No. 1 with small closed tear at foot of front wrap.

A complete run of “one of the most luxurious and visually dynamic publications of the [Spanish Civil] war.” This short-lived avant-garde aviation serial was published during the war under the direction of the Republican Air Force. The contents are antifascist and literary, promoting solidarity with the Popular Front, the USSR, and Mexico. Wartime aviation news is interspersed with articles on artistic and cultural topics, poetry, photo essays, and advertisements. The first issue’s somber and poetic epigraph belies the exuberant graphics: “Al hombre le nacieron alas … Cuando conquisto el cielo, quiso destruir la tierra.”

Artist Salvador Ortiga, known for his political graphics, was responsible for the dramatic covers and probably much of the design. Ortiga was arrested at the end of the war and died in a notorious Nationalist prison camp in 1939.

An oft-cited highlight of Guerra Civil print culture, rare complete. OCLC lists three North American holdings: UI-UC, UPenn, and Princeton.

See Jordan Mendelson, Revistas y Guerra, 1936-1939, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, 2007.

$2800

Collection of 31 photographs of Chilean modern dance pioneer Andrée Haas

[Modern Dance] [Chile]. Collection of 31 photographs of Chilean modern dance pioneer Andrée Haas. Comprised of 21 medium format prints: each trimmed to approx. 9 x 6-1/2 in.; and nine other prints: seven approx. 5 x 7 in. and two smaller; together with an undated playbill for a Andrée Haas performance at the Teatro Municipal, Santiago de Chile: 12-3/4 x 9-1/8 in. Fourteen of the photographs by Ignacio Hochhäusler, identified by recto ink signatures and/or studio stamps verso; six by Georges [Jorge] Sauré, signed in ink recto. Most good with light rubbing or toning, some with adhesive or adhered paper verso, a few edge worn, two with small losses at edge. Santiago de Chile: ca. 1930-1940.

Early modern dance in Chile was influenced greatly by the Swiss dancer Andrée Haas (1908-1981), a student of Émile-Jaques Dalcroze and founder of the first modern dance program at the University of Chile in 1928. Along with her colleague Elsa Martin, who studied with Mary Wigman, Haas taught new approaches to dance influenced by modern music, psychoanalysis, and personal expression.

Haas included coursework in gymnastics, eurhythmics, free dancing, choreography, pantomime, and other techniques drawn from Dalcroze, Wigman, and Rudolf Laban. As the only modern dance teacher in Chile until the late 1930s, her classes were the principal origin for most of the first generation of Chilean modern ballet dancers, including Malucha Solarí. Her program and many well-reviewed performances in Santiago during the 1930s have been described as a critical element of the explosion in public appetite for avantgarde arts in Chile during this period. These performances came well before Kurt Joos’s South American tour in 1940, often described, perhaps unjustly, as the seminal moment in Chilean modern dance history.

This group of photographs documents the expressive and gestural movement that Haas popularized in Chile. Many of the prints are by Georges [Jorge] Sauré and Ignacio Hochhäusler, both well-known portraitists of Chilean artists and intelligentsia.

Most of the images are identifiable as Haas, ca. 1930, from a similar image in the catalogue of the Salon des Independientes, 1931. A few photos somewhat later, two group photographs, and two headshots of other performers, probably Elsa Martin.

See María José Cifuentes, Historia Social de la Danza en Chile (Santiago: LOM Ediciones, 2007); Andrée Haas, “La Escuela de Danza del Instituto de Extension Musical,” Revista Musical Chilena, Año I, No. 7-8 (1945): 19-26; Eduardo Lira Espejo, “La Danza Sintesis Expresiva,” Revista de Arte Vol. 3, No. 13 (1937): 22-26; and Yolanda Montecino de Aguirre, “El ballet nacional chileno: perspectiva histórica y humana,” Revista Musical Chilena, Año 16, No. 80 (1962): 9-30.

$2250

COLLECTION OF PROPAGANDA PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE SECCIÓN FEMENINA

40 silver gelatin prints: 36 approx. 5 x 7”, near fine, all stamped verso identifying two SS-PK photographers, [Bruno] Wisniewski and Ege, some with a “Sachregister” stamp and numbered pencil annotations verso; 3 smaller, approx. 3 x 4”, good; one 4 x 6” mounted to toned card, rubbed with a few scratches.

The Sección Femenina [SF] was officially recognized by General Franco following the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939. Its mandate was to organize and educate women to be full participants in the reconstruction of the nation according to Falangist/fascist principles. To this end the SF had to reconcile politically conservative and religious (Catholic) doctrine with the modern social realities of the 1940s. It found itself in the awkward position of arguing strongly for the higher education of women and girls while rejecting “feminist intellectualism”. Similarly, it had to promote the ideal woman at home while providing a model for women whose membership in the workforce was an economic necessity.

The model of ideal femininity central to this mission had to be flexible enough to contain these contradictions. The photos in this collection exemplify this elastic image of womanhood, depicting SF leaders and members engaged in the wide variety of activities promoted by the organization. These include history and music classes, field hockey, cooking, sewing, childcare, and patriotic events. As a group they reflect the inherent ambivalence of the SF: an independent and powerful network of educated women that offered its members “an unusual level of public activism, both professionally and politically”, while preaching traditional ideology.

The Nazi Waffen-SS Propagandakopanien (SS-PK) was formed in 1938 to provide wartime propaganda to domestic German audiences. SS-PK photographers were embedded in armed divisions and diplomatic corps; these photos of the Sección Femenina were probably taken between October 1940 (when Hitler and Franco met in southern Spain) and late 1941, when relations between the two countries deteriorated as it became clear Spain would not officially enter the war. The names of the two photographers appear in other SS-PK records.

$2250