Gay Press, Gay Power: The Growth of LGBT Community Newspapers in America ed. by Tracy Baim (review)

Editor Tracy Baim endeavors to provide both a history and contemporary analysis of regional LGBT newspapers and other weekly or bi-weekly print media, such as literature reviews and “zines.” This extensive and prodigious collection of archival historical research and first-person accounts covers the rise of LGBT newspapers from the late 19th century to today, and their influence on establishing agency and power not only in regional gay communities, but the national gay community. This regional influence, in turn, resulted in increased visibility and power on the national stage and in mainstream American society. While there are a number of recent academic works which chart the role that gay media, and especially gay print media, has played in the rising LGBT profile in America, this volume is unique in its central approach to regional papers as a rich source of information about the historical struggle for equal and political social power, often under extreme pressure by a homophobic country. Baim and her co-authors accomplish this by extensive historical research, including rare photographs and reprints of papers, and first-person accounts and interviews by those directly involved in bringing many of these regional newspapers to fruition. Chicago’s vibrant gay community papers are a small focus within the book, which is to be expected given Baim’s work in Chicago media—but this close examination of one region’s many-faceted print media outlets provides a telling case study for gay print media’s struggles and victories in regions nationwide.

The book is organized into several sections, each of which illuminates a different aspect of the impact of regional gay print media. Part One details early history of gay print media and is a detailed overview of many aspects of this history. The reviewer was very interested in the extensive role of foreign societies and newspapers, especially German, in the creation of early 20th century American gay literature—a connection which is not frequently made in other work on gay media. Part Two provides extensive profiles of journalists responsible for the creation of these papers, both via interviews or first-person accounts. Part Three contains a number of chapters which profile longtime, noted regional papers. Part Four, which only contains two chapters, analyzes the impact of advertising on gay newspapers. This smaller section on advertising maintains the same level of documentation and analysis, and includes a timely review of the 2012 “Chik-fil-a” scandal. The final section, Part 5, provides several critical analyses of the role of regional gay newspapers and questions the future of gay print media. Baim concludes in this section that LGBT print media is still viable but needs innovation across several fronts to be sustainable. Each of these sections, although sometimes seeming disparate, successfully functions to provide a relatively comprehensive examination of the historical importance of these newspapers, even if those connections are not always made explicit.

Especially important is this book’s close, thorough attention paid to lesbian-specific newspapers, including a whole chapter by Margaret Rubick on the Daughters of Bilitis’ The Ladder (Ch.4, “Ascending The Ladder”). This careful work on these important lesbian contributions is more extensive than much work in this area, and will prove foundations for scholars researching LGBT print media in the future.

The profiles in Part Two of various LGBT journalists, along with the accompanying pictorial research, elevate this volume from a standard academic work to a central resource. Some of these interviews are reprinted and collated into this volume both to establish a consistent central record, but also to use their experiences as exemplars for historical understanding and inspiration for future journalists. Likewise, the several chapters of Part Three detail the histories of choice regional gay newspapers, which are also both essential to researchers and enlightening for the lay reader. Each publication, as it is profiled here, reflects both the goals and...