Mabel Hampton and Lesbian New York
TODAY'S POST CONTINUES OUR LOOK AT LGBTQ CONEY ISLAND, BEGUN AUGUST 16. IT DRAWS ON THE WORK OF HUGH RYAN, WHO HIMSELF DRAWS FROM THE LESBIAN HERSTORY ARCHIVES.
One hundred years ago today … Mabel Hampton, a seventeen-year-old African American, had recently moved to Harlem. She started working as a stage dancer in Coney Island, which led to her introduction into lesbian culture–even to her learning the word lesbian.
Hampton in 1920. LESBIAN HERSTORY ARCHIVES.
As Ryan recounts, Hampton, who was born in North Carolina and migrated to Harlem in childhood, had been living in Jersey City with an adopted family. At seventeen, she began working as a domestic in Manhattan. Newly independent, she started a career in vaudeville and burlesque, dancing with a troupe based on Coney Island.
Hampton and her dance troupe.. LESBIAN HERSTORY ARCHIVES.
Around this time she had a formative sexual experience with a married woman, whom she credited with helping her understand her sexuality. To Ryan, Hampton's experience is representative of a cultural shift. "Hampton's generation was the first for which this was widely possible. For the first time, queer people such as Hampton had an avuncular older generation to educate them." (109)
Hampton would become "a fixture in the burgeoning queer scenes" around NYC (106). Coney Island was integral to her development. Ryan: "Hampton met many other queer women, black and white, married and single, while she worked at Coney Island."
Sources/further reading:
Ryan, Hugh. When Brooklyn Was Queer. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2019.
WRITTEN BY JONATHAN GOLDMAN, AUGUST 16, 2020.
TAGS: LGBTQ, queer, gay, history, sex, Brooklyn, baths, bathhouses, beach