Recap: California Pride Pinning Workshop in San Francisco

Posted on by Kerri Young
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The Lexington Club Archival Project, preserving the memories of an iconic lesbian bar in San Francsico, presenting their work. The lovely California Historical Society served as our venue for the night.
Lauren Tabak of the Lexington Club Archival Project, presenting on how they are working to preserve the memories of San Francisco’s iconic lesbian bar. The lovely California Historical Society (a partner on the project) served as our venue for the night.

Last night, we held the first workshop for California Pride, a new project to map out important LGBTQ places and stories in the state of California. With collaborators the Lexington Club Archival Project, GLBT Historical Society, and Bay Area Lesbian History Archives Project on hand, the aim of night was to introduce attendees to the project on Historypin and facilitate a story-collecting session focusing on LGBTQ places in California meaningful to them. We called it a “pinning party” and it was certainly a lot of fun! Our friends at the California Historical Society (CHS), a partner on the project, were kind enough to host the event in their exhibition space in downtown San Francisco, and helped us organize the event along with California Pride power co-founders Donna Graves and Shayne Watson.

After great introductions from CHS, the Lexington Project, Shayne, and Donna, we broke into smaller groups for our story-collecting session. Thanks to outreach from Donna and Shayne, we had over 7 fantastic volunteers including students from UC Berkeley and friends from SF Heritage and the National Park Service. Each volunteer helped to facilitate conversations in each group and the filling-out of story sheets we created for the night; these sheets asked for information specific to pinning on Historypin such as location and date, and stories shared will either contribute to a new pin or help enrich an existing pin in the project.

A highlight of the night was the end of the event, where Donna invited volunteers and participants to come up to the mic and share a story heard or told as part of their individual groups. This was a great way to tie-together the session, and an opportunity for the entire room to share in some of the stories collected throughout the night. Overall, this was a fantastic event that helped bring together those in the local community both actively preserving and interested in preserving LGBTQ history, while introducing how participants could continue sharing their stories on Historypin. Hopefully this is first of many, we’ve already received interest from Sacramento and Los Angeles. Thanks to all who helped organize!

(right) a partial view of the story sheet that we distributed for the event, and (left) a very blurry photo of an attendee holding one.
(right) a partial view of the story sheet that we distributed for the event, and (left) a (unfortunately) blurry photo of an attendee holding one!
Lenn Keller poses with a board of memories she brought in as part of the Bay Area Lesbian History Archives Project.
Lenn Keller poses with a board of memories she brought in as part of the Bay Area Lesbian History Archives Project. Photo credit Matthew S. Bajko.
Attendee Moses Corrette posing with his pin on Historypin after we recorded his story about the house where the "guerilla bar movement" was formed, where members of the LGBTQ community would meet once-a-month and pick out non-queer bars in which to gather and hang out.
Moses Corrette posing with his pin on Historypin after we recorded his story about the house where the “guerilla bar movement” was formed, where members of the LGBTQ community would meet once-a-month and pick out non-queer bars in which to gather and hang out. Though not planned for the night, I managed to live-pin Moses’ story with my laptop, and we were even able to do some quick-fire research on places to help jog some memories.
Attendee Doug shares a raucous story of reclaiming Halloween for the LGBTQ community in San Francisco's Castro district.
Attendee Drew shares a funny and powerful story of reclaiming Halloween for the LGBTQ community in San Francisco’s Castro district.
Posing with my fantastic story-group members (from left) Xan, Patricia, and Zoe, who shared wonderful stories of their LGBTQ activism in the last few decades, not only in California but around the country. I felt lucky to be able to spend time with these fantastic women and to help record some of their stories onto Historypin.
Posing with my fantastic story-group members (from left) Xan, Patricia, and Zoe, who shared wonderful stories of their LGBTQ activism in the last few decades, not only in California but around the country. I felt lucky to be able to spend time with these fantastic women and to help record some of their stories onto Historypin.
Posing with the night's great organizers Shayne Watson (middle) and Donna Graves (right), who have taken years of work on San Francisco's Historic Context Statement for LGBTQ history to now a new project collaboration over Historypin to collecto stories from the wider CA LGBTQ community.
Posing with the night’s great organizers Shayne Watson (middle) and Donna Graves (right), who have taken years of work on San Francisco’s Historic Context Statement for LGBTQ history to now a new project collaboration over Historypin.