The mystery of the 1957 gay wedding photos
Dear Gentlemen, Your 60-year-old Wedding Pics are Ready
In 1957, a young man went to a photo shop on the corner of North Broad Street and Allegheny Avenue to have his wedding photos developed. The photos captured the usual moments: the exchange of rings in front of witnesses, the first kiss and gyrate, the cutting of the cake and the opening of gifts.
Prefer the audio version of this story? Listen to this article in CitizenCast below:
But the young man would never see them. That’s because the photos depict him in a dedication ceremony with another man, and unbeknownst to him, the store manager had a policy of withholding developed photos if he deemed them “inappropriate” — as he did these.
The photos, though, lived on because the manager of the shop had another policy: Staff were allowed to do whatever they pleased with confiscated pictures. An employee held on to the photos, which her daughter discovered in her Cherry Hill home 60 years later, after she passed.
“My mother had a somewhat photographic memory for faces and retained these in the event the customers who dropped them off ever came back to the shop so that she could provide them to the customers on the sl
Uncovered Wedding Photos Depict Queer Marriage Pre-Legalization
LinkCulture
In order to have their passion plan (a show called The Mystery of the 1957 Gay Wedding Photos) made, a trio of writers, filmmakers and producers is seeking information about a decades-old event. In 1957 Philadelphia, a roll of photographs—depicting two grooms getting hitched in a compact apartment, with the blinds drawn, surrounded by guests—was developed, but never got back to its owners. An act of joyous defiance, this wedding wasn’t legal (the Supreme Court only recognized the right for LGBTQ+ people to marry five years ago) but was clearly a merry occasion, with the couple kissing, dancing, cutting cake and opening gifts. Now the search for the couple, who would be in their 80s or 90s, is on. As filmmaker PJ Palmer says, “There is a very rich history that’s been suppressed. I want as a child [that] I had seen family photos of a marriage like this. I would have felt more normal as a kid. I would have known that I was OK.” View some of the photos at BBC.
COOL HUNTING always gets permission to exploit the images we publish; however, as an independent publication, we cannot bear t Decades before homosexual marriage became legal anywhere in the US, same-sex couples were committing themselves to each other in front of friends and loved ones. Few records of these ceremonies existed - until now, writes Jonathan Berr. In 1957, a man dropped off a roll of film at a pharmacy in Philadelphia. But the developed photos were never returned to their owners. The pictures appear to depict a gay wedding, nearly 50 years before same-sex marriage was legal anywhere in the US and almost 60 years before it became a federally-recognised right. Now, a trio of gay producers and writers are trying to distinguish the grooms to learn their story and to locate out whether a pharmacy employee balked at providing the snaps because they objected to their subject. The writers are documenting their endeavors in a life show The Mystery of the 1957 Gay Wedding Photos. The programme, which doesn't yet hold a platform to call home, is being produced in conjunction with Endemol Shine Group, whose shows include Vast Brother, The Biggest Loser and Utmost Makeover: Home Edition. ER and Law & Order: SVU writer and producer Newal Baer is teaming up with LGBTQ drama series producer P.J. Palmer and LA writer Michael J. Wolfe to build a docuseries titled The Mystery of the 1957 Gay Wedding Photos. The photos first appeared online in 2013 and were later published online by The Advocate in 2018 and in early 2019. So what is the actual story they are looking to tell? LGBTQ activists and historians are currently on the hunt to find a gay couple who had a wedding in 1957. While the 1971 marriage between Richard John “Jack” Baker and Michael McConnell is considered the first government-recognized homosexual marriage in the U.S., many same-sex couples held weddings of their possess to celebrate their relationships. https://twitter.com/cgdhopkins/status/1153372467882336257?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1153372467882336257&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthehill.com%2Fblogs%2Fblog-briefing-room%2Fnews%2F454935-search-is-on-for-mystery-gay-couple-after-archives-uncover-the It seems one such couple did so in 1957. They then tried to get the photos from the wedding developed in a North Philadelphia drugstore. Unfortunately, the business owner The happiness was etched on faces of the two grooms holding hands during their vows, as they ceremoniously slice the cake, shared their first kiss, opened presents and danced with friends. But while the occasion was joyous, the shadow of 1950s America, where male lover rights were unrecognized and legal same-sex marriage was many decades away, was present. The window shades at the apartment remained firmly shuttered. Nonetheless, love most couples do, one of the men took the photos to the neighborhood drug store to be developed sometime in 1957. As far as Bob Skiba knows, the bloke never came back to his local shop to pick the photos up. Skiba, a curator with the John J Wilcox Jr Archives of Philadelphia, which now owns some of the photos, said the store owner had deemed them 'inappropriate' because there were shots of two men kissing. However, an employee kept hold of them. 'She thought if she held on to them, she would recognize them and be able to become the photos to the rightful owner,' Skiba told DailyMailThe mystery photos of a 1957 lgbtq+ wedding
The mystery of the 1957 gay wedding photographs: Philadelphia archivists search for couple in black and ivory pictures 60 years after a drugstore owner deemed them 'inappropriate'