Advertising in LGBTQ History: Timeline
A Chronology of Advertising in LGBTQ History
1952
American Export Lines. "Every voyage a Gay Cruise..." 1952.[1]
Illustration
Burr Tillstrom, the puppeteer, and his two puppets, Kukla and Ollie, surrounded by seven people. In back of Tillstrom, two men together. To the right: two women. To the left, three figures, two clearly women. The figure all the way on the left could be a masculine woman or a man.
Copy
"On the great new Sun-Liners . . . you enjoy . . . a gay, friendly carefree informality amid every comfort and service that AMerican ingenuity can provide."
Burr Tillstrom
According to the The Saugatuck-Douglas Historical Society, Burr Tillstrom was a gay man who lived in that area of West Michigan, "one of the Midwest's oldest and most popular gay/lesbian destinations." The Society website states: "By the 1920s many gays and lesbians had taken up summer vacation living here. Some were well known - such as . . . Burr Tillstrom, the Chicago television puppeteer in the 1960s".[2]
Interpretation
The information above suggests that the headline ""Every voyage a Gay Cruise..." and the copy referring to "a gay, friendly carefree informality" were an inside joke on a public for whom the word "gay" had no connotations of "homosexual". The joke may have extended to the illustration and the positioning of the two men and two women on the left, and the ambiguously sexed figure on the far right.
Notes
- ↑ Accessed April 2, 2011 froom the website of Duke University Library. For a high resolution copy click here.
- ↑ Accessed April 2, 2011 from: Saugatuck-Douglas Historical Society: Gay History
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