← New Books Network
New Books Network
James Sears, "Queering Rehoboth Beach: Beyond the Boardwalk" (Temple UP, 2024)
00:56:04
Loading summary
Transcript78 lines
- [00:00]
Percy Jackson
My name is Percy Jackson.
- [00:02]
Dr. James Sears
Getting in trouble is like breathing for me.
- [00:04]
Narrator/Advertiser
The hit series returns to Disney and Hulu.
- [00:07]
Dr. James Sears
The danger the camp is under is greater than you can possibly imagine. For the key to our survival, three of you must quest to the Sea of Monsters. Let's go do the impossible.
- [00:21]
I'm not gonna let some stupid monsters stand in my way. Percy Jackson and the Olympians. New season now on Disney and Hulu. Learn more@disneyplus.com whatson@ New Balance, we believe.
- [00:34]
Percy Jackson
If you run, you're a runner.
- [00:40]
However you choose to do it.
- [00:44]
Because when you're not worried about doing things the right way.
- [00:49]
You'Re free to discover your way. And that's what running is all about. Run your way@newbalance.com Running.
- [01:01]
IKEA Advertiser
At IKEA, your dreams can come true. Well, maybe not the ones where you're being chased by a monster. We're talking about kitchen drinks and there are IKEA products and solutions for all of them, whether it's a whole new kitchen, a statement glassware set, or just new cutlery. If you got big dreams or small dreams and any size of budget, IKEA can help you bring them to Life. Visit IKEA US DreamKitchen to learn more. Dream the possibilities.
- [01:28]
Dr. James Sears
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:32]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Hello, and welcome to another episode on the New Books Network. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Miranda Melcher, and I'm very pleased today to be speaking with Dr. James Sears about his book published by Temple University Press in 2024, titled Queering Rehoboth beyond the Boardwalk, which, as the title suggests, takes us to a very specific place in sort of southern Delaware in the United States actually has a pretty long history by American standards. We're going to talk a bit about that, but then probably mainly focus on the, like, late 20th century period where Rehoboth goes through a bit of a transformation, kind of. We're going to talk about that. There's definitely transformation going on. There's also some people who are not so happy about this transformation in and out of this story, too. So it's a really interesting period where it might seem on paper like it's a small place in a small amount of time, but there's a lot going on. So I'm very pleased, James, to welcome you to the podcast to tell us all about your book.
- [02:34]
Dr. James Sears
Well, I want to thank you very much for inviting me and I'm glad that your listeners are tuning in. So we'll let's move forward here.
- [02:44]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yes, well, before we get too far into the book could you introduce yourself a little bit and then give us the backstory of why you decided to write this book?
- [02:54]
Dr. James Sears
Okay. Well, briefly, I have been in higher education since the 1980s. And beginning in the mid-1980s, I started doing research on gay youth in South Carolina. And that resulted in my first book, Growing Up Gay in the South. So if you can imagine, because we're talking about the. Basically the same period that sort of parallels for Holdworth Beach. But if you can imagine living in South Carolina as a queer kid, things were very difficult. And it was no less difficult in some ways for me. Me as a professor, as an untenured professor, doing that work. But over my 25 year career or so, I've written a lot of books focusing mainly on education and on sexualities, from things such as the Mattachine Society to several books that chronicle.
- [03:45]
Activism in the south during the 80s and 90s. And by and large, most of those books focuses on people as the narrative, rather than starting with the. With the event itself and then sort of throwing in people as they happen. So that is sort of my background. And if you have any other questions about that, I'm happy to answer.
- [04:09]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Well, that's a very interesting background because I can hear just from that already a bunch of things that come through in this book. But it does also make me kind of curious, like why Rehoboth Beach? Why did you decide for that as a subject?
- [04:23]
Dr. James Sears
Well, actually, I came out of retirement, so to speak, because I stopped writing in the terms of writing books when I left the university and went into.
- [04:33]
Another career. But then my husband, who's from Nicaragua, and I were in D.C. and we visited people from. In Rehoboth and we really liked it. And like many people, the first thing you notice is it's a small town. It's 1500 people or so on the coast. But unlike other kinds of touristy towns, it has this feel, this real feel of a small town, much like many of your small towns in England. I mean, they don't change over century by century. And so you still have old trees, you still have the old houses. And so we decided to move and to come to Delaware. And in the process of doing that, I kept asking myself, well, how did it. Just like you're asking, how did Rehoboth beach, in a very conservative part of the state, southern Delaware, which is below the Mason Dixon line, had slaves during the Civil War or War between the States, as many people would like to call it, how did that place become so queer? And so you had gay Flags, you have restaurants with gay signs on them, et cetera. And no one could really tell me. And I went through and looked through some of the issues of what was called a publication from Camper Hoboth called Letters. And I found a few articles that talked about little pieces of it, but no one put it all together. I said, well, you know, I'm not doing anything else except laying on the beach, so why not spend some time trying to focus on this? And as soon as I started focusing on this, of course, Covid hit. And so that actually allowed me to do a lot of this work and actually do all the interviews of many, many people, like we're doing now on Zoom. And so I tried to answer the question, how did Rehoboth beach become queer? How did it turn queer? But it actually led me to some much more profound questions.
- [06:23]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Do you want to hint at those now or leave them to be revealed as we discuss, I can just mention them.
- [06:32]
Dr. James Sears
Let me just say it in a song phrase. What you see is not necessarily what you get.
- [06:37]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
All right. Well, we are definitely going to unpack that, I think, as we get further. And that very clearly answers the motivation for why you were engaged in this project and what readers who know Rehoboth beach would take away from this. Right. Uncovering that history of the place that they're in or have been thinking more broadly, though, obviously you are interested in readers beyond those who have been to Rehoboth beach in engaging with this. So thinking about that bigger audience, what do you hope readers take away from this, even if they've never been to the place we're talking about?
- [07:10]
Dr. James Sears
Well, for those readers who have vacationed in the United States on the east coast, and have visited some other queer resorts, such as Key west, for example, or in New York City, the Pines area, or in Massachusetts, each of those locations actually have a wealth of material written about them, but even those materials really focus more on the. The. The events as opposed to what was undergirding those events. So what I hope that breeders come from this is to understand that this is simply an example. So a microcosm. So if you take a small town, so think about a small town on a beach in England. Take a small town where the neighbors have known each other for generations. You have a group of people who have run the town for generations, etc. Then all of a sudden you have this influx of people who are decidedly different on moral standards, on dress standards, et cetera. That's one thing I like for the reader to bring into this. That is, look at the application beyond Rehoboth. The Rehoboth is simply the example. Okay. Second aspect that I hope that people come out from this is that how do the notion of place, which I just talked about, and also interact with the notion or of identities and identities here dealing with not just simply sexual identities and gender identities, but also what it means to be a Christian, what it means to be a person of color, and how these things get intertwined both within the individual and how they change sometimes within an individual's history, and how they also play out on a grander scale, whether it's a small community or a nation. And that, I think, is really the critical issue, if critical issue is not really how Rehoboth became queer. That's as answered. But really it is, how do we deal with change? How do we deal with the kind of change that transforms not only a community, but has the potential of transforming ourselves and those around us?
- [09:23]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Okay, so, you know, not small questions that we're dealing with here, but that's helpful because I think that gives us context now for the specific story of Rehoboth Beach. So we have to start, obviously, with beginnings. When how is this place founded? I mean, it's pretty old for an American city. Is that right?
- [09:42]
Dr. James Sears
Well, actually.
- [09:44]
You know, I had taught at Harvard for a while, and, you know, Boston, for example, is much older, and Harvard, of course, older than the United States. So in that sense, no, it's not that old. But Rehoboth was established in 1872. 1873. What's important to understand here is that we're in a period of time both in the United States and also overseas, such as the UK of the evangelical movement and the movement toward meetings and Christians coming together for a week of shared prayer and shared happiness, etc. So Rehoboth was established as a Christian meeting ground, and it was established out of the Methodist Church, which I'm sure you're familiar with, John Wesley, etc. All your readers or listeners are, and that the story. This is what I think is interesting, how history gets played out. The story that is told in a lot of anecdotes about how Rehoboth became Rehoboth. You'll hear, well, there's a minister called by name of Minister Todd, who lost his wife, went to a camp meeting ground in Ocean City.
- [10:56]
Not in Delaware, but in New Jersey, and all of a sudden had what he called an illumination, okay, a vision. And he envisioned something like this for the Methodist District in Delaware. And so he went back to St. Paul's Methodist Church, was the church in Wilmington, Delaware where all the people who were well connected, wealthy, et cetera, attended. And he gave this homily. And afterward, some of the people, these were industrialists, many of these were people, capitalist, people of means, they said, well, let's say, let's explore this. So the bottom line is that with the aid of these individuals who are members of St. Paul's they bought 400 acres of pristine land on the coast. And within a year they had established a camp meeting. And not only a camp meeting where you set up tents and stuff, but they actually had built a 38 room hotel called the Surf Hotel. Okay. Along with that, to enjoy God's landscape, they also insisted on making sure that the city charter or the Methodist charter for this meeting house was attached to all Methodist principles. And the Methodist principles were things which were quite onerous, at least from modern day standards, such as you'll do anything on Sunday, things like 10 pins or bowling or card playing, dancing, most assuredly, all those things were verboten. And of course, smoking, let alone drinking, would be something that would be abhorred. So that was the context for the starting of Rehoboth. So Rehoboth began as a Methodist meeting ground.
- [12:41]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Okay. That's a very specific type of starting, which is helpful to understand because that's not sort of just something that lives back in history. When you talk about it in the book, it's clear that at least some of this early history is seen as relevant, is seen as related to the stuff that happens later in the end of the 20th century that you mainly focus on. So what's the link there between what you've just described and what people were doing, wanting to do, talking about in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s? It wouldn't seem like those things have anything to do with each other. But why do they?
- [13:16]
Dr. James Sears
Well, I'm sure one of your professors who were, was teaching history would be somewhat, I guess, offended at what you just said. Because of course historians would say, well, we always go back and look at the past to understand the present. But this really answers the question that I raised that you raised earlier, which is, well, what were the other things that you found? I was not expecting, I mean, I knew about the founding of Rehoboth, I was not expecting to see these parallels. And the parallels are to me are quite obvious. And the most the critical parallel is this is a story. The 1870s, 1880s, Howard Hobart went from a camp meeting association to a place where excursionists, which is the word they use, vacationers who had no Methodist principles or were not Methodist members, could actually come and enjoy themselves with singing and dancing. What happened in those 10 years, okay? And it was really a battle between two groups, okay? You had the people who were the conservatives, the Christian conservatives, and you had the people who were the capitalists or the people who saw the vision of Rehoboth becoming what we mill hole with this. That trauma went through about six years, and it went through things such as voting for different slates. So, for example, the person who was on the forefront of the conservative side was a person by name of Reverend Quigg. And Reverend Quigg was also the head of the entire. I'm a Catholic, so I'd say diocese, but the entire area that covered the Methodist.
- [14:56]
Province in Delaware. And he was opposed to a guy by the name of Bright. And Bright was one of the wealthiest business people in Wilmington, starting out as a. As a poor kid and then amassing lots of real estate. They both had. They were both members of St. Paul's okay? But they began to diverge as their interests diverged. And so through a. Through a variety of legal battles, through a variety of stockholders meetings, and anybody who owned land, a lot of land, had a share of stock, and through various votings, Rehoboth slowly changed. Okay? And this is exactly, Precisely what happened 100 years later, 110 years later, when all of a sudden, Rehoboth and the people in Rehoboth faced this onslaught of what they would see of people who were homosexuals or people who dressed differently, ET Etc, and how they dealt with it, which was in many ways, many ways quite similar to how the debate and the debacle of Rehoboth in the 1870s.
- [16:10]
Played out.
- [16:11]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad, Ryan, real United Airlines customers.
- [16:17]
Dr. James Sears
We were returning home, and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Kathryn. Andrew. I got to sit in the driver's seat. I grew up in an aviation family, and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age. That's Andrew, a real United pilot. These small interactions can shape a kid's future.
- [16:35]
Percy Jackson
It felt like I was the captain.
- [16:37]
Dr. James Sears
Allowing my son to see the flight.
- [16:38]
Narrator/Advertiser
Deck will stick with us forever.
- [16:40]
Dr. James Sears
That's how good leads the way.
- [16:41]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Hablas espanol spries to dioech com de nosk.
- [16:44]
Babbel Advertiser
If you used Babbel, you would. Babbel's conversation based Techniques teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things that you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55% off your Babbel subscription right now at Babbel.com Spotify spelled B A B-B-E-L.com Spotify rules and restrictions may apply.
- [17:11]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Hablas espanol spries du joitsch. Com dole nosq.
- [17:14]
Babbel Advertiser
If you used Babbel, you would Babbel's conversation based techniques teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world.
- [17:23]
Dr. James Sears
World.
- [17:23]
Babbel Advertiser
With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55% off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com Spotify spelled B-A B-B-E-L.com Spotify rules and restrictions may apply.
- [17:42]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
So that's really interesting to understand the parallels there. And I want to get in more to the kind of 20th century instance. Re. Instance, I suppose, of what's going on here. So when is it exactly that we're talking about Rehoboth starting to have a gay presence? And is that the same as when it has a visibly gay presence? Like, are we talking an influx of people that are coming in, I don't know, wearing rainbow Speedos? Or is it like, people that are already there that are going like, oh, hey, by the way, you may not have noticed, like, what are we actually talking about here?
- [18:12]
Dr. James Sears
We're talking about both of those. And this, again, you'll find parallels in many communities from the United States and certainly in terms of England and the UK is that prior to the 19, certainly prior to 1970, the mid-1970s, if you were a homosexual, Rehoboth was the perfect place to go. Okay, if you were from D.C. for example, where you worked maybe for the Pentagon or worked for a senator or whatever, it was far enough away to be yourself and yet nevertheless close enough to where you were from so you didn't have to spend seven hours in a car, and this allowed for this beginning of this influx. Now, really, we have to thank the state of Maryland for making this happen, because Maryland actually constructed in 1950s a bridge that went across the Chesapeake Bay. And if anybody has ever been across that bridge, it's a beautiful bridge, but it's a large bay. And before that time, before the mid-1950s, you had to. If you wanted to get to Eastern Maryland and the shore, you actually had to either go all the way around through Philadelphia, okay, in 1950s, that would be a long, long trip. Or you would get there and then you would take like a little ferry, okay, Across. Across the bay. Neither of those were very helpful for people who just wanted a weekend vacation, shall we say. So that really began this influx of people. So then by the before, let me back up. Before the beginning of quote, unquote, gay liberation, which began, became public with Anita Bryant, all these things going on in the 1970s, you had already mainly gay men and some women who were coming to Rehoboth. And there was, of course, no gay bars. There's no gay restaurants there per se. But there are places that you could hang out. There was a place called the Pink Pony, which on, on, on. On Saturday afternoons became very mixed place. You had a place that. And I found this in my history of the South. If I, If. If I was in 1960 and I was homosexual, I wanted to feed me similar men. I would go to the nicest hotel in town and go to the bar. And you would. You'd catch people's eyes. And that's exactly. The Hannah Hotel was like that. And then about 20 miles down the road, down the road being down the beach road, there's a place called the Nomad. And the Nomad was actually a gay place or turn gay back in the 1960s, quote, unquote. And that was the place that people went to. So you enjoyed yourself on the beach. But if you really wanted to go to the bar and stuff, you'd go to the Nomad. Now that began to change in the mid-1970s with the opening of place called the Boathouse. And the Boathouse was literally a boathouse on the marsh. And if you'd go in there, it's a long, narrow building and the dance area was right over the marsh. In a high tide, you actually get wet. Now, the other thing about the Boathouse is the Bolthouse is not in Rehoboth. It is about half a quarter mile from the borderline of Rehoboth. Okay? That is really important because that's precisely what happened in the 1870s when, before the new board took over the Rehoboth Beach Meeting association, there was a hotel built there called the Douglas Hotel. And the Douglas Hotel was 1 mile and 7ft from the blind of the. Of the Rehoboth Beach Meeting Association's line. And that allowed them to have parties, to drink, to do everything that you would do in the 1870s if you had some money. Okay. So again, this area became the place where the first really queer bar close to Rehoboth happened. And once that happened, you had more people coming in. And then in 1980, one of the people I focus on here, this guy by the name of Glenn Thompson, and he also started a bar, a disco bar again outside Rehoboth. But this was just like within, I don't know, within 100 yards of the city line. And that all of a sudden caught the attention of the Gay Blade, which was called back then, the D.C. gay publication. And all of a sudden you started seeing articles at that point. Then we have now people beginning to begin aware of what was going on. Now we go into 1980, we have now Reaganism, Thatcherism on your side, and we have all of a sudden politicians holding toward that Moral majority angle. And so one of the politicians who ran for mayor, his name was Hughes. Hughes really was the first person to really make this point that do we want. This was in 1981. Do we want Rehoboth to be a resort for homosexuals? That was one of his planks. Okay. And so that is all that is really what even became more notorious. And of course, Mayor Hughes served three terms, so his homophobia went across that line. And so the homophobia now, coupled with aids, AIDS phobia, connected back into this growing migration of people who are gay and lesbian either to buying places or for simply visiting. And in fact, his opponent. I'll stop here. His opponent was a woman, and her point in 1981 was.
- [24:04]
What is everybody upset about homosexuals coming to roll with? You know, we're in the middle of a recession. They're taking houses, they're fixing them up. You know, they're starting businesses. This is good. She lost by a three to one margin. Okay, so that tells you where the town was at that period of time.
- [24:25]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, that's very helpful to lay out what the change is and what the change is perceived to be as well, because those aren't always exactly the same thing. But I'm really intrigued by these kind of fixing things up and the. Where you go in the hotel and the club. And you've mentioned a few examples already, but there's a bunch in the book. So can you tell us maybe about a few of the other key places or institutions that were seen as kind of. That's where the gays are. Like, these were the visible fronts of the change.
- [24:56]
Dr. James Sears
And this is part of the reason for using the word query is that query is really a concept. And one aspect is, you know, do you have a gay beach? No. Can a beach be queered? Yes. And that's precisely what happened. In the 60s, you had a place outside of Rehoboth city limits past the Carpenters compound. The Carpenters were very wealthy, family connected to the Duponts. Okay. And past their area, a lot of the gays went there. By lot, I mean, several hundred would go there during the weekend. Okay. And just enjoy the beach. Okay. But they could be themselves because it's so like a no man's land. Okay. And in fact, it was known among certain circumstances, certain circles that, that, that. That Louisa Carpenter was in fact lesbian, which she was, in fact, back in the 30s, she'd use that mansion, I would call it a mansion, and she'd have all of her gang friends, Noel Coward and EF Zimba Zuma and Tallulah Bacon, all these people to come down there. And one of the women I interviewed who was in her 80s or so, who was heterosexual, said, well, we knew back at that time, she's not talking about 30s, that they were different, but, you know, it was just like. To them, it was like a completely different space. It was like, maybe in your terms, it was like the land, you know, the duke versus the, you know, the gentry versus the peasants. And we were. And we're just gentry, so we don't pay attention to what's going on. So that is. That's the beat. Now, what happened in the 1980s is that beach moved. The queer. The queer. That queer beach moved to Rehoboth and to what's called now Poodle beach, which is the very end of the boardwalk. So that was the first marker to people that, oh, wow, this is much more in our face now. Second aspect was, which is really critical is the. And going back to the example back in the 1870s, is that the development of businesses. And one of the people that I speak, you know, I spent a lot of time talking about is Joyce Felton and Victor Passapia. These two individuals had a restaurant, so like a, you know, a farmer's market kind of restaurant. You have fresh vegetable stuff. Then they sold that to her now, which was now her ex husband, and then they started another business in an. In a desolate area on Rehoboth, one block from Roboth Avenue. And that was called the Blue Moon and the Blue Moon was explicitly queer. And in fact, by the first year, not only was it known for its astounding food, but also for its glamour. Because Joyce Felton was a sort of. Well, she was a Brooklyn knight, okay? She was. She was, you know, you couldn't call. You wouldn't call her lesbian, you wouldn't call her heterosexual, you wouldn't call you biceps. You might call her bisexual, but she was a person, a bon villain. Okay, let me talk say that she had. She was an activist in the SDS back when she was high school. So she was really a political person. And of course, Victor was a person who really enjoyed food and did a great job cooking that place, okay. Became the center. Really became like a queer center as we know it today. Okay? So that if I, for example, I was in Baltimore and my lover and I were thinking about coming to Rehoboth, I'd get on the telephone on Wednesday and call off the Blue Moon. I'd say, hey, is Joyce there? Or Victor there? Say, yeah, okay, what's going on this week? And she say, well, this is happening. This party is going on, this party is going on. And the time to be at the Blue Moon was on Friday, sometime between 3 and about 6. That's where everybody converged. Once that started, then Joyce and Victor made the decision to actually get other people that they knew From Philadelphia, from D.C. from Baltimore to start businesses. Now those businesses like a beach town. Beach towns operate only a few months a year. So your investment is really just for those few months. So that's not as difficult as opening a restaurant that would be there for eight months a year. So that is beginning, the beginning of the change. All of a sudden now the city noticed and the towns, the local people noticed. Wow, we're getting all these nice, you know, not only do we. We don't have to just eat burgers and fries and pizzas and, you know, you know, you know, beach food. We can actually have a first class meal that you would get in D.C. this is great. On the other hand, the mayor, Mayor Hughes calls in Victor and calls in.
- [29:31]
Joyce and says to his office and says, what is this I hear about you serving gay food? Okay? And so again, you can see the markers laid out. And so this trajectory from the 1980s through the 1990s is really the core of the book. And that is how the town went from that. Okay? Which. Well, now we understand why there is an influx of openly gay people who are also much more radical. They don't feel like they need to be closeted to. By the end of the 1990s and beginning of 2000s, you have the election of the first openly gay commissioner, city council member, who also happened to be Latino.
- [30:12]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, that's a lot. Lot of things all going on at the same place. I mean, I can see why it would kind of feel to some people like, whoa, whoa, this is happening right in front of me. You know, it's not a big enough space to kind of go, you know what? That's not our problem anymore. But there's also clearly a lot of different reactions going on, right. Communities that are like, this is great.
- [30:31]
Dr. James Sears
Yay.
- [30:31]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
We have nice restaurants. Communities are saying, we can be ourselves more. How wonderful. A really homophobic mayor who's not hiding that. Any other reactions we should talk about? Kind of.
- [30:43]
Dr. James Sears
To add to the mix, there's two other groups here. One is. Let me tell me about the most unobvious group, and that is homosexuals themselves. I'm using that term particularly because that would be how they would prefer to call themselves, whether they were gay or lesbian or consider themselves gay or lesbian. Those people who had settled in Rehoboth in the 50s and in the 60s and even in the 70s, many of them felt very uncomfortable with this because they were quite comfortable, as many people are, irrespective of where we're talking about being closeted, because that allowed them to enjoy the place and still not have to deal with harassment or people avoiding them, etc. And it is that group of people who are, again, we're talking about people of some wealth, because even back then, Rehoboth was not a cheap place to buy a house. But these are individuals who were comfortable. They had their parties. They had dinner parties. They would go out and they might play Frisbee or something, but they do it very discreetly, okay? All of a sudden, now, in 1981, on the beach, on. On Labor Day or Labor Day, you have a bunch of fairies playing volleyball, okay? And in fact, that becomes an institution. Drag. Volleyball becomes something that comes from something that no one really liked, who was from there, to something that NBC News, I think it was on, like, the morning show broadcast live, okay, by the end of the 1980s. So that was one group that really had a problem with them. Now, among that group, you know, I should point out, were two lesbians who had been together since 1940s. And one of them, her last name was Machant, okay? She wrote many novels, in fact, and she was partners with the two women, with two other women and her partner and they formed NAID Press. And any lesbian, whether you're on this side or the other side of the ocean or the pond, as you might call it, would know of NAID Press if you were around in the 70s and 80s, because they published what no publisher would ever publish. You know, novels about women loving women that had nice endings, romantic endings, and that's the kind of, of novels that she wrote. And then in her house every Saturday on the summer, she'd have a little salon, okay, and she borrowed it, you know, like Gertrude Stein's salon. So that they bring in different people and sometimes they'd have a Vienna's plane, et cetera, and they talk about politics and arts, et cetera. So she's also part of that old gu. The other group that was really, really was archetypical angry homophobes were the leaders of the Rehoboth Beach Homeowners Association. And those individuals controlled the town. They controlled the town because they had all the addresses for everybody who was a homeowner. If you voted for the town's election, you could only vote by being present. You couldn't do an MCT valid, okay? So that meant that voting was really for people who were there all the time, particularly if it was like in November or September or whatever. And secondly, what they did is they actually vetted candidates and then they endorsed candidates, okay? And so this. And then their candidates then appointed. This is going to sound so similar, at least to, to my ears now, given the current administration. Then they selected their people to be on committees like finance committee, et cetera. So the homeowner association had a lock in the town and they were the primary, the primary instrument for opposing this. And so the mayor and all these other people, these were people in the foreground, but the Rehoboth Beach Homeowners association was pulling the strings from behind.
- [34:43]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Okay, I'm very glad you've added them in because as you said, kind of maybe less obvious factors here, but that doesn't make them less important. So that's very helpful to know. Thinking then about other sort of organised groups. We've got Camp Rehoboth Camp in all caps here. Obviously it's an audio only medium, so for listeners, imagine camp in all caps, please. When and why were they founded and what were they trying to do?
- [35:11]
Dr. James Sears
Okay, so now this takes us up all the way up to the 19. And again, this is like the Reader's Digest abbreviated version of Reader's Digest takes it all the way up to the late 1980s. By the late 1980s, a group of people, mainly from Washington and Baltimore, started something called what they called Sundance. And basically it was a way to raise money for AIDS and HIV. People with age, with HIV. And it started in 1988. And then the same individuals, Joyce and Victor, along with some other people I talk about in the book, they decide, why don't we have a nightclub? Not like Glenn Thompson's Renegade off Beyond the time Limbs, but right in the town. And so they found a place, a gigantic warehouse kind of, or used to be a fire department, etc. But anyway, they, they, they, they got the lease for that and they decided to make that into a nightclub. And now, so all of a sudden, now, on top of everything else, you have now a nightclub on Rehoboth Avenue on the second block. So this is the main strip in a small town going all the way down, that goes all the way down to the beach. Two blocks from the beach is now called the Strand. And of course the Strand is going south, familiar to people in London, okay? But it was called the Strand. And this was modeled after the nightclubs of New York, okay? And in fact, Joyce knew and Victor knew some of those nightclub owners and the DJs, et cetera, and they bring some of those DJs down. And so this was the happening place, the opening night for that. And this is again going back to directions of the town. The opening night, which was in August of 1980.
- [36:57]
Which was also for had the block, a line going all the way down the street, all the way around the block and all the way around the other block at around 11:30 at night. And these people were dressed in New York kind of attire for parting. So if you can imagine the disjunction here, if you are driving by or if you're walking by and you're from the area and you see all these people lining up in all this weird dress that became the Strand. And the Strand then became the point of contention. And in fact, it became the place where in 1989, the Washington Post ran a whole large article on it, calling it the Battle for Rehoboth. And that battle lasted 10 years, about the same time as the battle from 1870s to the early 1880s.
- [37:47]
Percy Jackson
Marshall's buyers are hustling hard to get amazing new gifts into stores right up to the last minute. Like a designer for perfume for that friend who never RSVP'd wishlist topping toys for her kids who came too. Belgian chocolates for the neighbor, a cozy scarf for your boss, and a wool jacket for your husband that you definitely did not almost forget. Marshalls. We get the deals you give the good stuff, even at the last minute.
- [38:13]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Phew.
- [38:14]
Percy Jackson
Find a Marshall's near you.
- [38:17]
Narrator/Advertiser
This episode is brought to you by Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels and music are made for each other. They share a rhythm in the craft of making something timeless while being a part of legendary nights. From backyard jams to sold out arenas, there's a song in every toast. Please drink responsibly. Responsibility.org, jack Daniels and Old no. 7 are registered trademarks. Tennessee Whiskey, 40% alcohol by volume. Jack Daniel Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee.
- [38:42]
Percy Jackson
Coca Cola for the big, for the small, the short and the tall. Peacemakers, risk takers for the optimists, pessimists for long distance love for introverts and extroverts, the thinkers and the doers for old friends and new Coca Cola for everyone. Pick up some Coca Cola at a store near you.
- [39:12]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
I mean, battle sounds pretty intense. So, like, how battle ish are we talking here?
- [39:19]
Dr. James Sears
And again, we're getting back to your question about starting off Camper Hoboth. When the Blue Moon was opened, it was. It was openly queer and it also had a patio. So, and this is 1980s, in late 80s, mid-80s, you know, kids would. By kids, I mean youth would drive by, they'd throw beer bottles, okay? There would be. There'd be muggings on the boardwalk, particularly on the south side of boardwalk that became a cruise little cruising area. So there was violence around, okay? The other aspect of this is that in the period where the Strand was opening, you also had a whole group of people who were property owners who had houses, because all these were houses, which eventually became businesses. So you had some people who still own house, some are houses there, and they started complaining. And one of those individuals, two of those individuals, recall, were named the Puseys. And the Puseys became sort of the Rehoboth Beach Homeless association figure head because they're the people who led the charge against noise. They claimed people being drunk and being outside cars, they had all the litigants. So then the Rehoboth Town Council, through the Rehoboth beach association, then started adopting ordinances. And one of the major ordinances was called the ban the bar ordinance. And it banned any bars, okay, from having if it was so large. And that was a process that took him into court. And step by step, the town enacted a variety of ordinances, parking ordinances, liquor ordinances, etc. So that by the 1993, you had the state legislature actually Enacting a state law giving the town the right to decide a liquor licenses, which was only done because of the emphasis of the political weight of the homeowners association. So, you know, statewide law directed specifically to the Strand. As this was going on, you still had the muggings and stuff. And one of. I'm sorry. Well, I have to finish this. So one of the things. Two things were happening. One was you had a.
- [41:40]
The first instance was called. The. Was called the Poodle beach riot. And the Poodle beach riot ended up charging six individuals, one individual for rioting. Started with a group of men and one guy was out in the ocean with his friends and all of a sudden the lifeguard. We can talk about the homophobia of the lifeguards also. But one of the lifeguards spotted this guy with this, with his swim trunks over his head, okay? And then immediately he called the police. Now the lifeguards are all college age kids and the summer police are college age kids, okay? So. And then the adults are sort of back in the office. So they come and then at this point in time, the guy comes out of the water, but now he has his trunks on. And the officer asked what he was doing, he said, well, I'm taking the sand on my shoe. And so at that point, more and more gays gathered around and you had a situation where all of a sudden you found.
- [42:36]
Few kids who are lifeguards and police found themselves surrounded by several hundred gays who were not very happy. Now, no one got hurt, there was no fighting, etc. That then led to the development of camp, all these actions. And camp was started with the idea of going back to Rehoboth's original name. For those of you that are Bible scholars, you know that Rehoboth is a place spoke about the Bible, whether, you know, there's water, etc. And that everyone is welcome. Okay? And that was camp's model. We're going to reach out and make and have everybody being welcome and we're going to reach out to people, even those people who oppose us. That was their philosophy. And so that was the beginning of camp. Camp would not have started had it not been for reaction of everything they had before.
- [43:26]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, there's clearly. I mean, it makes sense that something would happen in reaction to that. It would be surprising if kind of nothing had. So thank you for explaining the cause and event, cause and effect there. As we move towards the end of the 90s and into the early 2000s, what if those tensions are increasing? Is anything lessening like, what does Camper Hoboth, for example, do once they're started?
- [43:53]
Dr. James Sears
Well, Camper holdings started because all, you know, in Delaware, all the activism was really upstate Wilmington and at the University of Delaware, because Sussex county, that's the lowest county. The lowest county in Delaware was the most conservative. So when they started Camp Rehoboth, two individuals I speak about are Steve Elkins and his partner Marie Archibald. Steve worked for the White House during the Carter administration. Murray was and is an artist. They decided. So they got a group of friends together, but they knew they had to get other people, particularly people who had. Who had experience. So they invited people who were active in the northern Delaware, and that included a Cuban American by the name of Evo Dominguez.
- [44:41]
And then another individual that was invited was his partner. And also several people, several women that he. That one of them was Carol Fazouk. These people were involved in Camper Hoboth as it started. What happened within two years, which is very common with any organization, let alone queer organization, is he had major differences in terms of ideology. You had Dominguez representing really the political left, saying, look, we gotta be activists. We gotta go out and demand things. Then you had other individuals like Kirovosuch said, look, people come here to relax. They don't want to get organized, so we ought to have be a fun place. The letters should do a lot more fun stuff. And then you had Murray and Steve said, look, taking a sort of a Clintonian perspective. Look, we're going to take the center road here, okay? And we're going to be something. We're going to show people who we are, which is our good people, and we're going to reach out. So they made an effort of being involved in other community groups and other community organizations. And in fact, they went so far as, for example, a couple of lesbians opened up a shop just a few doors down called the Heart. I forget the last name, but something not wooden heart, but something like that. Anyway, it was like a little, you know, shopping, trinket shop, etc. But behind the counter, they also sold some sex toys. Okay, well, two gay men found out about that, and they reported that to the city, okay? And then the city closed them down. The women went to the lesbians went to camp, and camp said, look, you're. It's illegal. We're not going to support that. So camp. And then also, like, camp would refuse to publish, like, anything that was close to being erotic in terms of advertisements. So men, for example, in tight bathing suits. So in Other words, they took this middle line. And so this is by the mid-1990s, camp was known as a centrist organization, out working in the city, helping the town, helping the city, et cetera. And in the process, you have then some parts of the town changing, and the town's also changing because you're having heterosexual people coming in who are wealthy, who are coming in now with a different attitude. So now you have progressives allied with the queers, okay? Progressive business people, progressive retirees allied against the homeowners association. And so that is really the trauma that takes place. And by the end, toward the end of the book, is what you have is you have the homeowners association finally deciding that they're going to change the constitution so that only the executive board makes decisions on who becomes sponsored, who they endorse as candidates, et cetera. So they're now closing the power to these three or four people who've been there since 1971 in that organization that then resulted in a revolt by the homeowners, which included both gays, queers, and also progressives. And just like what happened in the 18 middle, in the beginning of the 1880s, same thing happened in the end of the 1990s, is that you had two slates. You had the homeowners slate, and you had the progressive slate. It plays out for about nine months, and finally the progressive slate wins. The old timers resign, and then all of a sudden, then within two years, the hormone association is now or was now run by a queer, okay? And by progressives. So that changed the landscape completely. Okay? And the irony is. Let me stop there because that would be a different thought.
- [48:28]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Fair enough. I want to talk about this changing of completely then, because as you've described, that is a really big change given the tensions you were discussing earlier. So when you talk to people now, I mean, it's so clear in the book, kind of how many conversations you've had with so many people when they're thinking back to the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, even the early sort of 2000s. What do they think about it now? Do they go, yes, Rehoboth is now super queer and it's because of this, or is it more mixed?
- [49:03]
Dr. James Sears
Well, I spent a lot of time in the beginning of the book, not a lot of time, but some time talking about memory and how people remember things and how historians need to be concerned about how memory is made and remade and recreated it. So I. When I went on a book tour here that went all through the east coast, every stop Not a single exception. At least one gay man came up to. Gay white man came up to me and said, you know, I lived through this and it wasn't a pleasant time. But God, I really like that period of time because now you have. Now you have.
- [49:40]
You know, you know, you know, gay. And they wouldn't use the word queer. Now you have gays and lesbians with strollers, you know, you have all this, you know, you don't have any bar, there's no cruising area, you know, etc. So you know that. So you have one segment of gay people older, who really primarily, I think probably men who really like remembering back what it was like. Okay? Not surprisingly, at that period of time, around 2000, 2001, the Renegade closes. Why does it close? Because more and more people are saying to themselves, you know, why do we need to go to a gay bar when we go to any place? Okay? And also the real estate prices were becoming so high, extraordinary in this area called west of Rehoboth, that the owner, Glenn Thompson, could make a lot of money to sell it and be done with it. Okay, that was one reaction. The other reaction is that what transpired, and I'm just talking about queers for now, is that as the camper holds expanded and is a major organization in the town now that you had a. Now a split within the gay community all along ideological lines, and that plays out in terms of ordinances. So, for example, should we or should we not protect or have limits on what buildings, how people can reconstruct houses? Some gays supported it, some gays did not. Okay, should we in fact move the theater? Okay. Which does a lot of progressive avant garde stuff from the church that is, you know, which they're just leasing to this new building which happens to also be in a neighborhood which we. Right very close to where houses are, which in fact many gay people live and are opposed to it. Okay? So now all of a sudden, now you have the. So the splits now are different kinds of splits. There, there's not. There's really not a split in terms of gays or straights. The split is on. On economic grounds or on ideological grounds. The other point I like to make, because I'm going to forget it, is that when we talk about camp OR HOVA In 1980s, you talk about almost any organization, major organization in the United States. They were mostly white run and mostly male run, and camp was no exception. Okay? And so for that reason in the book, I talk a lot about race and I have one of the Narrators in this book by the name of Mr. Sutler. He was involved in this magazine called RBG, counterpart to the letters. And these individuals talk about what it was like being a person of color, being professional class, and then going into these parties which were all white gay men. Okay? And so that's why when I say you gotta talk about. Think about queer in history, you know, history is simply not what happened. Why did that happen? It's what's all the undercurrents and what are the cross currents, okay? And there's really. No, I don't think there's really any heroes here because the puses, in fact, were demonized. For if I. If I was living here at that time, I would be one of them, would demonize them. And in fact, Victor once said, you know, at the times that I just wish that she would get run over by a truck. Well, eight years later, she got ran over by a truck by semi. And what did they do at the Blue Moon when they. As soon as they heard about that, they opened up all the champagne. Now, that strikes me as sort of over the top. Okay, so the point of the book here is history is complicated. And the way that I think you should read history is you should read history not only from your point of view, but looking at other people's perspectives. And that is why the whole book is structured by narratives. So you learn about. You get to know each of these individuals, particularly six people as individuals, and you can almost anticipate what they may do and what they may not do. They're just not somebody that does them, you know, their background. And that, I think, is one of the strengths of the book. And also, I think, something that some people like to have a list, a little short book saying, okay, what happened? Tell us, and let's move on. And that is not this kind of book. This is a book like you can take to the beach, because you're going to read about people and how people dealt with change.
- [53:57]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, there's lots of nuance and complexity in human stories here. So I think that's a great way to conclude our discussion on the book. It definitely gives people a sense of what they'd get into in opening it. But is there anything you're currently working on or enjoying that you want to share as a final comment? Obviously, you're retired, so maybe you've got a garden now or something. Anything you want to share?
- [54:19]
Dr. James Sears
Well, once you're a writer, you really never retire. I found that out because once I started writing. So I decided about after this book was done and I was still waiting for it to get published, I had time on my hand. I said, you know, I've always wanted to write a novel, and part of the reason for it is because I really am focused on how individuals connect to the wider sociopolitical context. And so what happened is a good friend of mine who I hadn't seen for 20 years or so, came and said that he had met a person who does past lives with racial, mental, frequent. He said that I was in one of his past lives and he murdered me. And I said, well, that's interesting. I'm sorry I did, I'm sorry you did that, but I don't remember it. And, but he said that you were a, you worked on at a state in Wales. Okay. I said, well, that's sort of interesting. So all of a sudden I, I, I had his name. I had the guy's last name, my last name, which was Hale. And I said, well, let me just play with it. And I went in to the computer, I said, well, that's interesting. There's some towns there in southern Wales that sort of fit. So bottom line is I've just completed the first book. It's called the Circle's Edge. It'll be published next year. It's a trilogy. It's what you would, in short, layman's terms, it would be a layperson's terms. It would be like a gothic murder queer mystery set in the early 19th century England. Okay. And evolves around three people. It's sort of a mythopoetic novel and it has lots of different levels on it, just like this book. So you can read it just as a novel and enjoy it, or you can look at some of the deeper structures and it goes. It really focuses on the Regency period. I don't think there is a little bit of sex in there, but it's not enough to buy.
- [56:03]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
The book certainly sounds like there's a lot that's in the book, so congratulations on that and it certainly sounds fun. And of course, while people are waiting for that to come out, they can of course, read the book we've been discussing titled Queering Rehoboth beyond the Boardwalk, published by Temple University Press in 2024. James, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
- [56:24]
Dr. James Sears
Thank you very much for hosting me. I apologize if some of my answers weren't long, but I'm an old professor. Foreign.
- [56:44]
Doug. Here we have the limu emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug Limu. Is that guy with the binoculars watching us? Cut the camera. They see how only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty Liberty Liberty. Liberty Savings Ferry.
- [57:09]
Narrator/Advertiser
Underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates.
- [57:11]
Dr. James Sears
Excludes Massachusetts.