Planet Out ran an interesting obituary on Tuesday, June 6 regards the passing of Ralph Paul Gernhardt of Chicago:They noted:
The modern LGBT rights movement was in its infancy in 1972 when Gernhardt started a telephone hotline offering a recorded message about gay-friendly parties and clubs.
Its not a major thing, I suppose, but Ralph Paul started _his_ entertainment telephone information service in _1975_. The earliest telephone recorded information service for GLBT folks was started by Michael Bergeron (a very early gay activist) from his apartment on the north side of Chicago in 1970. He maintained it for about two years. The second such service, called Gay News and Events was maintained by myself from April, 1972 through about April, 1978. My service, 'Gay News and Events' was a three minute daily recorded message doing more political news of interest to gay people with a calendar of entertainment features (bars opening, etc). During this time, I was the assistant chairperson of Gay Pride Week in Chicago in 1974 and the chairperson in 1975.
Ralph Paul commenced his service in 1975 purely as an entertainment calendar of events and maintained it for three or four years as I recall. For about two or three years, his phone recorded message service operated at the same time as mine, him doing more 'party' type news and I went almost entirely with politics; we each referred our callers to the other service at the conclusion of our own messges.
I had several telephone lines set up in 'hunt' (if one was busy move to the next, etc) and these were all operated on Illinois Bell Telephone Company devices,and Illinois Bell stated mine was the first instance in their history of any organization or person using a bank of recording machines for other than either the weather forecast or religiously (as in dial a prayer).
The reason each of us (Ralph Paul and myself) chose this method for distributing the news was because in those days there was _no_ regular gay newspaper in Chicago. Michael Bergeron (mentioned earlier) and his friend William Kelley did publish a _monthly_ newsletter, but that was obviously inadequate in a town the size of Chicago with a need for *instant* delivery of news as needed.
When Chuck Renslow began publishing *Windy City Times* on a weekly basis, I closed my phone service, and I think Ralph Paul shut his off about the same time, but I cannot be sure.
I hope you will consider publishing this note of correction and clarification regarding the earliest days in Chicago's GLBT history.
Patrick Townson
Independence, KS 67301
Email ptownson@cableone.net
Planet Out also noted that:
The line's popularity convinced Gernhardt that he had found a niche that was being underserved, and he co-founded Gay Chicago in 1976.
PS: But, I think Chuck Renslow and his Windy City Times was about a year earlier.
PAT
1 comment:
Is the phone line you refer to that Michael Bergeron started the same one he ran that subsequently was at Beckman House and eventually at Gay Horizons? (BTW Gay Horizons became Horizons Social Services which is now The Center on Halsted and opening a $20 million facility on June 8, 2007 just up the street from where Beckman House was).
Also Grant Ford started Gay Life, which Chuck Renslow eventually bought. Windy City Times was started by Jeff McCourt and Bob Bearden which signalled the end of Gay Life. Tracy Baim now owns Windy City Times.
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