Edward Bringhurst III/V (1884-1939) was a lifelong bachelor who was dedicated to antique collecting, photography, and showing dogs. Bringhurst is shown here in a formal portrait with one of his beloved Great Danes (circa 1911) and in an informal snapshot wearing a dress (1903). According to the LGBTQ+ History of Delaware website, the second image is one of a series of photographs taken by Bringhurst’s close friend and cousin, Florence Shipley, on the grounds of Rockwood, his family’s estate in Wilmington, DE. The photographs in this series “serve as archival evidence of Bringhurst’s queer private life and depict him defying gender norms of the time.”
Out: The Newsletter of the University of Delaware Gay Student Union was published by UD’s first LGBTQ+ student organization, founded in 1972. However, in 1976, President E. A. Trabant fired openly gay theater professor Richard Aumiller (who was also the advisor to the student organization) in an attempt to prevent UD from becoming “a mecca for homosexuals.” Aumiller sued, and won. Around 1978, the LGBTQ+ student organization resumed activities as “The Gay Student Union” and began publishing Out. This issue, from April 30, 1982, highlights “Lesbian and Gay Awareness Week” and various other events on and near campus.
As I Lay Frying: A Rehoboth Beach Memoir (2004) is the first of five humorous autobiographies by Fay Jacobs (b. 1948), and documents her life in this gay and lesbian beach town from 1995-2003. LGBTQ+ beachgoers began frequenting Rehoboth Beach as early as the 1950s, and by the time Jacobs moved there in the 1990s, the small beach town had become an LGBTQ+ destination (much like Provincetown, MA and Fire Island, NY).
