In the late 19th century, William Dorsey Swann’s private parties attracted unwelcome attention from authorities and the press In the late 1880s,

The First Self-Proclaimed Drag Queen Was a Formerly Enslaved Man

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2024-07-08 01:30:01

In the late 19th century, William Dorsey Swann’s private parties attracted unwelcome attention from authorities and the press

In the late 1880s, a formerly enslaved man named William Dorsey Swann started hosting private balls known as drags, a name possibly derived from “grand rag,” an antiquated term for masquerade balls. Held in secret in Washington, D.C., these parties soon caught authorities’ attention.

As the Washington Critic reported in January 1887, police officers who raided one such gathering were surprised to encounter six Black men “dressed in elegant female attire,” including “corsets, bustles, long hose and slippers.” The following April, the Evening Star reported on a raid that targeted men in “female attire of many colors,” as well as “gaudy costumes of silk and satin.” On both occasions, authorities arrested the party guests and charged them with “being suspicious characters.”

Journalist and historian Channing Gerard Joseph first learned about Swann’s parties in 2005, when he was a graduate student browsing an online newspaper database. The article he came across, a Washington Post story from April 1888, spotlighted Swann, “who was arrayed in a gorgeous dress of cream-colored satin.” He “rushed toward the officers and tried to prevent their entering.”