Lee G. Brewster’s Mardi Gras Ball

New York: Queens Publications [Lee’s Mardi Gras Enterprises], 1974. 5 1⁄2 x 8 1⁄4 in. [44] pp. In photographic wraps. Illustrated with black-and-white images throughout text. A clean, tight copy of this rare publication; near fine. Item #5743

The rare booklet produced for Lee G. Brewster’s Mardi Gras Ball in 1974.

Lee Brewster was one of the central figures in New York’s drag scene of the 1960s and ‘70s. Fired from a job as a file clerk at the FBI for his sexuality, Brewster moved to New York in the early 1960s. He was the owner of Lee’s Mardi Gras, the most well-known and celebrated boutique for drag queens in the 1960s and ‘70s, and throughout the 1970s and ‘80s, was the publisher of Drag magazine. He was also a founding member of the Queens Liberation Front, an important trans activist organization founded in 1969 to fight the relegation of drag queens to the back of pride march and frequent collaborators with the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. This booklet features photos and text describing the various participants and attendants in that year’s Mardi Gras Ball, including Chris Moore, Jack the Stripper, Carol Durrel, Adrian, Chris Moore, Robin Rodgers, and Pudgy Roberts; along with Madame X and Bebe Scarpie, Director of the Queens Liberation Front. An exceedingly rare artifact of trans celebration and activism in 1970s New York from one of the key figures of the movement.

Six copies on OCLC as of February 2024.

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