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A bartender mixes drinks at Milwaukee’s “This is It!” bar. Thousands of photos from the city’s first gay bar were recently donated for preservation to the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project. Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project.
Thousands of photos taken at Milwaukee’s oldest gay bar over the past 50 years are now housed at the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project, and while 50 years may not seem like that long ago, photos of people inside gay bars from that time were incredibly rare.
Milwaukee’s oldest gay bar, “This is It!”, was photographed in the mid-1970s. The bar recently donated thousands of photos to the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project for preservation. Photo courtesy of Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project
Those are the words of Mikhail Takacs, chairman of the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project.
“For most of the 20th century, gay bars were technically illegal. They operated kind of underground,” he says. “It’s extremely rare for there to be photographs of the inside of gay bars before the ’90s because people were very uncomfortable being seen in gay spaces.”
Takacs said it was “almost unheard of” to have a collection from that era, as people were either afraid of intimidation or didn’t go out on a daily basis.
But the History Project is currently processing thousands of photos taken at This Is It! bar, which has been a staple of Milwaukee’s LGBTQ+ community since it was opened by June Brem in 1968.
“She was a married woman who owned a business outside Milwaukee, worked in the restaurant industry, and had a lot of gay friends,” Takacs recalled. “She couldn’t believe what they were putting up with just to be in a place where they could be themselves.”
When Brehm opened This Is It!, he started taking photos of the people who frequented the bar. The images show everyday life: people posing, laughing, enjoying a beer. The photos span decades, showing how the fashion of the regulars changes as they get older.
Towards the end of June Brehm’s life, her son Joe Brehm took over running the bar and continued the tradition; a slideshow of photos from the ’90s and beyond can still be viewed on a monitor in the bar.
June Brem and her son Joe Brem pose at This Is It! Bar in Milwaukee. June Brem opened the bar in 1968 and began taking photos of patrons, thousands of which were recently donated to the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project for preservation. Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project
This Is It! has since moved out of the family’s hands and is now owned and operated by George Schneider and Trixie Mattel. Schneider said that when he came in, he found a shoebox full of old Polaroid photos and prints from the bar’s early days.
As he worked to digitize some of them, he decided he needed expert help with the project.
“When I took over the business completely, I felt like I was a steward of history,” Schneider said. “Educating people, especially the younger generations coming in, about the history of the space itself and the history of the queer community as a whole is really important to me.”
A woman poses for a photo during a Halloween party at This is It! bar in Milwaukee. Thousands of photos from the city’s first gay bar were recently donated for preservation to the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project. Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project.
That’s when Takacs stepped in. He suggested that The History Project scan all the photos, archive them, and put them on social media for people to see, preserving them indefinitely, a process that’s still ongoing today.
“When you have a place like This Is It! that has been such a meaningful and spiritual center for the community for so long, that’s really a very powerful story for us to carry on and a very powerful legacy for us to have,” he said.
Some of the photos have already been posted to the History Project’s Facebook page, with more to be added in the coming weeks and months.
For now, Schneider is enjoying the online activity as members of the community try to identify people in the photos and share their own memories of the bar.
Two men smile for a photo at Milwaukee’s “This is It!” bar. Thousands of photos from the city’s first gay bar were recently donated for preservation to the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project. Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project
“Seeing the feedback and reactions on social media, the nostalgia and memories it evokes and identifying people that I may not have thought about or met in years – I think that’s the most rewarding next step,” he said.
Takacs is just happy that more people want to preserve history like this.
“So much of LGBT history has been destroyed by people who were ashamed of it, didn’t know what to do with it, and didn’t want anyone to know about it,” he said. “And now we’re witnessing that turn around, and we’re witnessing an evolving understanding that this content has value.”
Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project Coming This Summer
This summer, people from all over the state will be able to explore those treasure trove of photographs and other historical exhibits as the History Project travels around the country.
The organization will visit 20 communities on its “Summer to be Seen” tour, highlighting people, organizations and places important to Wisconsin’s LGBTQ+ history, while also giving people the opportunity to share their own stories and building on the project’s archive.
Two men smile for a photo at Milwaukee’s “This is It!” bar. Thousands of photos from the city’s first gay bar were recently donated for preservation to the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project. Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project
“We’re going there because a new generation of people are telling us they don’t want to travel to stranger towns for Pride festivals,” Takacs said, “so this year we’re going to places that aren’t traditionally considered gay hubs — Rhinelander, Ashland, Ripon, Prattville, Door County, Wausau — and really expand the value, reach and impact of what we do.”
These events will run until early October, see the website for more details.
Listen to the WPR report
The article Milwaukee’s oldest gay bar donates thousands of photos to Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project originally appeared on Wisconsin Public Radio.
