The hiatus lasted until the autumn ofВ 1931, when officers, reacting to the cultural experimentation of theВ Prohibition years and the onset of the Depression, began to clamp down onВ the cityвЂ™s queer community and targeted the balls.

But drag ball organisers found they couldВ continue to stage events if a neighbourhood organisation applied for officialВ police sponsorship on their behalf. With the balls gaining popularity, the New York state legislature hadВ criminalised вЂhomosexual solicitationвЂ™ in 1923 as part of a wider backlashВ around male-male sexual relations. вЂTheВ affair, we were informed, was a вЂњFag/Masquerade BallвЂќвЂ.4 Four years later,В Broadway Brevities reported from another ball that men rivalled birds ofВ paradise and peacocks, their plumed headdresses nodding and undulatingВ from their вЂshapely headsвЂ™.5 Soon after, novelists Charles Henri Ford andВ Parker Tyler evoked the drag ball floor as вЂa scene whose celestial flavourВ and cerulean colouring no angelic painter or nectarish poet has everВ conceived.вЂ™6 вЂAbout 12.30am we visited this place and found approximately 5,000 people,В coloured and white, men attired in womenвЂ™s clothes, and vice versa,вЂ™В reported a team of undercover investigators following an inspection of theВ Hamilton Lodge ball held in the Manhattan Casino in February 1928. For the restВ of the evening, dancers took to the floor in couples and formed partnershipsВ that were superficially straight, with men (including lesbians dressed as menВ and gay men who favoured butch style) accompanying women (or menВ dressed as women, as well as straight femmes) while any number ofВ straights watched on from the sidelines. Held once a year, the balls came to feature a procession known as theВ вЂparade of the fairiesвЂ™, which involved drag queen contestants sashayingВ through the auditorium in preparation for a costume competition. Invited to attend another ball at Hamilton Lodge by theВ entrepreneur and party host AвЂ™Lelia Walker, Harlem Renaissance socialВ activist and writer Langston Hughes proclaimed the drag balls to be theВ вЂstrangest and gaudiest of all HarlemвЂ™s spectacles in the 1920sвЂ™ andВ described them as вЂspectacles in colourвЂ™.2 Noting the presence ofВ вЂdistinguished white celebritiesвЂ™ during this period, Hughes concluded thatВ вЂHarlem was in vogueвЂ™ and вЂthe negro was in vogueвЂ™.

He witnessedВ 500 same-sex male and female couples вЂwaltzing sedately to the music of aВ good bandвЂ™.1 A rickety old building situated at 119 East 11th Street, WebsterВ Hall played host to further events during the 1920s, and by the end of theВ decade, masquerade parties were being staged in conspicuous venues suchВ as Madison Square Garden and the Astor Hotel, where they attracted crowdsВ of up to 6,000. HarlemвЂ™s Hamilton Lodge staged its first queer masquerade ball inВ 1869, and some 20 years later a medical student stumbled into another ballВ that was taking place in Walhalla Hall on the Lower East Side. Photographs by Chantal Regnault.Д«ursting into public consciousness between 19, the culture ofВ drag balls and voguing can be traced back to the second half of the 19thВ century.

Introduction to Voguing and the Gay Ballroom Scene of New York City, 1989-92.

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