Pennsylvania - 1969
Beech Creek, Pennsylvania doesn’t seem to be a town accustomed to much change. From Alison’s childhood to now, the town’s census report shows a growth of only 62 people. Bruce’s entire family lived in Beech Creek, only spreading out as far as the town itself, with evidence of them in the area as far back as 1790 where a Christian Bechdel appeared in the census. If you look at Beech Creek on Google Earth today, you can still clearly make out the areas Alison points out in her hand-drawn map: Bruce’s grave, childhood home, the house he lived in and restored with his family, the fun home just up the road, and the spot where he died.
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As Alison says in the Fun Home graphic novel, Bruce did make it to Europe. He was stationed in West Germany with the Army, and Helen flew there to marry him in Lucerne, Switzerland in 1959. They stayed in Europe for almost a year until they received word that Bruce’s father had suffered a heart attack and they needed to return to Beech Creek. When they arrived home, Bruce took over running the family funeral home and started teaching English. Alison herself moved from Beech Creek as soon as she could, going to college and then to New York, though she now lives in Vermont.
New York City - 1970s
Greenwich Village, otherwise known as the West Village, is the neighborhood the Bechdels stay in with their family friend for the bicentennial. It has long been known as a haven for artists. The Village also contains NYC's longest-running Off-Broadway house, The Cherry Lane Theatre, the world’s first LGBT bookstore, Oscar Wilde Bookshop (open 1967 to 2009), Cooper Union, New York University, and Washington Square Park. It was also the location of an important event in LGBT history: the Stonewall Inn, site of the famed Stonewall riots.
The Stonewall Riots are considered by many to be the single most important event sparking the gay liberation movement. The Stonewall Inn was the largest gay establishment in New York at the time, the only gay bar in Manhattan which allowed dancing. A police raid in the first few hours of June 28, 1969, caused a riot as the police manhandled, arrested, and mistreated patrons of the bar. As a direct result of the Stonewall Riots, the Gay Liberation Front was started, as was the Gay Activists’ Alliance, the city’s first homosexual newspaper, Gay. The very first Pride march happened on the first anniversary of the riots.
Oberlin COllege - 1977-1980
Alison went to Oberlin College, a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio. Oberlin has always been known for its progressiveness, as the first American university to admit African-Americans in 1835 and the first to admit women in 1837. During the Vietnam war, before Alison got there, they had a significant anti-war movement that protested on campus, around town, and in nearby Cleveland. In recent years, Oberlin students have made the news for protesting tuition raises and petitioning for student workers’ rights. For Alison, an LGBT-friendly, progressive liberal arts college that was just far enough (about 250 miles and 4 hours) from her parents would have seemed like a great place to go to discover her identity.
New York City would have been quite a spectacle during the bicentennial. In honor of the event, 16 tall ships from around the world sailed to New York to participate in a Parade of the Ships as part of Operation Sail. The ships docked and allowed the public to tour them while their sailors were on land celebrating with the city. There was also an international naval review on July 4 that drew warships from many countries— President Gerald Ford sailed down the Hudson River in a guided missile cruiser to conduct the review. There were fireworks, fairs, festivals, parades, ceremonies, and concerts throughout the city and surrounding area.
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While in the city, the Bechdels saw A Chorus Line, which had been on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre for just under a year. This was an interesting choice for Bruce to make—A Chorus Line was the first big Broadway musical to include LGBT characters talking openly about their sexuality instead of being reduced to stereotypes of gay people.
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Alison attended college at the end of the 1970s, a time in which many young people, not all of whom were hippies, were "finding their own families to replace the biological families they felt had failed them. They were looking for ways to be themselves, while still supporting and being supported by others" (The Great Funk). Sound familiar? Alison saw a lot of flaws in her parents, so going to college during a movement focused on choosing family outside of biological family might have been quite liberating.
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Alison published a comic about her coming-out story, which takes place at Oberlin. You can find it here, linked from Oberlin’s LGBT Community History Project. The History Project also has copies of historical documents relating to their LGBT community during Alison’s time there, which you can find under the 70s and 80s sections here.
