The Shamrock Bar: Photographs and Interviews by Carol Burch-Brown
Collection open for research on site by appointment. Unprotected photographs must be handled with gloves.
Colection donated by Carol Burch-Brown, December 2003.
The collection is divided into three series.
Series 1: Photoprints
Series 2: Text (including transcripts of interviews)
Series 3: Compact discs
Carol Burch-Brown is Professor of Art and Humanities at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, and is a photographer, painter, and musician. Photographer and co-author with David Rigsbee, Trailers, University Press of Virginia, 1996.
During its heyday, the Shamrock Bar in Bluefield, West Virginia was a gathering place for gays and lesbians. The photographer reported in March 2003, before donating this collection, that Miss Helen Compton, proprietor of the Shamrock, had died and the establishment had been closed.
It's Reigning Queens in Appalachia
The Shamrock Bar: Photographs and Interviews by Carol Burch-Brown, 1997-2003, Archives Center, National Museum of American History. Gift of the artist.
Processed by Carol Burch-Brown and David Haberstich.
The collection consists of Carol Burch-Brown's photographs (200 photoprints, mostly silver gelatin on fiber-base paper, but including more than a dozen digital prints), copies of tape-recorded interviews (on 26 compact discs), and transcripts of interviews (3 volumes plus a compact disc containing Word files) made at the Shamrock Bar, Bluefield, West Virginia, 1997-2002, documenting a working-class gay bar. The photographs include "drag" performances, pageants, and other activities at the bar. Many show performers applying makeup and donning costumes, including the use of prosthetic breasts. Pictures taken in the bar are often in a soft-focus, slightly blurred, high-contrast, impressionistic style. There are a number of sharp-focus portraits, however, and exterior views of the building, its neighborhood, and the town are sharply focused, detailed documentary images.
Names (usually pseudonyms or stage names) which turn up in the interviews include: Natasha Michaels, Nikki Eaves, Shea West, Cortney Collins, Taylor Made, India Dream, Clinton, Tiffany Aver, Terba Devero, Roxie Morehead, and Dorothy. The performer "Bunny" is actually the photographer's friend and colleague, Ann Kilkelly. Many of these persons are also shown in the photographs, as is Helen Compton.
Note: The audio compact disks are not original recordings, and may be played by researchers directly.
Reproduction restricted due to copyright. Requests will be referred to the photographer.
200 photoprints, mostly silver gelatin, except for fifteen digital prints, on 8" x 10" fiber-base paper. Each print is captioned, signed, and dated on the verso by the photographer. The complete caption list is contained in Volume 1 of the text in the collection itself.
200 photoprints, mostly silver gelatin, except for fifteen digital prints, on 8" x 10" fiber-base paper. Each print is captioned, signed, and dated on the verso by the photographer. The complete caption list is contained in Volume 1 of the text in the collection itself. The following prints are digital, rather than silver gelatin: Nos. 155-165, 167-168, and possibly nos. 2 and 3. A few prints are duplicates; e.g., nos. 64 and 70.
Helen Compton, at Eva's. [Photoprint, black-and-white, copyright 2003].
AC0857-0000001.tif (AC Scan No.)
Through the window, entrance to Shamrock [photoprint, black-and-white, copyright 2003].
AC0857-0000002.tif (AC Scan No.)
Joanna and Nikki. [Photoprint, black-and-white, ca. 1999-2003] .
AC0857-0000003.tif (AC Scan No.)
Making up Miss Cortney. [Photoprint, black-and-white, copyright 2003].
AC0857-0000004.tif (AC Scan No.)
Miss Tiffany Aner, piano cape open. [Photoprint, black-and-white, copyright 2003].
AC0857-0000005.tif(AC Scan No.)
"Ain't Too Proud to Beg" performers: Joanna, Carol, Pam, Lynn, Eva, Kathy, Ann. [Photoprint, black-and-white, 1999].
AC0857-0000006.tif (AC Scan No.)
Patrons dancing [black and white photoprint].
AC0857-0000007.tif (AC Scan No.)
Print #75. Photograph taken in 1999. Carol Burch-Brown, copyright 2003.
Displayed in Archives Center exhibition, "Archiving the History of an Epdemic: HIV and AIDS, 1985-2009," June 3, 2011-October 3, 2011. Franklin A. Robinson, Jr., curator.
Text, three volumes, with plastic covers. Volume III includes some documentary ephemera: a November 6, 1999 35th anniversary program; a November 4-5, 1994 30th anniversary program, a picture postcard showing a mural by Larry Akers, "Beginning of an Era Gone By"; a September 6, 1997 Miss Gay West Virginia Regional Pageant program; and an article about the Shamrock Bar by Larry Yost, from the Blue Ridge Lambda Press, Sept./Oct. 2001. 26 compact disks (audio) and 1 computer CD containing Word files, in spindle container.