Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Title: Bulldog Bathhouse records and memorabilia
Dates: 1979-1982
Collection Number: 1986-03
Creator/Collector:
Extent: 5.2 linear feet
Repository:
GLBT Historical Society
San Francisco, California 94103
Abstract: The collection consists of notebooks, artwork, artifacts/ephemera and legal pleadings relating to the Bulldog and its predecessor,
the Club Turkish Baths.
Language of Material: English
The collection is available for research if the researcher doesn’t identify any individuals by name or note identifying characteristics
in the various notebooks. Restrictions until 2052. The erotica in this collection may only be viewed by researchers age eighteen
and over and it is made available for educational and research purposes.
Funding for processing this collection was provided by the National
Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).
Copyright to unpublished materials has not been transferred to the GLBT Historical Society.
[Identification of item]. Bulldog Bathhouse records and memorabilia. Collection Number: 1986-03. GLBT Historical Society
The Bulldog Bathhouse Records (#86-3) were donated to GLHS by Glen Gerber, one of the members of a limited partnership that
owned and operated the Bulldog Baths. The materials in the collection were gathered from 130-132 Turk Street by Will Walker,
members of the Historical Society and members of The 15, an S/M society.
Biography/Administrative History
The Bulldog and, its predecessor, The Club Turkish Baths (not related to Jack Campbell’s chain) were located at 130-132 Turk
Street. The address was purportedly known as a meeting place for gays as early as the 1930s. The Club Turkish Baths was the
largest, as well as the oldest, gay bathhouse in the city. The Club Turkish Baths were bought and renamed the Bulldog Baths
in 1979. The Bulldog, which filled five stories, contained a variety of sexual arenas, including jail cells, an orgy room,
a steam room, a douche room and a truck. The baths were closed sometime in the early or mid-1980s.
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection consists of notebooks, artwork, artifacts/ephemera and legal pleadings. Many of the items are of unusual or
irregular format.
The notebooks are of three types; desk logs; logs of employee/supervisor actions containing complaints and requests, and notable
occurrences and; management meeting minutes. The logs and minutes contain the usual litany of malfunctioning equipment, supply
shortages, cash shortages, lost and stolen items, employee and management attitudes and salvos from one employee to another.
Nonetheless, the logs and minutes are an authentic, occasionally witty, though more often routine and mundane, accounts of
the working and operating conditions in a gay bathhouse of this period.
The artwork consists of several sheetrock panels depicting a variety of gay erotica activity.
The ephemera/artifacts include items used to conduct or to promote the Bulldog and structural elements of the building. The
ephemera used to conduct or promote the business includes: daily logs, signs, sheets, postcards, bulletin boards, clothes
hangers, regular and visitor membership cards and coupons, sign in cards, a large iron cage, lock boxes, locker keys and tags,
a mirror and posters. The structural elements include doors, outside sign and the artwork panels. GSSO linked terms: http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/GSSO_000374;
http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/GSSO_003124
Gay men
Bathhouses