Making Gay History | LGBTQ Oral Histories from the Archive
Oct 1, 2026 · 4 min · 4 segments
A century ago, at a notorious men’s penitentiary in New York City, gay inmates managed to find joy and community through their annual Christmas show, the “Fag Follies.” This season, join Eric Marcus…
Eric MarcusHostExpert PanelistPanelistLegal History ExpertPanelistHistory PanelistPanelistTrue Crime History ExpertGuestMusic History ExpertPanelist
You'll meet Jean Mosley, a drag queen arrested on his way to a masquerade ball, who gets a surprising casting call in court.
What? Oh, my goodness.
So the magistrate is sort of the casting director for the Fag Follies.
She became well-known for singing naughty versions of popular songs, turning them into an ode to the joys of anal sex.
We'll investigate a shocking turn-of-the-century true crime page-turner with Abraham Kriegel, an immigrant Jewish tailor caught up in a gay bathhouse
sting.
Abraham is married, has five children, and then got this ticket to go to a bathhouse, went in and lost his mind.
Eric, are you turning red?
It's a chapter of LGBTQ history I knew nothing about, but we've brought it to life with the help of historians, archivists, writers, and performers.
Join us as we step into a time when fascism was on the rise and queerness was criminal, and find out what a Christmas show in prison in the 1930s can tell us about living as ourselves today.
Almost 40 years before Stonewall, that fearlessness and that fierceness is already starting to show through.
You'll meet Jean Mosley, a drag queen arrested on his way to a masquerade ball, who gets a surprising casting call in court.
What? Oh, my goodness.
So the magistrate is sort of the casting director for the Fag Follies.
She became well-known for singing naughty versions of popular songs, turning them into an ode to the joys of anal sex.
We'll investigate a shocking turn-of-the-century true crime page-turner with Abraham Kriegel, an immigrant Jewish tailor caught up in a gay bathhouse
sting.
Abraham is married, has five children, and then got this ticket to go to a bathhouse, went in and lost his mind.
Eric, are you turning red?
It's a chapter of LGBTQ history I knew nothing about, but we've brought it to life with the help of historians, archivists, writers, and performers.
Join us as we step into a time when fascism was on the rise and queerness was criminal, and find out what a Christmas show in prison in the 1930s can tell us about living as ourselves today.
Almost 40 years before Stonewall, that fearlessness and that fierceness is already starting to show through.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
