Season 16 — Preview
Preview Notes
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 as he delves into their lives and explores their world within and outside the prison walls.
Episode first published October 1, 2026.
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Preview Transcript
Eric Marcus Narration: A century ago, on the southern end of an island in New York City’s East River, stood the south ward of the men’s penitentiary, a place where gay prisoners were segregated from the so-called “normal” men.
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Travis Russ: Our ancestors were incarcerated—like, real people were incarcerated there. And then they did a Christmas show called the “Fag Follies.”
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George Chauncey: And the prison officers actually went to see this performance. And everyone knew that the prisoners had dresses and wigs…
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Emcee, The Gorgeous Nothings (Arnie Burton): Tonight there is only one follies being performed in the godforsaken men’s penitentiary on beautiful Welfare Island in glorious New York City—the “Fag Follies.”
GN Cast: Jingle, jangle, promise…
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EM Narration: I’m Eric Marcus. This is Making Gay History. In our newest season, “The Queens of Welfare Island,” we’re inviting you to join us at the “Fag Follies.”
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Emcee, GN: Ziegfeld, eat your fuckin’ heart out.
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EM Narration: We’re going back to the early 20th century in New York City, when fairies, pansies, and queens were both celebrated and criminalized, on occasion at the same time, in the same prison ward—the Fag Ward.
Thanks to a new historical musical, The Gorgeous Nothings, which is set in the Fag Ward, for this season we’re able to step through a portal to a little-known period of the LGBTQ past, to explore the real lives of the people who inspired the show. And we’re going to break out of the prison, to explore the gay world of New York City in the early 20th century. We’ll uncover the places, songs, and streetlife that shaped the queens of Welfare Island.
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Brian Ferree: You don’t see this very often, but his offense was “Disorderly conduct, fairy.”
Eric Marcus: And what does that mean?
BF: That means exactly what you think it means.
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EM Narration: You’ll meet Gene Mosely, a drag queen arrested on his way to a masquerade ball, who gets a surprising casting call, in court.
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Allan K. Washington (Gene, GN): What? Oh, my goodness. So the magistrate is sort of the casting director for the “Fag Follies.”
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EM Narration: We’ll go uptown with Gladys Bentley, playing piano all night in a speakeasy.
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Cookie Woolner: She became well known for singing naughty versions of popular songs, turning them into an ode to the joys of anal sex.
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EM Narration: 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.
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John Cariani (Abraham, GN): Abraham is married, has five children, and then got this ticket to go to a bathhouse, went in, and lost his mind.
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Brian Ferree: Eric, are you turning red?
EM: Yes, I am. And I don’t mean to make light of this. I just, I, I, I, I’m actually shocked by the, the detail.
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EM Narration: 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.
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Travis Russ: Almost 40 years before Stonewall, that fearlessness and that fierceness is already starting to show through.
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EM Narration: Episode one of “The Queens of Welfare Island” drops on October 19. Subscribe to Making Gay History wherever you get your podcasts. Making Gay History, “The Queens of Welfare Island”: like, subscribe, follow—and tell your friends.
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