Last updated: August 24, 2020
Place
Henry Gerber House
Photo by Thshriver, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30767426
Quick Facts
Location:
1710 North Crilly Court, Chicago, Illinois
Significance:
Social/Humanitarian, LGBTQ
Designation:
National Historic Landmark
OPEN TO PUBLIC:
No
MANAGED BY:
private
Henry Gerber House designated a National Historic Landmark
The Henry Gerber House is nationally significant for its association with the founding of the first chartered organization in the United States dedicated to advocating for the rights of homosexuals. Henry Gerber lived in the house at 1710 North Crilly Court from 1924 until 1925 as a tenant when he founded the Society for Human Rights (SHR), an organization advocating for the civil rights of homosexuals, and the first gay rights society in the United States. It is in this building that Gerber, as the secretary, wrote the organization’s mission statement and filed for its incorporation. The address listed on the charter as the organization’s business office was 1710 North Crilly Court, Gerber’s residence at the time. In 1962, Gerber recalled that following his arrest in 1925, police raided his room at 1710 North Crilly Court and seized, among other items, the typewriter on which he wrote documents for the Society for Human Rights. It is therefore likely that Gerber wrote the society’s correspondence and newsletters at this house. The establishment of the Society for Human Rights in 1924 marks a turning point in the history of homosexuality in the United States.