Club Baths
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Club_Washington_Bathhouse.jpg/220px-Club_Washington_Bathhouse.jpg)
Club Baths was a chain of gay bathhouses in the United States and Canada with particular prominence from the 1960s through the 1990s.
At its peak it included 42 bathhouses: Akron, Atlanta, Atlantic City, Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Camden, Chicago, Cleveland (two locations), Columbus, Dallas, Dayton, Detroit, Hartford, Houston, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Key West, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Haven, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Providence, St. Louis, San Francisco, Tampa, Toledo, Washington, D.C., London (Ontario), and Toronto.[1]
The chain claimed to have at least 500,000 members. Most of the bathhouses were closed in the 1990s either by government agencies or a changing market after charges were made that it contributed to the spread of
The Club was founded in 1965 by John "Jack" W. Campbell (born 1932) and two other investors who paid $15,000 to buy a closed Finnish bath house in
Campbell, a former president of the
Campbell would be active in the fight against the Save Our Children campaign headed by Anita Bryant in the late 1970s.
The facility in Toronto was one of four bathhouses raided on February 5, 1981, in a police action known as Operation Soap.[3]
Bathhouses that today claim a Club Baths heritage include the CBC Resorts Club Body Center, which has bathhouses in
References
- ISBN 9781584351078, p. 211.
- ^ OCLC 40668240
- ^ Tattelman, Ira (2005-01-01). "Toronto Police Raid Gay Bathhouses". GLBT History, 1976–1987. EBSCO Publishing. pp. 127–130.[dead link]
- ^ "Club Body Center – Miami, FL". CBC Resorts. Archived from the original on 2009-12-15. Retrieved 2009-11-18.
- ^ "The Clubs". The Clubs. Retrieved 2009-11-18.
- ^ Keehnen, Owen (2012-09-13). "If These Walls Could Talk: Man's Country anniversary - Windy City Times News". Windy City Times. Retrieved 2024-01-26.
- ISBN 9781955826419.
External links
- "Club Bath Milkwaukee", Wisconsin LGBTQ History Project