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Summary

Description
English: Title: Krazy Kat (a reference to the Krazy Kat speakeasy and art club in Washington, D.C.)
  • Summary: Photograph shows the Krazy Kat, an art club on Green Court (near Thomas Circle), Washington. D.C. (Source: Washington Times, July 31, 1921)
  • Description: 23-year-old artist and scenic designer Cleon "Throck" Throckmorton (1897–1965) (far right), 18-year-old Chicago-born fencing expert and Throckmorton's future wife Kathryn Marie "Kat" Mullin (1902–1994) (far left), 26-year-old painter and illustrator Inez Hogan (1895–1973) (middle), and two unidentified friends photographed circa July 1921 at the back-alley entrance of Throckmorton's speakeasy, The Krazy Kat, in Washington, D.C.

    Known for its riotous performances of hot jazz music which often degenerated into violence and mayhem, this notorious Jazz Age speakeasy operated in D.C.'s rough and tumble Latin Quarter during the early years of prohibition. Frequent habitués included many avant-garde artists and thespians associated with the Provincetown Players social circle. The speakeasy's libertine clientèle became known for their public advocacy of free love ("unrestricted impulse").

    The speakeasy's name, The Krazy Kat, derived from the gender-bending title character of George Herriman's Krazy Kat comic strip. According to Herriman, the character wasn't "a he or a she. The Kat's a spirit—a pixie—free to butt into anything." This namesake communicated that the venue catered to clientèle of all sexual orientations. The venue soon became a clandestine rendezvous spot for Washington, D.C.'s queer community to meet without fear of exposure.

    By 1922, the speakeasy had gained local infamy, and moral reformers openly condemned its presence in the city. Municipal authorities publicly identified the venue as a "disorderly house" (a contemporary designation for a brothel), and D.C. police raided the establishment numerous times—in one instance after a violent brawl and a gunshot.

    Six months after this photograph, Cleon Throckmorton and Kathryn Mullin married in January 1922 in Manhattan, New York. A model, singer, sketch artist and costume designer, Mullin gained fame for her radio and stage performances as a ukulele player with Harry Crandall's Saturday Nighters. Promoters billed her stage performances as "The Girl With the Million Dollar Legs." When not performing on stage or radio, Mullin gave public exhibitions in women's saber fencing.

    After four years of marriage, Mullin sued Throckmorton for divorce on December 17, 1926, after catching him in a sexual encounter with an unidentified woman—possibly film actress Juliet Brenon (1895–1979)—in their Greenwich Village apartment in Manhattan. Mullin's friend, African-American stage actress and Harlem Renaissance icon Blanche Dunn, testified on her behalf in the divorce suit. Throckmorton did not contest the divorce, and Mullin did not seek alimony.

    After the divorce, Throckmorton married Juliet Brenon on March 13, 1927. During the Spanish Civil War, Throckmorton raised funds for the anti-Francisco Franco Republican faction. Meanwhile, Mullin married right-wing, pro-Franco journalist John Parsons O'Donnell on May 6, 1927. They divorced in 1929. In later years, Mullin remarried again, returned to the Midwest, and became a speech therapist for children. She died in March 1994, at age 91, in Pasadena, California.
  • Abstract/medium: National Photo Company Collection (Library of Congress)
  • Physical description: 1 negative :
Date
Source

Library of Congress

Author National Photo Company Collection. Attributed to The Washington Times, July 31, 1921
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No known restrictions on publication. For more information, see National Photo Company Collection - Rights and Restrictions Information

This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division
under the digital ID npcc.04658.
This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing.

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Licensing

Public domain This work is from the National Photo Company collection at the Library of Congress. According to the library, there are no known copyright restrictions on the use of this work.
Public domain

This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or fewer.

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1930.

This file has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights.

Captions

Patrons await the opening of the Krazy Kat Klub, a speakeasy, in 1921.

Items portrayed in this file

depicts

Cleon Throckmorton

inception

1921

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Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current08:33, 11 July 2018Thumbnail for version as of 08:33, 11 July 20185,328 × 4,315 (3.11 MB)FæLOC upscale 1,024 × 829 → 5,328 × 4,315
12:52, 2 March 2018Thumbnail for version as of 12:52, 2 March 20181,024 × 829 (188 KB)FæLibrary of Congress National Photo Company Collection 1921 LOC npcc.04658 jpg # 12,646 / 35,621

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