Long Before Stonewall - Histories of Same-Sex Sexuality in Early America (Paperback)

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aThoughtful, persuasive, solidly constructed, and likely to endure the test of time.a--"Choice"

aHalf the 14 essays in this interdisciplinary study of seventeenth- through nineteenth-century America are reprints--though it's useful to have work that appeared in academic journals collected in one place. Among original work, Ramon A. Gutierrez's revisionist perspective on Native American "berdache" will raise the most eyebrows: rather than exalt their same-sex spirituality, fashionable among gay liberationists and radical faeries alike, the author's theory is that they led lives of sexual ahumiliation and endless work, not of celebration and veneration.a Among the reprints, Caleb Crain's account of a romantic triangle among three Philadelphia men that began in 1786, culled from their diaries, is the sweetest. Several essays draw on court records dating back as far as three hundred years to unearth queer lives, while others glean an intriguing and instructive glimpse of the past through a reading of Colonial-era fiction and journalism.a
--"Q Syndicate"

aIlluminate[s] the complexity, breadth, and social impact of sexuality in history.a--"The Gay & Lesbian Review"

aAn excellent introduction to the dynamic new work on sexuality in colonial and early national America, which not only expands our understanding of early America but forces us to rethink paradigms and periodizations that have long governed histories of sexuality in the U.S. A valuable contribution.a
--George Chauncey, author of "Why Marriage?"

aThis splendid collection illustrates the maturation of lesbian and gay history. The early American era emerges as arich period for understanding same-sex desire in both law and culture. It also proves critical for re-evaluating the dominant interpretations of the emergence of modern homosexual identities.a
--Estelle B. Freedman, author of "Feminism, Sexuality, and Politics"

aThis book fills a huge gap in research on same-sex sexuality, and usefully complicates our historical understanding of acts and identities. Long before Stonewall there were sexual identities! But their character will surprise you.a
--Jonathan Ned Katz, author of "Love Stories"

aRepresents an important contribution to American historical and sexuality studies.a--"The Gay & Lesbian Review/Worldwide"

"A major, ground-breaking study of early America. Readers will come away with a fresh sense of the centrality of sexuality to any understanding of the formation of the new Republic."
--Martha Vicinus, author of "Intimate Friends: Women Who Loved Women, 1778-1928"

"This splendid collection, interdisciplinary but deeply historical, illustrates the maturation of lesbian and gay history as it has expanded its chronological and regional scope and its methodological depths.."
--Estelle B. Freedman, author of "Feminism, Sexuality, and Politics"

Although the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City symbolically mark the start of the gay rights movement, individuals came together long before the modern era to express their same-sex romantic and sexual attraction toward one another, and in a myriad of ways. Some reflected on their desires in quiet solitude, while others endured verbal, physical, and legal harassment for publicly expressing homosexual interest through words or actions.

Long Before Stonewall seeks touncover the many iterations of same-sex desire in colonial America and the early Republic, as well as to expand the scope of how we define and recognize homosocial behavior. Thomas A. Foster has assembled a path-breaking, interdisciplinary collection of original and classic essays that explore topics ranging from homoerotic imagery of black men to prison reform to the development of sexual orientations. This collection spans a regional and temporal breadth that stretches from the colonial Southwest to Quaker communities in New England. It also includes a challenge to commonly accepted understandings of the Native American berdache. Throughout, connections of race, class, status, and gender are emphasized, exposing the deep foundations on which modern sexual political movements and identities are built.