Improper Bostonians: Lesbian and Gay History from the Puritans to Playland
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Surprising, fun, and magnificently illustrated with two hundred images, Improper Bostonians is the first book to depict Boston's three centuries of gay and lesbian life, and—since it treats the American city with the longest gay and lesbian history—the most comprehensive and meticulously researched gay city history ever written. Library Journal Compiled by a nonprofit volunteer group of historians, archivists, and writers known as The History Project, this book stems from research begun in 1980 and first presented as an exhibit at the Boston Public Library in 1996. By turns informative, amusing, and heartbreaking, this marvelously illustrated culmination documents 300 years of gay and lesbian life in the U.S. city with their longest history. Research draws on newspapers, diaries, oral history, archives, and even advertising. Both women and men are discussed equally, and the accounts of life in the 19th century--of Boston marriages and the bohemian group, The Visionists--are particularly informative. There is an extensive list of documentary notes and photo credits that will aid future researchers. This first-of-its-kind book on Boston straddles the line between George Chauncey's more scholarly Gay New York (BasicBks., 1994) and Jim Van Buskirk's more visual San Francisco history, Gay by the Bay (LJ 4/1/96). This remarkable work is highly recommended for public and academic libraries.--Lisa N. Johnston, Sweet Briar Coll. Lib., VA
AcknowledgmentsForewordIntroduction1A Puritan heritage: The seventeenth century6Native Americans and homosexuality8Sodomy and the law11The love of David and Jonathan: John Winthrop and William Springe12A free spirit: Thomas Morton of Merrymount14Puritans in drag17Sins of the flesh: Michael Wigglesworth, Thomas Shepard, Cotton Mather21Boston in transition: The eighteenth century25An epistolary romance: Esther Edwards Burr and Sarah Prince26Dandies, fops, bachelors, and beaux: Sir Charles Hobby28Soldiers in disguise: Deborah Sampson, Ann Bailey31Friends and lovers: George Middleton: Joseph Dennie and Roger Vose; The Anthologists33The Athens of America: The nineteenth century38The Bachelors' Journal40Romantic friendship, fraternal love: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Margaret Fuller, Emily Dickinson42"Every leaf but the fig leaf": Walt Whitman, Charles William Dabney Jr., Fred W. Loring, Nathan Appleton Jr., Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Winslow Homer and Albert Warren Kelsey50Charlotte's web: Charlotte Cushman and Emma Stebbins, Matilda Hays, Emma Crow, Sallie Mercer, Florence Freeman, Harriet Hosmer, Grace Greenwood, Edmonia Lewis57Spinsters and tomboys: Mary Casal, Elizabeth Brewster Ely64Being together66Boston marriages: Alice James and Katharine Loring, Annie Adams Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett, Katharine Lee Bates and Katharine Coman, Anne Whitney and Adeline Manning, Amy Lowell and Ada Dwyer Russell, Gertrude Stein, Angelina Weld Grimke, Vida Scudder and Florence Converse, Edith Guerrier and Edith Brown70Creating a female dominion: Susan Dimock, Emily Greene Balch81Bohemian Boston: Ralph Adams Cram, F. Holland Day, Daniel Berkeley Updike, Ogden Codman, Thomas Newbold Codman, Louise Imogen Guiney and Alice Brown, Kahlil Gibran, Bliss Carman, Shirley Everton Johnson84Mrs. Jack: Isabella Stewart Gardner, John Singer Sargent, Henry Davis Sleeper, A. Piatt Andrew Jr., Edward Perry Warren and John Marshall, Charles Hammond Gibson90The early twentieth century: 1900-194598The sexologists and Freud: F.O. Matthiessen100Passing women104Boys will be girls: Julian Eltinge, Francis Renault, college theatricals, same-sex weddings111Banned in Boston120Profile: Richard Cowan123Life during wartime129Profile: Senator David Walsh136The men of the Baltimore138From the Cold War to Stonewall: 1945-1969142Profile: Miriam Van Waters145The Mid-Town Journal148People's parties154Map of bars and gathering places, 1920-1960160The geography of a subculture: Marie Cord, Tex, Phil Baione162Drag under fire178Profile: Sylvia Sidney182The Beaux Arts Ball184Provincetown186Homophobia and urban renewal190Profile: Prescott Townsend194Setting the stage: Frank Morgan198Afterword200
