Male-Male Intimacy in Early America: Beyond Romantic Friendships
Previously hard-to-find information on homosexuality in early America—now in a convenient single volume!\ Few of us are familiar with the gay men on General Washington’s staff or among the leaders of the new republic. Now, in the same way that Alex Haley’s Roots provided a generation of African Americans with an appreciation of their history, Male-Male Intimacy in Early America: Beyond Romantic Friendships will give many gay readers their first glimpse of homosexuality as a theme in early...
Search in google:
This single volume provides a comprehensive overview of the role of male homosexuality in the early years of American history. Honored as a 2007 Stonewall Book Award nonfiction selection, Male-Male Intimacy in Early America brings together hard-to-find information that has until now been widely scattered in journals and archives across the country, using personal letters, diaries, court records, and contemporary publications to examine the role of homosexual activity in the lives of American men in the Colonial period and in the early years of the new republic. Library Journal Benemann (archivist, Sch. of Law, Berkeley; editor, A Year of Mud and Gold: San Francisco in Letters and Diaries, 1849-1850) sheds a lavender light on the red, white, and blue as he reexamines American history up to the mid-19th century. The author does so by interpreting the floridly archaic language of letters, diaries, newspapers, and other documents from that era not as demonstrating passionate if platonic friendships but as evidence of bona-fide same-sex relationships and a rich gay subculture. With an eye for the telling detail that makes places and personalities live on the printed page, Benemann sketches the attraction of the New World to men whose sexuality placed them on the fringes of society. He reveals the lives of men whose relationships, at best difficult, were further complicated by differences in age, socioeconomic status, and race. While his reading-between-the-lines approach, including ferreting out homoerotic undertones in such icons of the American myth as "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and Uncle Tom's Cabin, may prove controversial, his reasoning seems sound. Recommended for history and human sexuality collections in academic, special, and large public libraries.-Richard J. Violette, Special Libs. Cataloging, Victoria, B.C. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
PrefaceAcknowledgmentsChapter 1. The Freedom of the FrontierChapter 2. Warme Brüder, Mouches, and MolliesChapter 3. Rum, Sodomy, and the LashChapter 4. Gone for a SoldierChapter 5. Sodomites in America's LibrariesChapter 6. Racism and Homosexual Desire in the Antebellum PeriodChapter 7. The Nation's Capital Under Jefferson: Four Case StudiesChapter 8. On the Streets of Philadelphia, Annapolis, and BostonChapter 9. Spirituality and SublimationChapter 10. Gender Anarchy As a Revolutionary ThreatChapter 11. Male Intimacy at the FringesNotesBibliographyIndex
\ Library JournalBenemann (archivist, Sch. of Law, Berkeley; editor, A Year of Mud and Gold: San Francisco in Letters and Diaries, 1849-1850) sheds a lavender light on the red, white, and blue as he reexamines American history up to the mid-19th century. The author does so by interpreting the floridly archaic language of letters, diaries, newspapers, and other documents from that era not as demonstrating passionate if platonic friendships but as evidence of bona-fide same-sex relationships and a rich gay subculture. With an eye for the telling detail that makes places and personalities live on the printed page, Benemann sketches the attraction of the New World to men whose sexuality placed them on the fringes of society. He reveals the lives of men whose relationships, at best difficult, were further complicated by differences in age, socioeconomic status, and race. While his reading-between-the-lines approach, including ferreting out homoerotic undertones in such icons of the American myth as "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and Uncle Tom's Cabin, may prove controversial, his reasoning seems sound. Recommended for history and human sexuality collections in academic, special, and large public libraries.-Richard J. Violette, Special Libs. Cataloging, Victoria, B.C. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.\ \
