Long Before Stonewall: Histories of Same-Sex Sexuality in Early America

About the Book

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 to uncover 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 pathbreaking, 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.

Table of Contents:
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Long Before Stonewall Thomas A. FosterPart I Colonial Native Americas1 Warfare, Homosexuality, and Gender Status Among American Indian Men in the Southwest Ramon A. Gutierrez2 Weibe-Town and the Delawares-as-WomenGunlog Fur3 "Abominable Sin" in Colonial New MexicoTracy BrownPart II Colonial British America4 "The Cry of Sodom": Discourse, Intercourse, and Desire in Colonial New England Richard Godbeer5 Border CrossingsAnne G. Myles6 Hermaphrodites and "Same-Sex" Sex in Early America Elizabeth Reisvii7 Mapping an Atlantic Sexual CultureClare A. LyonsPart III Romantic Bonds in the Early Republic8 An Excerpt from Surpassing the Love of Men Lillian Faderman9 Leander, Lorenzo, and CastalioCaleb Crain10 The Swan of Litch?eldLisa L. MoorePart IV Reformers in the New Nation11 Sexual Desire, Crime, and Punishment in the Early Republic Mark E. Kann12 The Black Body Erotic and the Republican Body Politic,1790-1820 John Saillant13 What's Sex Got to Do with It? Laura Mandell14 In a French Position: Radical Pornography and Homoerotic Society in Charles Brockden Brown's Ormond or the Secret Witness Stephen ShapiroAfterword John D'EmilioAbout the Contributors Index About the Editor

About the Author :

Thomas A. Foster is Professor of History at Howard University, in Washington, DC, and author of Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America, and Sex and the Founding Fathers: The American Quest for a Relatable Past. He is also editor of Long Before Stonewall: Histories of Same-Sex Sexuality (NYU Press, 2007), New Men: Manliness in Early America (NYU Press, 2011), and Documenting Intimate Matters: Primary Sources for a History of Sexuality in America. Foster tweets at @ThomasAFoster.pasting

Review :
"Thoughtful, persuasive, solidly constructed, and likely to endure the test of time."--Choice"Half 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 'humiliation and endless work, not of celebration and veneration.' 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." --Q Syndicate"Illuminate[s] the complexity, breadth, and social impact of sexuality in history."--The Gay & Lesbian Review"An 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." --George Chauncey, author of Why Marriage?"This splendid collection illustrates the maturation of lesbian and gay history. The early American era emerges as a rich period for understanding same-sex desire in both law and culture. It also proves critical for reevaluating the dominant interpretations of the emergence of modern homosexual identities." --Estelle B. Freedman, author of Feminism, Sexuality, and Politics"This 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." --Jonathan Ned Katz, author of Love Stories"Represents an important contribution to American historical and sexuality studies."--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