Gay New York
Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940

There’s a pervasive misconception that all gay people were closeted and self-hating prior to Stonewall (1969). This couldn’t be further from the truth. In the early 1920s one doctor interviewed a group of working-class gender non-conforming people at a NYC jail who claimed that they were “proud to b......more

Many people in North America believe that gay rights and queer history began in 1969 with the Stonewall riot. The premise of this book is that there is a long rich history in New York, and that queer people (who might now be called gay and lesbian) participated in the cultural life of the city, and......more

This is a big, big book and haven't nearly read it all. It's full of fascinating details that you can just read bits and pieces and be chatting about them for life, like I am. Sometimes you don't have to finish a book for it to change things for you. The vision of New York as it was in 1890-1940 cha......more

Chauncey's history (1994) of the gay world of New York in the early twentieth century is encyclopedic. He did important original research, unlikely to ever be surpassed, mostly through oral interviews. He goes further in synthesizing the data into a convincing theory of the evolution of queer identi......more

Literally imagine the whole city thinking you were gay to the point that it is front page news when you marry a woman, rip Jean Marin you were a legend......more