GEORGE CHAUNCEY'S GAY NEW YORK: A VIEW FROM 25 YEARS LATER | The Journal of the Gild Age and Progrsive Era | Cambridge Core

Contents:

• GAY NEW YORK : GENR, URBAN CULTURE, AND THE MAKGS OF THE GAY MALE WORLD, 1890-1940
• GEORGE CHAUNCEY'S GAY NEW YORK: A VIEW FROM 25 YEARS LATER
• HONORG GEE CHNCEY, A SCHOLAR OF GAY HISTORY
• GAY NEW YORK
• GAY NEW YORK SUMMARY
• GAY NEW YORK

GAY NEW YORK : GENR, URBAN CULTURE, AND THE MAKGS OF THE GAY MALE WORLD, 1890-1940

Tle: Gay New York: Genr, Urban Culture, and the Makg of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940. Gee Chncey unvers a prevly hidn "gay male world" New York Cy before World War II, a world that had been lost through the myths of "isolatn, visibily, and ternalizatn.

" Instead, the world Chncey scrib is a vibrant and surprisgly visible gay culture between 1890-1940. In this world, the later homosexual/heterosexual bary was not yet force, and men were fed on the basis of their masculy or femy rather than the sex of their sexual partners.

GEORGE CHAUNCEY'S GAY NEW YORK: A VIEW FROM 25 YEARS LATER

In this way, workg-class mascule men, particularly sailors and laborers, uld have sex wh effemate "fairi" yet not be nsired "gay" (provid they were the one dog the peratg).

In Part II, Chncey scrib how gay men produced the space of an urban "gay world. Chncey not that, until the 1930s, thori would often take a hands-off approach unls gay men's prence moved beyond the tegory of harmls spectacle. He also not the tensn between private and public, where gay men were often forced out of the public sphere to engage activi and socializg public areas (although plac such as parks and streets were often dangero).

Fally, he pots to the velopment of two gay neighborhood enclav: Greenwich Village the 1910s (part of a larger bohemian culture) and Harlem the 1920s and 1930s (which was much more visible and vibrant).

HONORG GEE CHNCEY, A SCHOLAR OF GAY HISTORY

Chncey not that until the 1930s, the spac, particular Harlem, beme a space for highly visible spectacl of gay life - for example, massive drag queen balls which thoands attend and were vered by the prs. The unrme any notns of gay life beg eply the closet until the 1960s.

Chncey ends wh a discsn of the cle of this gay world. Wh s repeal the state had broar surveillance and regulatory powers which they ed to lim gay public space. This occurs most vividly wh vlent crackdowns on any bars that allowed gay men visibily (leadg to the rise of exclively gay bars).

Chncey's narrative ends wh the gay world beg driven largely unrground durg the 1930s. - Gay world was que visible before 1930s, then went to the closet (anti-Whiggish view of history).

GAY NEW YORK

- For much of perd there was no hetero/homo bary, stead fed by masculy/femy, NOT sexual orientatn - straight men uld have sex wh "fairi" and "queers" (fed by their femy) and not be nsired gay. - Gay men create a space for activy that bridg public and private (ex.

- Decle of gay world (gets put to the closet) begng 1930s due middle class male anxieti and repeal of Prohibn (broar state surveillance). [365]-457) and xThis groundbreakg work shatters the myth that before the 1960s gay life existed only the closet where gay men were isolated, visible, and self-hatg. Based on years of rearch and accs to a rich trove of public and private documents, this is a look at a gay world that was not supposed to have existed.

GAY NEW YORK SUMMARY

Focg on New York Cy, the gay pal of the natn for nearly a century, Chncey recreat the saloons, speakeasi, and feterias where gay men gathered, the timate parti and immense drag balls where they celebrated, and the highly visible rintial enclav they built Greenwich Village, Harlem, and Tim Square. He offers new perspectiv on the gay rights revolutn of our time by showg that the opprsn the gay and lbian movement attacked the 1960s was not an unchangg phenomenon-- had tensified the 1920s and 1930s as a direct rponse to the visibily of the gay world those years. Extract When Gee Chncey's Gay New York appeared a quarter century ago, did so wh served fanfare.

” While reviews of Gay New York appeared the ual Amerin history journals, many of the were unmonly long, ditg the book's immediate importance. The Associatn of Amerin Geographers held a roundtable on Gay New York 1995 which a participant dubbed , “one of the more important texts wrten by a nongeographer to be clud a non of new social geography.

GAY NEW YORK

” Beyond the amy, the popular prs also exprsed nsirable tert the book, wh the New York Tim, the New Yorker, the New Republic, and the Gay Communy News each takg up the matter of Gay New York s pag.