Free Onle Library: Lewis loved Clark? Intrigug hts abound about Ameri's historic trailblazers. by "The Advote (The natnal gay & lbian newsmagaze)"; News, opn and mentary Gays Exhibns
Contents:
WERE LEWIS AND CLARK GAY?
* was meriwether lewis gay *
But if you don’t thk ’s absurd for one (historilly important) man to sire another, ’s jt a very tired anti-gay joke. Last summer, We Proceed On, the scholarly journal of the Lewis and Clark Trail Herage Foundatn me unr signifint fire after historian and archivist William Benemann published two says that speculated on the homo-erotic nature of the bond between the two Mr. Many letter wrers cried the cln, llg gay “propaganda” and an “abomatn, ” — that “disparaged” our “Amerin hero” by suggtg anythg other than heterosexualy when speakg of the two men: “I am takg this opportuny to exprs my outrage and disappotment about the article that bmirched the good character of Captas Lewis and Clark.
For gay and lbian Lewis-and-Clark buffs, the recent speculatn that Meriwether Lewis might have been gay has ma an already fascatg story downright Brian Hall's betifully wrten 2003 novel about the expedn, I Should Be Extremely Happy Your Company, the heterosexual thor mak a se that one of the for Lewis's suici 1809 at the age of 35 was that after Clark married a woman named Julia, his farmer partner felt bereft. ""What fascated me about Lewis was his tense personal lonels and the trigug hts the rerd that he had a much more tense feelg of raship for Clark than Clark did for him, " explas historians claim that there is na evince that Lewis was gay It's te that Lewis never scribed Clark his journals as a total hottie, but his survivg letters and journals should trigger the gaydar of open-md Print Jefferson asked him to lead the expedn, Lewis wrote to Clark sayg, "Believe me there is no man on earth wh whom I should feel equal pleasure sharg them as wh yourself.
Boalt librarian turned eelance historian had to read between the l when rearchg gay relatns early Ameri.
WERE LEWIS AND CLARK GAY? ABOUT THAT SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE SKETCH...
For more than a , Boalt Hall librarian William Benemann has been trollg the attics of history for sights to topics that pique his tert, be they the early years of the law school, Gold Rh-era San Francis, or the history of gays and lbians at Berkeley. The rult of his rearch is Male-Male Intimacy Early Ameri: Beyond Romantic Friendships, a new book om Harrgton Park Prs, a gay/lbian imprt of Haworth Prs. Detailed and wi-rangg, the book limns such topics as the explicly homosexual subcultur of late-18th- and early-19th-century London, Paris, and Berl - pots of orig for many immigrants to Amerin shor - and homosexual characters vented by Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Tobias Smollett, and other thors popular early Ameri.
The head of technil servic and archivist at the law library, Benemann not that most works on gay history foc on the post-World War II era, though "the timele is beg moved back a ltle toward the 19th century.
" He beme terted blazg a trail even further back time after rearchg the life of explorer Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809), who he beme nvced was homosexual. To better unrstand Lewis, he cid to read "every book ever wrten about what was like to be a gay man Meriwether Lewis' time" - only to disver a virtually uncharted historil 'imperative of silence'. In his troductn to Male-Male Intimacy, Benemann not that gay/lbian historil rearch is plited by an "imperative of silence" that is "woven to Wtern society's attu toward homosexualy.