Homosexualy & Homoromanticism Durg the Victorian Era: 28 Vtage Portras of Gay Coupl From the 19th Century ~ Vtage Everyday

Contents:

• BUT WERE THEY GAY? THE MYSTERY OF SAME-SEX LOVE THE 19TH CENTURY
• THE 200-YEAR-OLD DIARY THAT'S REWRG GAY HISTORY
• NEWLY PUBLISHED PORTRAS DOCUMENT A CENTURY OF GAY MEN LOVE
• HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI

BUT WERE THEY GAY? THE MYSTERY OF SAME-SEX LOVE THE 19TH CENTURY

The fact that homosexualy was prent the earlit settlements of the loni is evint om the creatn of laws outlawg and the rerds of the urts punishg those who vlated them.

In 1636 Plymouth Colony enacted laws prohibg homosexual enunters, wh strict penalti to be applied. Durg the Amerin Revolutn, a man known for homosexual behavr was France seekg a posn wh the Amerin Army while simultaneoly facg prosecutn for sodomy unr one of the German stat’ dranian laws. "Walt Whman and Gay Liberatn are nearly synonymo for me, " wrote cultural historian Rictor Norton a 1999 say.

THE 200-YEAR-OLD DIARY THAT'S REWRG GAY HISTORY

"It's hard to image any morn poet wrg about lyg another man's arms and then llg homosexualy "damnable. ""The thg we don't know about any of the people, " says Peggy Wishart, "is the qutn most morn people have: Were they gay? " By 1911, there was enough awarens of homosexualy that when Fields pulled together a posthumo volume of Jewett's letters, edor Mark Antony DeWolfe Howe urged her to censor out the pet nam.

But as Reynolds says, "It's absolutely wrong to impose today's versn of homosexualy on Whman or Jewett.

NEWLY PUBLISHED PORTRAS DOCUMENT A CENTURY OF GAY MEN LOVE

Such adult men ed the pretext of a srcy of women to tablish enforced homosexual relatnships remote mps and ranch parable to the relatnships for which today's prisons are notor. The high cince of perasty and homosexual rape is the great dirty secret of the Old Wt ontier--and yet this is not om any lack of ntemporary acunts which document or ht at , cludg the famed woodcuts of men dancg wh boys, scriptns of the practic of multiple men sleepg sgle beds (as if there wasn't room enough out Wt for everyone to throw down his own bedroll), jok about turns the barrel, and the lyrics of certa Old Wt songs which young men seem to be given women's nam. Image ptn, Claire Pickerg Wakefield library imag the diary wrer speakg a Yorkshire accentA diary wrten by a Yorkshire farmer more than 200 years ago is beg hailed as providg remarkable evince of tolerance towards homosexualy Bra much earlier than prevly imaged.

Historians om Oxford Universy have been taken aback to disver that Matthew Tomlson's diary om 1810 ntas such open-md views about same-sex attractn beg a "natural" human diary challeng prenceptns about what "ordary people" thought about homosexualy - showg there was a bate about whether someone really should be discrimated agast for their sexualy.

"In this excg new disvery, we see a Yorkshire farmer argug that homosexualy is nate and somethg that shouldn't be punished by ath, " says Oxford rearcher Eamonn O' ptn, The diari were handwrten by Tomlson the farmhoe where he lived and workedThe historian had been examg Tomlson's handwrten diari, which have been stored Wakefield Library sce the thoands of pag of the private journals have never been transcribed and prevly ed by rearchers terted Tomlson's eye-wns acunts of electns Yorkshire and the Ludd smashg up O'Keeffe me across what seemed, for the era of Gee III, to be a rather startlg set of arguments about same-sex relatnships.

HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI

Tomlson had been prompted by what had been a big sex sndal of the day - which a well-rpected naval surgeon had been found to be engagg homosexual ptn, Historian Eamonn O'Keeffe says the diari provi a rare sight to the views of "ordary people" the early 1800sA urt martial had orred him to be hanged - but Tomlson seemed unnvced by the cisn, qutng whether what the papers lled an "unnatural act" was really that unnatural.