Durg Prohibn, gay nightlife and culture reached new heights—at least temporarily.
Contents:
- BUT WERE THEY GAY? THE MYSTERY OF SAME-SEX LOVE THE 19TH CENTURY
- HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
- PHOTOGRAPHS REVEAL EVERYDAY LIFE OF GAY UPL THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY
BUT WERE THEY GAY? THE MYSTERY OF SAME-SEX LOVE THE 19TH CENTURY
"Walt Whman and Gay Liberatn are nearly synonymo for me, " wrote cultural historian Rictor Norton a 1999 say. "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.
HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
But as Reynolds says, "It's absolutely wrong to impose today's versn of homosexualy on Whman or Jewett. By the mid-1920s, at the height of the Prohibn era, they were attractg as many as 7, 000 people of var rac and social class—gay, lbian, bisexual, transgenr and straight alike. Stonewall (1969) is often nsired the begng of forward progrs the gay rights movement.
PHOTOGRAPHS REVEAL EVERYDAY LIFE OF GAY UPL THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY
The Begngs of a New Gay World“In the late 19th century, there was an creasgly visible prence of genr-non-nformg men who were engaged sexual relatnships wh other men major Amerin ci, ” says Chad Heap, a profsor of Amerin Studi at Gee Washgton Universy and the thor of Slummg: Sexual and Racial Enunters Amerin Nightlife, 1885-1940. By the 1920s, gay men had tablished a prence Harlem and the bohemian mec of Greenwich Village (as well as the seedier environs of Tim Square), and the cy’s first lbian enclav had appeared Harlem and the Village. Each gay enclave, wrote Gee Chncey his book Gay New York: Genr, Urban Culture, and the Makg of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, had a different class and ethnic character, cultural style and public reputatn.