Modern North American History

Armstrong, Elizabeth

Forging Gay Identities: Organizing Sexuality in San Francisco, 1950-1994. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.

Atkins, Gary L.

Gay Seattle: Stories of Exile and Belonging. University of Washington Press, 2003.

Baim, Tracy, ed.

Out and Proud in Chicago. Chicago: Surrey Books, 2008.

Berube, Allan

"Marching to a different drummer: lesbian and gay GIs in World War II", orig. pub. 1981. Reprinted in Duberman et al., Hidden from History, 1989, pp. 383-94.

Berube, Allen

Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II. New York: The Free Press, 1990.

Black, Allida M.

Modern American Queer History. Temple University Press, 2001.

Boag, Peter

Same-Sex Affairs: Constructing and Controlling Homosexuality in the Pacific Northwest (University of California Press, 2003)

Boyd, Nan Alamilla.

Wide Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965. Berkley: University of California Press, 2003.

Brelin, Christa and Tyrkus, Michael J. (eds); Bronski, Michael (consulting ed.)

Outstanding Lives: Profiles of Lesbians and Gay Men. Detroit, New York, Toronkto and London: Visible Ink Press, 1997.

Boyd, Nan Alamilla

Wide Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965 (University of California Press, 2005). Traces the history of gay men and lesbians in San Francisco from the turn of the century, when queer bars emerged in San Francisco's tourist districts, to 1965, when a raid on a drag ball changed the course of queer history.

Brandt, Eric

Dangerous Liaisons: Blacks, Gays and the Struggle for Equality. New York: New Press, 1999.

Bronski, Michael

Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility. Boston: South End Press, 1984.

Burnham, John C.

"Early references to homosexual communities in American medical writings", Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality 7, no. 36 (August 1973), 40-9.

Bullough, Vern L.

Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context. New York: Haworth Press, 2002.

Carter, David

Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution (St Martin's Press, 2004) Badpuppy Review

Chauncey, George, Jr.

"Christian brotherhood or sexual perversion? Homosexual identities and the construction of sexual boundaries in the World War One era", Journal of Social History, 19 (1985), 189-211. Repritned in Wayne R. Dynes and Stephen Donaldson (eds), History of Homosexuality in Europe and America, New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1992), pp. 11-33. Reprinted in Duberman et al., Hidden from History, 1989, pp. 294-317.

Chauncey, George, Jr.

"From sexual inversion to homosexuality: medicine and the changing conceptualization of female feviance", Salmagundi (1982/83), 114-46.

Chauncey, George

Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940. New York: BasicBooks, 1994.

Clendinen, Dudley, and Adam Nagourney

Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999.

Cohen, Daniel A. (ed.)

The "Female Marine" and Related Works: Narratives of Cross-dressing and Urban Vice in America's Early Republic. University of Massachusetts Press, 1997.

Corber, Robert J.

Hoomosexuality in Cold War America: Resistance and the Crisis of Masculinity. Duke University Press, 1997.

Cory, Donald Webster

The Homosexual in America: A Subjective Approach. 1951. 1960. 1975.

D'Emilio, John

"Gay politics and community in San Francisco since World War II", orig. pub. in Socialist Review, 55 (January/February 1981), pp. 77-104. Reprinted in Duberman et al., >Hidden from History, 1989, pp. 456-73.

D'Emilio, John

Making Trouble: essays on gay history, politics, and the university. New York and London: Routledge, 1992.

D'Emilio, John

Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.

D'Emilio, John and Freedman, Estelle B.

Inntimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America. New York: Harper and Row, 1988.

Faderman, Lillian, and Stuart Timmons.

Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians. New York: Basic Books, 2006.

Faderman, Lillian

Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.

Drexel, Allen

"Before Paris burned: Race, class, and male homosexuality on the Chicago South Side, 1935-1960", in Brett Beemyn (ed.), Creating a Place for Ourselves: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community Histories, New York: Routledge, 1997.

Duberman, Martin, Vicinus, Martha and Chauncey, George, Jr. (eds)

Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay & Lesbian Past. New American Library (Penguin), 1989. Reprinted Meridian (Penguin), 1990.

Ehrenstein, David

Open Secret: Gay Hollywood 1928-1998 William Morrow & Company, 1999

Eisenbach, David

Gay Power: An American Revolution (Carroll & Graf, 2006). Gay Power chronicles the tumultuous first wave of the modern gay rights movement. From the first-ever gay student group launched at Columbia University in 1965 to the Gay Liberation Front, the Gay Activist Alliance, and other vanguard organizations that emerged from the Stonewall riots. Description and excerpt

Fellows, Will, ed.

Farm Boys: Lives of Gay Men from the Rural Midwest. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001.

Gallo, Marcia M.

Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement. New York : Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2006.

Garber, Eric

"A spectacle in color: the lesbian and gay subculture of Jazz Age Harlem", in Duberman et al., Hidden from History, 1989, pp. 318-31.

Garber, Eric

"T'aint nobody's bizness: Homosexuality in 1920s Harlem", in Leyland, Gay Roots (1991), 141-7.

Gerassi, John

The Boys of Boise: Furor, Vice, and Folly in an American City, New York: Macmillan, 1966. Reprinted. Scandal in Idaho in the late 1950s.

Gifford, James

Dayneford's Library: American Homosexual Writing, 1900-1913. Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995.

Gorman, Michael R.

The Empress Is a Man: Stories from the Life of Jose Sarria. Haworth Gay & Lesbian Studies. Routledge, 1998. Jose Sarria was the first man to run for political office in America as an openly gay man (10 years or so before Harvey Milk). He is the founder of the now international charity organization called "The Imperial Court System." He was a performer at the notorious Black Cat Cafe in San Francisco's Northbeach neighborhood. He is featured in the film "Before Stonewall."

Gunther, Scott E.

Review of Disorder in the Court: Trials and Sexual Conflict at the Turn of the Century, eds George Robb and Nancy Erber, American Historical Association Committee on Lesbian and Gay History Newsletter, Spring 2000.

Gustav-Wrathall, John Donald

Take the Young Stranger by the Hand: Same-Sex Relations and the YMCA. University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Haeberle, Erwin J.

"A movement of inverts: An early plan for a homosexual organization in the United States", Journal of Homosexuality, 10 1 and 2) (1984).

Harris, Daniel

The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture. New York: Ballantine, 1998.

Herring, Scott

Queering the Underworld: Slumming, Literature and the Undoing of Lesbian and Gay History (University of Chicago Press, 2007)

History Project, The

Improper Bostonians: Lesbian and Gay History from the Puritans to Playland. Boston: Beacon Press, 1998.

Hogan, Steve, and Hudson, Lee

Completely Queer: The Gay and Lesbian Encyclopedia. New York: Henry Holt, 1998.

Hooker, Evelyn

"Male Homosexuals and Their 'Worlds'", in Marmor, J. (ed.), Sexual Inversion: The Multiple Roots of Homosexuality. New York: Basic Books, 1965, pp. 84-107.

Hooker, Evelyn

"The homosexual community", in J.H. Gagnon and W.S. Simon (eds), Sexual Deviance. New York: Harper & Row, 1967, pp. 176-94.

Howard, John

Men Like That: A Southern Queer History. University of Chicago Press, due for publication December 1999.

Hunt, Richard J.

Historical Dictionary of the Gay Movement. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1999.

Hurewitz, Daniel

Bohemian Los Angeles and the Making of Modern Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.

Hurewitz, Daniel

Stepping Out: Nine Walks through New York City's Gay and Lesbian Past. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997.

Jackson, Charles O. (ed.)

The Other Americans: Sexual Variance in the National Past. Praeger, 1996.

Johnson, David K.

The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government. University of Chicago Press, 2003. Interview with the author.   Another interview .   Washington Blade review.   Gay Today review

Kaiser, Charles

The Gay Metropolis: 1940-1996. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.

Katz, Jonathan

Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1976.

Katz, Jonathan

Coming Out: A Documentary Play about Gay Life and Liberation in the United States of America. New York: Arno Press, 1975. Originally performed in 1973 in New York City. Documents 22 incidents, including the Boise witch hunt, the Stonewall resistance, the Snake Pit raid, and the Chicago conspiracy trial. Persons dealt with include Willa Cather, Gertrude Stein, Horatio Alger, Allen Ginsberg, and Walt Whitman.

Kinsman, Gary

The Regulation of Desire: Homo and Hetero Sexualitiesm. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1996 (2nd edition). A history of sexuality in Canada, including several sections on homosexuality.

Levin, Jim

Reflections on the American Homosexual Rights Movement. New York: Gay Academic Union, 1983.

Licata, Salvatore J.

"The homosexual rights movement in the United States", in Licata and Petersen, The Gay Past (1985), 161-89 (orig. pub. 1980; partly based upon a doctorial dissertation of 1978).

Lloyd, Robin

"The history of boy prostitution", in For Money or Love: Boy Prostitution in America. New York: Vanguard Press, 1976, pp. 63-77 (chap. 6).

Loughery, John

The Other Side of Silence: Men's Lives and Gay Identites: A Twentieth-Century History. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1998.

Lynch, Michael

"A gay world after all: Marsden Hartley (1877-1943)", Body Politic, Our Image No. 6 (December-January 1976), 1-2.

Mann, William J.

Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969.

Marcus, Eric

Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights 1945-1990. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.

Martinac, Paula

The Queerest Places: A National Guide to Gay and Lesbian Historic Sites. New York: Henry Holt, 1997.

McGarry, Molly and Wasserman, Fred (eds)

Becoming Visible: An Illustrated History of Lesbian and Gay Life in Twentieth-Century America, New York Public Library exhibition, 1998.

McLaren, Angus

Trials of Masculinity: Policing Sexual Boundaries, 1870-1930. University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Meeker, Martin

Contacts Desired: Gay and Lesbian Communications and Community, 1940s-1970s. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.

Murray, Stephen O.

American Gay. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Myers, JoAnn

Historical Dictionary of the Lesbian Liberation Movement: Still the Rage. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, 2003.

Rimmerman, Craig

From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and Gay Movements in the United States. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001.

National Museum and Archive of Lesbian and Gay History, Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, New York

The Gay Almanac. New York: Berkley Blooks, 1996.

National Museum and Archive of Lesbian and Gay History, Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, New York

The Lesbian Almanac. New York: Berkley Books, Philip Lief Group, 1996.

Newton, Esther

Cherry Grove, Fire Island: Sixty Years in America's First Gay and Lesbian Town. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993.

Nickels, Thom

Gay and Lesbian Philadelphia (Arcadia, 2002)

Paulson, Don and Simpson, Roger

An Evening at the Garden of Allah: A Gay Cabaret in Seattle. Columbia University Press, 1996.

Plummer, Kenneth (ed.)

The Making of the Modern Homosexual. Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble, 1981.

Reay, Barry

New York Hustlers: Masculinity and Sex in Modern America. Manchester University Press, 2010. Focuses on the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, but which looks back to the earlier decades of the century and has a conclusion dealing with the 1970s to 1990s, maps the world of those known as 'trade' - ostensibly straight men who would engage in homosexual sex - and hustlers - those who were paid for it. It was a milieu that was central to the sexual histories of several generations of twentieth-century American men and also influenced American literary and visual culture; the 'trade aesthetic' informed the work of a variety of artists, filmmakers, and writers. This sexual culture, though compelling in itself, also allows us to explore some key aspects of modern sexual history. For the hustlers and trade exhibit a remarkably flexible sexuality, traversing the worlds of male homosexuality and heterosexuality in ways that challenge many assumptions about sexual identity.

Richlin, Amy

"Eros Underground: Greece and Rome in Gay Print Culture, 1953-65", Journal of Homosexuality (Harrington Park Press), 49 (3/4) (2005), pp. 421-461. An excellent survey of the building of intellectual community and identity through the use of print culture in the gay movement in the United States and Europe in the mid-twentieth century, particularly focusing on the study of classical history in the publications of ONE Institute, Los Angeles.

Robb, George and Erber, Nancy, eds.

Disorder in the Court: Trials and Sexual Conflict at the Turn of the Century, New York: New York University Press, 2000.

Rupp, Leila J.

A Desired Past: A Short History of Same-Sex Love in America. University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Schlager, Neil (ed.); foreword by R. Ellen Greenblatt

St. James Press Gay & Lesbian Almanac. Detroit, Michigan: St. James Press, 1998.

Sears, James T.

Growing Up Gay in the South: Race, Gender, and Journeys of the Spirit. New York; Harrington Park Press, 1991.

Shand-Tucci, Douglas

The Crimson Letter: Harvard, Homosexuality, and the Shaping of American Culture. 2003

Schanke, Robert A., Kimberley Bell Marra, Billy J. Harbin, eds.

The Gay and Lesbian Theatrical Legacy: A Biographical Dictionary of Major Figures in American Stage History in the Pre-Stonewall Era (University of Michigan Press, 2005) A short history of gay Philadelphia from Walt Whitman via 1920s drag bars to the formation of ACT UP.

Sears, James T.

Behind the Mask of Mattachine: The Hal Call Chronicles and the Early Movement for Homosexual Emancipation. New York; Harrington Park Press, 2006.

Shilts, Randy

The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982.

Smalls, James

The Homoerotic Photography of Carl Van Vechten: Public Face, Private Thoughts Publisher's description

Spring, Justin

Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade. New York: Ferrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010.

Stein, Marc

City of Sisterly and Brotherly Loves: Lesbian and Gay Philadelphia, 1945-1972. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Stein, Marc, ed.

Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History in America. 3 vols. New York: Scribner, 2005.

Stein, Marc

"Theoretical Politics, Local Communities: The Making of U.S. LGBT Historiography", GLQ, Vol. 11, No. 4 (2005), pp. 605-625.

Streitmatter, Rodger

Unspeakable: The Rise of the Gay and Lesbian Press in America. Boston: Faber, 1995.

Stryker, Susan and Buskirk, Jim Van

Gay by the Bay: A History of Queer Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1996. Many illustrations.

Terry, Jennifer

An American Obsession: Science, Medicine, and the Place of Homosexuality in Modern Society, 1999.

Thompson, Mark, ed.

Long Road to Freedom: The Advocate History of the Gay and Lesbian Movement. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994.

Timmons, Stuart

The Trouble with Harry Hay: Founder of the Modern Gay Movement. Boston : Alyson, 1990.

Wallace, David

A City Comes Out: The Gay and Lesbian History of Palm Springs. Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, 2008.

Weiss, Andrea and Schiller, Greta

Before Stonewall: the Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community. Naiad, 1988. (Weiss "explains how she attempts to uncover `the visual artefacts of a largely invisible subculture' through both national archive material (as represented by the dominant heterosexual culture) and home movies, photo albums etc. of lesbians and gay men." Also oral history and interviews with Barbara Grier, Ann Bannon, Audre Lorde and Maua Adele Ajanaku.

White, C. Todd

Pre-Gay LA: A Social History of the Movement for Homosexual Rights. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009.

Go to North America: Pre-Modern History

Return to Bibliography of Gay and Lesbian History