New York University Press
Long Before Stonewall: Histories of Same-Sex Sexuality in Early America
Key Metrics
- Thomas A Foster
- New York University Press
- Hardcover
- 9780814727492
- 8.93 X 6.28 X 0.97 inches
- 1.45 pounds
- Social Science > LGBTQ+ Studies - Gay Studies
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
2007 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
Although the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City symbolically mark the start of the gay rights movement, individuals came together long before the modern era to express their same-sex romantic and sexual attraction toward one another, and in a myriad of ways. Some reflected on their desires in quiet solitude, while others endured verbal, physical, and legal harassment for publicly expressing homosexual interest through words or actions.
Long Before Stonewall seeks to uncover the many iterations of same-sex desire in colonial America and the early Republic, as well as to expand the scope of how we define and recognize homosocial behavior. Thomas A. Foster has assembled a pathbreaking, interdisciplinary collection of original and classic essays that explore topics ranging from homoerotic imagery of black men to prison reform to the development of sexual orientations. This collection spans a regional and temporal breadth that stretches from the colonial Southwest to Quaker communities in New England. It also includes a challenge to commonly accepted understandings of the Native American berdache. Throughout, connections of race, class, status, and gender are emphasized, exposing the deep foundations on which modern sexual political movements and identities are built.
Author Bio
Thomas A. Foster is an associate dean for faculty affairs and a history professor at Howard University.
He is the author of Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America and Sex and the Founding Fathers: The American Quest for a Relatable Past.
Thomas A. Foster is the author of Rethinking Rufus: Sexual Violations of Enslaved Men (2019); Sex and the Founding Fathers: The American Quest for a Relatable Past (2014); and Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America (2006). He is the editor of Women in Early America (2015); Documenting Intimate Matters: Primary Sources for a History of Sexuality in America (2012); New Men: Manliness in Early America (2011); and Long Before Stonewall: Histories of Same-Sex Sexuality in Early America (2007).
Source: University of Georgia Press
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