Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940. New York: Basic Books, 1994
George Chauncey, of the University of Chicago produced this wonderful history that is a thorough and scholarly work. It is also a very interesting and vibrant read as it covers an almost forgotten era of gay cultural life that existed in New York City between 1890 and 1940. Many recent historical writers on American gay life have assumed that a real gay world only came into existence after World War II or even as late as the 1969 Stonewall resistance in New York. Instead of focusing on anti-gay hostility as preventing the development of an extensive gay subculture, he focuses on how that culture thrived despite the oppression. We see that many gay men lead anything but solitary lives. He also destroys the myth that gay men internalized the dominant culture's view of them as sick, perverted, and immoral. Instead of self hatred and acceptance of the policing of their lives, many men in this book found ways to resist it and affirm their lives and loves.
One thing that the book makes abundantly clear is that gay identify as we know it today did not exist during this time period. He covers the different labels used at the time, fairies, trade, and “normal men” to make clear that as long as one did not take the feminine role, he could move it and out of the culture. This was quite common with soldiers and sailors visiting New York. He contrasts the large class of fairies, who paraded their femme gayness openly and defiantly in the Village, Harlem, Times Square and the Bowery, and queers (a term that was gaining use in New York) or homosexuals. These men sometimes did affirm their homosexuality but often detested effeminacy. Many men, who engaged in frequent homosexual behavior but stuck to "manly" roles, just didn't regard themselves as being "that way."
He traces the changes that seemed to take place in these forms of identity over the years and quotes positive attitudes on the subject expressed by members of each class.Chauncey’s sources include newspapers, gossip sheet reports, cartoons, reports made by a wide assortment of vice investigators, and other now public records as well as the memoirs of individual gay men. Chauncey paints an authentic picture that includes widespread cruising in various streets, parks, and bathrooms. He also discusses the numerous if random examples of vice arrests. He notes that the leading "protectors of morality" at that time were more interested in curbing female prostitution than other male activities but at times, focus would turn to homosexual activity.
He shows that a vast culture existed in particular apartment buildings and at the YMCA. Chauncey describes the YMCA, which ironically was established to prevent the very sort of "immoral" activity, as a center of gay cultural life. He ties this together with the statistics that show such a large number of single men residing in New York which required affordable bachelor housing facilities. He also shows that there were numerous public gathering places such as restaurants, bars, and cafeterias that were frequented by the gay subculture though few exclusively gay places. Because of the fluidity of participation in the gay life, it was much likely that individuals would come and go, socializing with those on the fringe of the subculture.He describes the culture of the baths, which arose within all cultural groups but survived longer in the gay subculture than most. Perhaps this phenomenon survived longer and was safer haven because the baths provided a very private sort of public space. In addition to providing a place for sexual experience, the baths were also a place where economic lines could be easily crossed. They were also a place where friendships that lasted for years were spawned, even though the men may only have socialized in this more private environment. Raids were not common but they did happen and the arrest records bear out the fact that more affluent men frequented the baths.
He details drag shows and heavily advertised drag balls which sometimes drew as many as 8,000 attendees. Many of those in attendance included straight society members who came to watch. There were many newspaper stories elaborating on these events, in detailing the dress worn by those in drag. Lesbians also attended these gala events. The dangers of arrest, raids, gay bashers and exposure were there, but seemed less common than they would later be, and New York's overt gay world seems to have been much more open from 1910 to 1930 than it was between 1940 and 1950..As long as historians remember that gay identify was vastly different in years past, there is an incredible world of culture that is still to be discovered. Though this era was a repressive time in some ways, there was a freedom to pursue gay culture that was lost during the 1950s. And though gay culture might have been somewhat invisible to outsiders, it was not invisible to those who went looking. During that era, “coming out” meant coming out in the gay subculture. It was years later before the concept of coming out to straight society became associated with that term.
Since reading this book, I found this very interesting map.
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