Creating a Place For Ourselves: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community Histories | 
 enlarge | Author: Brett Beemyn
Publisher: Routledge
Category: Book
List Price: $32.95
Buy Used: $9.54
You Save: $23.41 (71%)
New (17) Used (21) from $9.54
Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 935529
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 320
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7
ISBN: 041591390X
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.90664
EAN: 9780415913904
ASIN: 041591390X
Publication Date: April 7, 1997
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Expedited shipping is not available for this item. Items are mailed via USPS media mail within 2 business days and should arrive 4-14 business days later.
| |
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
The study of gay and lesbian history has, during the past two decades, grown enormously. Early work such as Jonathan Katz's 1978 iGay American History/i and Allen Berube's 1990 ititleComing Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two/i have paved the way for more historically detailed work. iCreating a Place For Ourselves/i is a fine anthology of 11 essays that detail the formation of specific queer communities across a wide historical and geographic span including Buffalo, New York, in the 1940s; Washington, D.C. in the 1950s; and Philadelphia in the early 1970s. While the essays are by academics, they are accessible, readable, and highly informative.
Product Description
b/bbiCreating a Place For Ourselves/i/b is a groundbreaking collection of essays that examines gay life in the United States before Stonewall and the gay liberation movement. Along with examining areas with large gay communities such as New York, San Francisco and Fire Island, the contributors also consider the thriving gay populations in cities like Detroit, Buffalo, Washington, D.C., Birmingham and Flint, demonstrating that gay communities are truly everywhere.brbr b/bbiCreating A Place For Ourselves/i/b contains rich oral history about lesbian, gay and bisexual life in pre-Stonewall Amerca: Allen Drexel considers the lives of gay men on Chicago's South Side through the lens of "Finnie's Balls," an annual Halloween extravaganza in the 1950s which drew thousands of spectators and participants, including many Black working-class gays. Roey Thorpe explores the development of white lesbian life in Post-World War II Detroit, tracing the changing nature and clientele of several of the city's lesbian bars; Marc Stein looks at how lesbian and gay politics arose in Philadelphia, and how activists relied on languages of nationalism, patriotism and citizenship to further their political aims; and Tim Retzloff examines how the manufacturing plants of Flint, Michigan produced the very product that helped to establish a gay nightlife in the 1950s--the automobile. He argues that because of the city's geographic dispersal, the automobile was necessary for transportation as well as served as an important space for same-sex encounters.brbr Using oral history and rich narrative voices, b/bbiCreating a Place For Ourselves/i/b brings to life the vibrant lesbian, gay and bisexual communities that existed all across America in the days before Stonewall.brbr Contributors: Brett Beemyn, Nan Alamilla Boyd, George Chauncey, Madeline Davis, Allen Drexel, John Howard, David Johnson, Liz Kennedy, Joan Nestle, EstherNewton, Tim Retzloff, Marc Stein, Roey Thorpe.
|
| Customer Reviews:
inspiring chapters despite unmet goals May 13, 2005
Jeffery Mingo (Homewood, IL USA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This anthology has multiple purposes. They want to continue George Chauncey's assertion that pre-Stonewall life was not terrible across the board. They have two further projects. First, the contributors want to show that gay and lesbian culture existed and flourished outside of just NYC and CA. Additionally, they want to show that the intersections of race, class, and gender played a powerful role in setting the parameters for this historic gay life. br / br /This book is well-written. I felt more and more empowered as a gay person as I finished each chapter. Though no author quotes Michel Foucault here (as most gay and lesbian studies authors do), his idea that powerlessness is never absolute plays itself out here. This book documents gay and lesbian craftiness. If you want to make private gay space at a time when homosexuality is illegal, place straight patrons at the front of clubs and gay patrons at the back. Hire door managers and bartenders that have no problems excluding or kicking out homophobes. If you can't have openly gay dancing, let customers know about private after-parties where such dancing will be allowed. If you can't be openly gay at home, split an apartment with other gay guys where you all agree that you can bring guys for action. br / br /As necessary and idealistic as Beemyn's goals are, this book fails to meet those goals in several ways. This book starts by saying, "We need to go beyond canonical gay historians like Chauncey, Newton, and Davis/Kennedy." However, all those authors have chapters in this book. Further, other authors quote from their famous books consistently. It is surprising that John D'Emilio does not have a contribution here. However, he was working on Bayard Rustin's autobiography at the time. br / br /The chapters move beyond NYC and SF. As a Chicagoan and a person who knows about Illinois' strong history in gay rights, I was pleased to see two chapters about my hometown. Still, though Beemyn asserts that gay men and lesbians live everywhere, the action in these chapters usually point to big cities. Maybe all gay people do not move to NYC and SF. However, if they move to Chicago, Detroit, Philly, and Washington, D.C., they are finding the next best things. Chauncey's and D'Emilio's ideas about seeking more gays and more anonymity still ring true. br / br /This book has more information on gay men than on lesbians. However, lesbians are represented, admirably. There are also wonderful coverage of black gay men and lesbians. Beemyn states that race, class, and gender cannot be dropped from this analysis. Still, I wish he would point out that many advocates of "race, class, and gender" coverage purposely exclude "sexuality" and are very heterosexist, if not blatantly homophobic. Beemyn could have mentioned that the contributors are taking the higher road when others have not. Most of the authors acknowledge that white, middle-class, gay men had options and choices that people of color, women, and the poor could never have. Still, this book often focuses on rich, gay, white men in bringing up race, class, and gender. If "race, class, and gender" promotions don't encourage cover diversity, then what is the point? br / br /Beemyn is a well-known bisexual activist. Thus, while his own chapter mentions an interviewee that sought male and female partners, other contributors do not mention actual bisexuals. Thus, while the word bisexual comes up in this book often, it doesn't really alter the focus on monosexual gay men and lesbians. This is well-meaning inclusion, but still superficial. br / br /Some readers may not like the focus on bars and drag performances, but hey, that's the way it was. This book gives scant mention to cruisy areas and John Boswell and others would say those are important sites of gay contact. This book may be trying to be more respectable than the actual history makers were themselves. br / br /Lord Alfred Douglas said homosexuality is "the love that dare not speak its name." However, the authors prove here that gay men and lesbians have been speaking up and enjoying themselves for decades and all over the United States. While the book does have its limitations, I applaud the editor for amassing those scant academic studies out there in this area.
|
|
|
