I am looking for a recommendation of a book or article that will give me background on what the situation was like for gay women in the decade or so before Stonewall. Non-fiction preferred to fiction, but I’m happy with material that’s available online and material that isn’t.
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“the Well of Loneliness” comes pretty close. there’s another one, more nonfict, I thought it was called “boston marriages” and of course gert stein.
The first thing I think of is good old “Stone Butch Blues” by Leslie Feinberg. It is a novel, but this reader presumes the narrative is heavily informed by Leslie’s experiences growing up in pre-Stonewall gay bars.
“Another Mother Tongue”, Judy Grahn’s story of gay English, incorporates a lot of pre-Stonewall autobiographical information–including some insights about being gay in the army.
There is a rich well of pre-Stonewall lesbian pulp fiction, which unfortunately I haven’t read. But I know that Ann Bannon’s Beebo Brinker novels have a reputation as rich cultural touchstones, and may be worth checking out.
All of these focus on mid-20th century US, which is what I think of when I hear “pre-Stonewall”. For a broader (and less fictional) scope, you should check out Lillian Faderman. I can’t think of more comprehensive lesbian histories than her “Surpassing the Love of Men” and “Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers”.
It’s been years since I read it, but I remember being very impressed by Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers by Lillian Faderman.
I think there are some essays about that time period in the book “Femme.”
thirding odd girls and twilight lovers. also, lillian faderman’s memoir, naked in the promised land, gives a more personal account than her historical works do.
for a little earlier (more like 1950s), i really like boots of leather, slippers of gold by elizabeth lapovsky kennedy and madeline davis, which you can even preview on google books to see if it is what you would want.
also, sex and sensibility by arlene stein is talking to women abt what the roots were of the 70s lesbian-feminist movement, which talks a lot about history/what happened right before, aka before stonewall.
The Persistent Desire is a great resource that includes numerous essays and interviews from butches & femmes from just that time period. I also strongly second the recommendation of Stone Butch Blues.
Second Stone Butch Blues. Devastating.
And an intensive, intensive course of Audre Lorde. Maybe start with Sister Outsider.
The Price of Salt by bisexual novelist Patricia Highsmith (1952) is well worth reading.
Highsmith is best known for her Ripley novels (The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955), which was made into a film).
The novel is unusual in not following the script of the tragic lesbian.
Also, Cherry Grove, Fire Island? It covers the 70s and 80s too, but lots of good stuff.
Not a book, but Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives is a Canadian documentary about that time period, with a focus on the impact of pulp novels.
Maybe one of the earlier chapters of Jackie Blount’s Fit to Teach: Same-Sex Desire, Gender, and School Work in the Twentieth Century would work for your purposes.
I found David Carter’s “Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution” to be a little better at explaining the events prior to the riots than the more famous Martin Duberman book.
Audre Lorde, Zami (autobiography)
Stone Butch Blues, Leslie Feinberg (novel, but pretty autobiographical)
The above two books are very well written.
Skip Well of Loneliness – among other things, it’s British and aristocratic
There are a bunch of “coming out” anthologies of the 1970s and early 1980s, with pre-Stonewall contributers.
Non-fiction: Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, Faderman
Documentaries: Coming out under fire (WWII vets)
Before Stonewall
I picked up a book called Gay Old Gals at a used bookstore. It consists of a dozen or so interviews of elderly lesbians recounting their experiences growing up and living gay pre-Stonewall.
Sex-Variant Woman: The Life of Jeanette Howard Foster, is also a good biographical narrative of pre-Stonewall experiences of one woman’s life.
Yes! on Lillian Faderman (Odd Girls & Twilight Lovers) For fiction: I gotta recommend against Radcliffe Hall ( Well of Loneliness) unless you want to be really depressed for a while: for the most part lesbian pulp follows the idea of gayness as pathology, and there’s a lot of asylums, suicide and misery. Which is not to say that those things didn’t happen, but they certainly weren’t the ONLY things happening. Also, The Well of Loneliness was written in 1928, a few decades before the period you’re interested in.
HOWEVER: If you want some fiction that’s actually kind of good (albeit melodramatized) picture of lesbians in the Village in the ’50s, read Ann Bannon’s books. “Odd Girl Out” (whence springs the Lillian Faderman title); “Journey to a Woman”; “Beebo Brinker” and others– they’re not perfect, ideologically speaking, but they’re a lot of fun, and were written during the time period they take place in. Newer editions have forwards explaining how she came to write them. Also, seconding Stone Butch Blues.
You might also contact the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn: http://www.lesbianherstoryarchives.org/
They’re super good with helping people research!
Oh, and “Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold” which is about butch-femme culture.