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A Desired Past

A Short History of Same-Sex Love in America

With this book, Leila J. Rupp accomplishes what few scholars have even attempted: she combines a vast array of scholarship on supposedly discrete episodes in American history into an entertaining and entirely readable story of same-sex desire across the country and the centuries.

"Most extraordinary about Leila J. Rupp’s indeed short, two-hundred-page history of ’same-sex love and sexuality’ is not that it manages to account for such a variety of individuals, races, and classes or take in such a broad chronological and thematic range, but rather that it does all this with such verve, lucidity, and analytical rigor. . . . [A]n elegant, inspiring survey." —John Howard, Journal of American History

241 pages | 24 halftones | 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 | © 1999

Gender and Sexuality

History: American History

Sociology: General Sociology

Women's Studies

Table of Contents

Preface
1. Introduction: Thinking about Aunt Leila
2. In the Beginning: Same-Sex Sexuality in Early America
3. Worlds of Men, Worlds of Women: Sex and Romantic Friendship in an Industrializing and Expanding Nation
4. Definitions and Deviance: Sexual Transformations at the Turn of the Century
5. Coming Together: Contested Identities and the Emergence of Communities
6. Becoming a People: Lesbian and Gay Worlds and the Organization of Resistance
7. Conclusion: Something Old, Something New
Notes
References
Index

Awards

Lambda Literary Foundation: Lambda Literary Awards
Shortlist

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