Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context (Haworth Gay & Lesbian Studies) [Paperback]

John Dececco Phd (Author), Vern L Bullough (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1560231939 | ISBN-13: 978-1560231936 | Publication Date: November 20, 2002 | Edition: 1

Explore the early history of the gay rights movement!

In the words of editor Vern L. Bullough: “Although there was no single leader in the gay and lesbian community who achieved the fame and reputation of Martin Luther King, there were a large number of activists who put their careers and reputations on the line. It was a motley crew of radicals and reformers, drawn together by the cause in spite of personality and philosophical differences. Their stories are told in the following pages.”

Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context illuminates the lives of the courageous individuals involved in the early struggle for gay and lesbian civil rights in the United States. Authored by those who knew them (often activists themselves), the concise biographies in this volume examine the lives of pre-1969 barrier breakers like Harry Hay, Henry Gerber, Alfred Kinsey, Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon, Jim Kepner, Jack Nichols, Christine Jorgensen, Jose Sarria, Barbara Grier, Frank Kameny, and 40 more.

To anyone with an interest in the history of the gay/lesbian rights movements in the United States, these names will be familiar, but did you know that in addition to their groundbreaking activism:

• Prescott Townsend was a Boston Brahman
• Dorr Legg was a Log Cabin Republican
• Harry Hay was at one time a member of the Communist party
• Jim Kepner was a boy preacher
• Troy Perry was removed from the ministry of his church for homosexuality--and then founded the gay-friendly Metropolitan Community Church
• Reed Erickson--a transsexual millionaire who gave millions to the cause--kept a pet leopard called Henry
• Barbara Gittings set up a kissing booth at the American Library Association convention and urged attendees to kiss a gay or lesbian!

Before Stonewall is a perfect ancillary text for any gay/lesbian studies course, but more to the point, no one interested in these heroic figures and the movements they ignited should be without this book, which received an honorable mention in the 2004 Stonewall Book Awards.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York City, which thrust the struggle for civil rights for homosexuals into the consciousness of North Americans, was so seminal an event that it is easy to forget that it did not occur in a vacuum. Editor Bullough (ed., Encyclopedia of Birth Control; coauthor, Sexual Attitudes) redresses this with a collection of 49 short biographies of activists, written by such authors as Felice Picano, James T. Sears, Wayne R. Dines, and Charley Shively. Included are not just gays, lesbians, and transgendered individuals but such figures as Alfred Kinsey, Evelyn Hooker, and Bullough himself, who, although not themselves gay, worked to reduce the stigma attached to homosexuality. Most of the names, with such exceptions as Kinsey, Allen Ginsberg, Christine Jorgensen, and perhaps Franklin Kameny, are undeservedly obscure. A few of the biographies are uneven or awkwardly brief, but overall they admirably convey the passion and commitment of these men and women. This inspiring chronicle of risk takers and trendsetters (the book's original title) merits a place in all history, gay and lesbian studies, and human sexuality collections.
Richard J. Violette, Special Libs., Victoria, BC
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Vern L. Bullough, a Distinguished Professor Emeritus from SUNY, Buffalo, is the author or editor of fifty books, including Sexual Variance in Society and History; Women and Prostitution; A Short History of Homosexuality; Science in the Bedroom and Encyclopedia of Birth Control.

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (November 20, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560231939
• ISBN-13: 978-1560231936
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #912,943 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fascinating Collection!, March 16, 2003

By 

C. Jacob Hale (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context (Hardcover)

A collection of fascinating personal stories of individual and collection action against injustice! This book dispels myths that give central location to the Stonewall rebellion, showing instead a much more complex history of activism for gay and lesbian rights. Although the biographies are uneven (some are too short, and some are written by their subjects' partners, hence too celebratory), most of these approximately forty biographies show the successes and charms, foibles and failures of a remarkable group of people -- gay, lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual, transgendered, non-transgendered -- who all made a tremendous difference in the quality of life possible for gays and lesbians in the United States today.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensable documentation of a major social movement, January 26, 2003

By 

RobConway (USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context (Hardcover)

Launched a half-century ago, the American gay and lesbian rights movement has achieved a remarkable success. Its influence has spread throughout the world, contributing enormously to the happiness, productivity, and self-esteem of homosexual citizens elsewhere. For the most part, those who launched this wonderful development in the 1950s did not realize, or did not record, the essence of their achievement. They were too busy doing their work. Now, under the guidance of Vern Bullough, a major scholar in the field, it has been written down. In biographies of some forty individuals, many fascinating in their own right, the story is told. It is as if one received a whole raft of biographies in one volume! This book must be seen and read in order to understand its remarkable contribution, a contribution that is significant for all of us.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Inexorable Element of Gay Studies, November 14, 2005

By 

William A. Percy "William A. Percy" (Professor of History, UMass Boston) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context (Haworth Gay & Lesbian Studies) (Paperback)

Vern's introduction credited me with suggesting that he replace Wayne Dynes, after Dynes resigned, as the editor of Before Stonewall. I'm happy that John De Cecco, the editor at Haworth, accepted my suggestion. John, who has edited the Journal of Homosexuality and a number of other Haworth Journal and series, is beyond question the most important gay editor since Magnus Hirschhfeld. He has made the Journal the place of record for gay studies, and Vern Bullough, with over fifty books to his credit is also the leading living historian of sex. Both of those scholars have braved the slings and arrows of the religious right, the child abuse industry, and others suffering from sexual panic. They did a splendid job on this much needed work, which contradicts the present-minded, now the vast majority of the gay rights movement, who maintain that nothing significant happened before Stonewall.

I believe that someone should do a sequel - a book that would devote chapters to the most significant scholars and activists in the next generation, that is to those who took the lead after 1969, until the date when AIDS became significant enough to end Gay Liberation and sexual laissez-faire, which had dominated our movement after Stonewall. The terminal date of such a book should be during the early 1980's - I'm not sure which year. What was first dubbed GRID - Gay Related Immunity Deficiency - in 1979 or 80, became Karposi syndrome before it became AIDS.