Customer Reviews

Sex among the Rabble: An Intimate History of Gender and Power in the Age of Revolution, Philadelphia, 1730-1830 (Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American Hist)

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Sex Among the Rabble demonstrates why the history of sex between men and women, the power relationships it defines, and the way the "powers that be" obsess about it and try to regulate and control it, are important to understanding our culture and country. Plus it's a great story, full of wild characters and dramatic events, with an overarching plot line about freedom and oppression during the formative years of the United States.

This book is indeed about relations between men and women. As the playwright Larry Kramer notes in an earlier review on this site, it's not about sex between men, or between women. The latter is a topic worth writing about (see below), but Lyons explains clearly why she defines the topic of this book the way she does. I think a fair reviewer has to allow the author the scope of her topic, rather than criticizing for not writing a book about a topic preferable to the reviewer.

In fact, elsewhere the author of Sex Among the Rabble has written one of the most important historical pieces in years on homosexuality in early America. In "Mapping an Atlantic Sexual Culture: Homoeroticism in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia," in the January 2003 issue of the William and Mary Quarterly, Lyons concludes that sex between men, and between women, was common; and she shows that in Philadelphia anyway, we have a certain tradition of tolerance, something more people could afford to hear about. In the process, Lyons explicitly challenges traditional ideas about what counts as acceptable historical evidence, and comes up with convincing alternatives. Everyone should read the article, and the book.

Pay heed to the subtitle: Sex among the Rabble is first and foremost a book about power dynamics between men and women. Lyons does not aspire to write a comprehensive history of sexuality in early America. (If that's what you're looking for, try Richard Godbeer's The Sexual Revolution in Early America.) Lyons seeks, instead, to use sexual behavior and ideas about sexuality as a window onto changing ideas about gender in the century that spanned the American Revolution.

Lyons argues that late colonial Philadelphia supported an exuberant populist sexual culture that tolerated bastardy, casual prostitution, serial monogamy, and "self-divorce." Both men and women were believed to be naturally "lusty," and the popular press celebrated sexual desire in bawdy verse and anecdotes. After the Revolution, however, Americans' sense that the survival of the republic depended on individual virtue and self-restraint led to a re-imagining of sexuality. As men were believed to possess imperfect control over their sexual impulses, women-- now characterized as possessing only moderate, rather flaccid sexual desire-- were expected to help men control their lust. These ideas reshaped popular attitudes towards all sorts of nonmarital sexual activity, and the city fathers introduced much more punitive policies towards women who bore bastards or engaged in prostitution.

The book's strengths include its lively source material, notably the sex diary kept by an unknown Philadelphia man in the early 1790s; its meticulous analysis; and Lyons's effort to preserve a balance between analyzing ideas about sexuality and analyzing sexual behavior. On the whole, I found her treatment of the eighteenth century stronger than her treatment of the early nineteenth century. The chapters that treat the re-imagining of sexuality in the post-Revolutionary era seem to have an elite bias; I wish Lyons had made as full use of the popular press in these chapters as she did in the first section of the book. That said, this book is unquestionably essential reading for anyone who is interested in gender in Revolutionary and early national America.

The author paints a very elaborate picture of the social culture in pre and post Revolutionary Philadelphia. Her use of court dockets, historical publications, correspondence, tax information, contemporary historical studies, artwork, personal journals, and almshouse records provides extensive information on gender, race, and class. She provides a much needed glimpse into the life of ordinary citizens in the time of revolution, federalism, and giants such as Washington and Hamilton. Anyone who is interested in the common citizen in the age of Revolution would benefit greatly from this book.

This book was mandatory for the class Women in america to 1880 taught by Lyons. We used this book for our analysis of the changing gender roles in the 18th to 19th century. Although only a few chapters were assigned I was intrigued enough to read more chapters. This book was actually the most enjoyable read during the class. If i hadn't taken the class I probably would have missed out on a wonderful read.

Books like this drive me nuts. how can a "scholar" who studied at yale etc write such a dumb, ignoble, and indeed discriminatory book? Lyons is writing about sex in the period 1730-1830, centering on philadelphia, then our largest city. america's population was around one million people. there is not one homosexual in this book. there is not one lesbian in this book. there is no discussion of same-sex sex. there may not have been a word for homosexual yet, but this did not stop jonathan edwards, that great hideous preacher and his "great American awakening" of 1731, who had all in his thrall, from condemning men for lusting after other men and women for the same. no mention of this in this book though. Lyons' people are all and only involved in opposite-sex folderol.she is drunk on public records for her sources, always the best way to eliminate homsexuality from history all together. we are not in public records if you dont know how to look for us. but gay historians are begnning to locate us. in records of cases against us, for instance. oh we are there in plenty. murders, beheadings, exiles, public whippings. how could she not have seen us and written about us. her book is sanitized beyond belief and acceptablibility. she is another product of wretched gender studies and theory which excludes facts in favor of make-believe. history departments everywhere have much to answer for in denying the history of gay people our rightful place in the history of this country. enough is enough. i happen to have done my own research about this same era, in preparing my own book, the american people. philadelphia was swarming, overrun with men having sex with other men, name them what you will. there were massive amounts of syphilis, overwhelming amounts. there were male brothels. there were communities of men living with each other. there were women living with other men and excluding men altogether. where in the world has lyons researched? if i, a non-scholar, can locate all this stuff, it can't be that hard to locate. why are gay people continually eliminated from every history written? we have been here since day one just like everyone else. it just breaks my heart, to be treated day after day as a non-person, with no history in this country which is mine as much as this author's. history departments must cease denying us. and publishers should cease publishing books as useless and one-sided as this one. larry kramer