IMPROPER BOSTONIANS CL [ILLUSTRATED] (Hardcover)

~ Barney Frank (Author), History Project (Compiler)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Since the 17th century, Boston has played a vital role in the history of the United States as a center of society and intellectual ferment. So it's not surprising that the city also has a deeply rooted gay and lesbian culture. Improper Bostonians is a lavishly illustrated, astutely researched look at the role that homosexuals have played in constructing Boston society. From the private homoerotic letters of John Winthrop (the first Governor of Massachusetts) to the 19th-century concept of the "Boston Marriage"--the widely-used term for two unmarried women living together as partners--to the open and brash gay and lesbian life that existed in Boston's notorious Scully Square in the 1920s and 1930s, Improper Bostonians deftly shows how gay men and lesbians were always present in the social, political, and intellectual life of the city.

But as smart as its text is, the best feature of the book is its stunning array of engravings, paintings, news clippings, and photographs (many from personal collections) illustrating the book's themes. Looking over the portraits of politicians, poets (including Katherine Lee Bates, author of "America the Beautiful"), and performers one is reminded that gay and lesbian history is really not a separate category, but a single aspect of our collective history. --Michael Bronski

From Library Journal

Compiled by a nonprofit volunteer group of historians, archivists, and writers known as The History Project, this book stems from research begun in 1980 and first presented as an exhibit at the Boston Public Library in 1996. By turns informative, amusing, and heartbreaking, this marvelously illustrated culmination documents 300 years of gay and lesbian life in the U.S. city with their longest history. Research draws on newspapers, diaries, oral history, archives, and even advertising. Both women and men are discussed equally, and the accounts of life in the 19th century?of Boston marriages and the bohemian group, The Visionists?are particularly informative. There is an extensive list of documentary notes and photo credits that will aid future researchers. This first-of-its-kind book on Boston straddles the line between George Chauncey's more scholarly Gay New York (BasicBks., 1994) and Jim Van Buskirk's more visual San Francisco history, Gay by the Bay (LJ 4/1/96). This remarkable work is highly recommended for public and academic libraries.?Lisa N. Johnston, Sweet Briar Coll. Lib., VA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 212 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press; illustrated edition edition (June 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807079480
• ISBN-13: 978-0807079485
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 8.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,916,378 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Genderization of Improper Bostonians Out of Synch, February 25, 1999

By A Customer

Improper Bostonians bravely leaps to conjectures which gaydar identifies as gay personalities, missing no few of course in a small work. One miss, however, is Boston's International Homophilics Institute and its enormous Encyclopedia Homophilica -- now coming out at South Bank University in London, neither of which the authors bothered to consult (and missed much for that reason). One can only surmise that this was intentional and because IHI is Essentialist rather than Effeminist and would have offended the postmodernist sensibilities of the compilers (as well as the politician). The attempt to force present-day 'genderality' upon the 17th and 18th centuries is hopelessly acontextual. Multicultural postgenderists can't toss 20th-C bodies into a 17th-C spider and expect to get the same chowder, obviously; but resultantly, we get a stew, a Mitteleuropaisch adaptation of Novanglian culture that tastes startingly foreign -- and all the more interesting to Yankees for that I'm sure. Notwithstanding, there are few errors and many sure-footed aurexical leaps which will leave the reader breathless. The compilers have done a remarkable job salvaging homophilica which homophobes should never have attempted to suppress. Sooner or later, all homophobes get caught out with their lies -- and in this Improper Bostonians is a triumph.