I am a feminist and a lesbian, and those identities have shaped all of my writing. I came to feminism in college in the late 1960s--I read Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex in the summer of 1969--and I was hooked. There was no such thing then as women's studies, but my professors were very supportive of my passion for studying women in all of my classes. I majored in history and wrote an honors thesis on women in the labor force in Nazi Germany, and in graduate school I discovered U.S. women's history and wrote a dissertation that became my first book, Mobilizing Women for War: German and American Propaganda, 1939-1945.
After teaching in a temporary position at the University of Pennsylvania for a year, I was fortunate to be hired at Ohio State University, where I stayed for 25 years. That's where I met my partner, Verta Taylor, in 1978. We've been together ever since (and even got married in California for our 30th anniversary as a political statement). In 2002 we moved together to the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she is a professor of sociology and I am a faculty member in the Department of Feminist Studies (chair from 2003-2007) and now also Associate Dean of Social Sciences.
My first foray into lesbian history grew out of Survival in the Doldrums: The American Women's Rights Movement, 1945 to the 1960s, the first project Verta and I worked on together. I published a piece called Imagine My Surprise in the journal Frontiers about the problem of writing about women who look to us like lesbians and lived in a context in which a lesbian identity was available but who seemed to refuse such an identity. One of my colleagues told me I would be embarrassed by this article, but it remains my most cited piece.
While working on my book Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women's Movement, which took me back to my roots in European history, Marty Duberman asked me to contribute a book on U.S. gay/lesbian history to the young adult series on gay topics launched by Chelsea House. I was engrossed in my research but attracted to the idea, but then right-wing agitation against the series sent the project down the drain. But the fiasco led me to write A Desired Past: A Short History of Same-Sex Love in America, my first attempt to make queer history accessible.
And then Verta and I ran into Sushi, the Key West drag queen who is now featured every New Year's Eve on CNN inside a giant red high-heeled slipper dangling above Duval Street, ready to drop down at the stroke of midnight. Our first encounter with the drag show at the 801 Cabaret led to our book, Drag Queens at the 801 Cabaret. It was a first for me, writing about the present instead of the past.
My next book, Sapphistries: A Global History of Love between Women, grew out of a class I teach by the same name and is also indebted to my involvement in the world history program at Ohio State. It an audacious project: a global history, from the beginning of time to the present, of love, desire, and sex between women, in an accessible style. It brings together my feminism, lesbianism, and commitment to a global vision.
Most recently, I coedited Understanding and Teaching U.S. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History with Susan Freeman. This was a real Ohio State collaboration, since Susan and the editors of the series all received their PhDs at Ohio State while I was on the faculty. The book is designed for teachers of U.S. history at all levels who want to integrate queer history into the standard curriculum. It brings together inspiring narratives from teachers in high schools and universities, informative topical chapters about significant historical moments and themes, and innovative essays about sources and interpretive strategies well-suited to the history classroom. It is also, we think, a terrific read for anyone who thinks history should be an inclusive story. And it just won the Lambda Literary Award for the best LGBT Anthology!
