Chicago Whispers
eBook - PDF

Chicago Whispers

A History of LGBT Chicago before Stonewall

  1. 312 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Chicago Whispers

A History of LGBT Chicago before Stonewall

About this book

Chicago Whispers illuminates a colorful and vibrant record of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people who lived and loved in Chicago from the city's beginnings in the 1670s as a fur-trading post to the end of the 1960s. Journalist St. Sukie de la Croix, drawing on years of archival research and personal interviews, reclaims Chicago's LGBT past that had been forgotten, suppressed, or overlooked.
    Included here are Jane Addams, the pioneer of American social work; blues legend Ma Rainey, who recorded "Sissy Blues" in Chicago in 1926; commercial artist J. C. Leyendecker, who used his lover as the model for "The Arrow Collar Man" advertisements; and celebrated playwright Lorraine Hansberry, author of A Raisin in the Sun. Here, too, are accounts of vice dens during the Civil War and classy gentlemen's clubs; the wild and gaudy First Ward Ball that was held annually from 1896 to 1908; gender-crossing performers in cabarets and at carnival sideshows; rights activists like Henry Gerber in the 1920s; authors of lesbian pulp novels and publishers of "physique magazines"; and evidence of thousands of nameless queer Chicagoans who worked as artists and musicians, in the factories, offices, and shops, at theaters and in hotels. Chicago Whispers offers a diverse collection of alternately hip and heart-wrenching accounts that crackle with vitality.

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Yes, you can access Chicago Whispers by St. Sukie de la Croix in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & North American History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. Foreword - John D’Emilio
  3. Acknowledgments
  4. Introduction
  5. 1. The Explorers
  6. 2. The Chicago Doctors
  7. 3. Chicago’s Cesspools of Infamy
  8. 4. Mannish Women
  9. 5. The Little Review
  10. 6. Kings and Queens of Burlesque
  11. 7. Towertown
  12. 8. Henry Gerber and the German Sex Reformers
  13. 9. Some in the Arts
  14. 10. The Blues and All That Jazz
  15. 11. Powder Puffs
  16. 12. Gay Life in the 1930s
  17. 13. Bronzeville
  18. 14. World War II and the 1940s
  19. 15. The Cold War
  20. 16. Masculinity and the Physique Culture
  21. 17. Lesbian Pulp Paperbacks and Literature
  22. 18. Negro Arts and Literature
  23. 19. The Night Life
  24. 20. Trouble with the Law
  25. 21. Trans-Forming Drag
  26. 22. The Sodomy Laws
  27. 23. The Gay Pioneers
  28. 24. Mattachine Midwest and the Struggle toward a Greater Visibility
  29. Bibliography
  30. Index