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A review by smuds2
Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940 by George Chauncey
3.0
A fascinating book that details the characteristics of the different identities associated with both homosexual and gay people in New York in the 1920's, their social structures, how the built environment harmed and helped them exist, how social structures promoted or suppressed them, and how their influence spread and was ultimately cracked down on in the 1930's + 40's.
From a not-well-versed-in-Gay-History reader, I felt like the book brought me initially to an incredibly different world (early 1900's NY gay culture) and then charted it's way over the next 50 years to a much more "comfortable" place that looked more like the Gay culture I imagine - meaning something that feels more akin to what I imagine I know. I felt like by the end of the book I was able to see how future developments in Gay culture (and the dominant cultures reaction to that culture) would lead to what is ultimately recognizable as Gay culture.
It is a fascinating dive into a nuanced world that feels completely foreign to me - and is a great book to demonstrate that history is always more interesting than it's made out to be and that there is really no such thing as an encapsulated "past" -- everything depends on POV, etc.
From a not-well-versed-in-Gay-History reader, I felt like the book brought me initially to an incredibly different world (early 1900's NY gay culture) and then charted it's way over the next 50 years to a much more "comfortable" place that looked more like the Gay culture I imagine - meaning something that feels more akin to what I imagine I know. I felt like by the end of the book I was able to see how future developments in Gay culture (and the dominant cultures reaction to that culture) would lead to what is ultimately recognizable as Gay culture.
It is a fascinating dive into a nuanced world that feels completely foreign to me - and is a great book to demonstrate that history is always more interesting than it's made out to be and that there is really no such thing as an encapsulated "past" -- everything depends on POV, etc.