Queer Street: Rise and Fall of an American Culture, 1947-1985

Queer Street: Rise and Fall of an American Culture, 1947-1985 PDF

Author: James McCourt

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2005-01-04

Total Pages: 593

ISBN-13: 0393326403

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Traces the history of gay life in twentieth-century New York, exploring the confluence of historical and social factors that made Manhattan a mecca for homosexuals in the second half of the twentieth century.

Queer Street: Rise and Fall of an American Culture, 1947-1985

Queer Street: Rise and Fall of an American Culture, 1947-1985 PDF

Author: James McCourt

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2005-01-17

Total Pages: 592

ISBN-13: 0393347729

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

"A heroically imaginative account of gay metropolitan culture, an elegy and an apologia for a generation."—New York Times Book Review A fierce critical intelligence animates every page of Queer Street. Its sentences are dizzying divagations. The postwar generation of queer New York has found a sophisticated bard singing 'the elders' history' (The New York Times). James McCourt's seminal Queer Street has proven unrivaled in its ability to capture the voices of a mad, bygone era. Beginning with the influx of liberated veterans into downtown New York and barreling through four decades of crisis and triumph up to the era of the floodtide of AIDS, McCourt positions his own exhilarating experience against the whirlwind history of the era. The result is a commanding and persuasive interlocking of personal, intellectual, and social history that will be read, dissected, and honored as the masterpiece it is for decades to come. A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2003; a Lambda Award finalist.

Gay Artists in Modern American Culture

Gay Artists in Modern American Culture PDF

Author: Michael S. Sherry

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0807831212

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Sherry explores the prominent role gay men have played in defining the culture of mid-20th-century America, including such icons as Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Montgomery Clift, and Rock Hudson.

Gordon Merrick and the Great Gay American Novel

Gordon Merrick and the Great Gay American Novel PDF

Author: Joseph M. Ortiz

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2022-05-23

Total Pages: 375

ISBN-13: 179363565X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Gordon Merrick and the Great Gay American Novel is the first biography of Gordon Merrick, the most commercially successful writer of gay novels in the twentieth century. This book shows how Merrick’s novels were largely based on his own life and time as a Princeton theater star, a Broadway actor, a New York reporter, an OSS spy, and the friend of countless artists and celebrities as an expatriate in France, Greece, and Sri Lanka. He lived much of his life as an openly gay man with his longtime partner, Charles Hulse. His 1970 novel, The Lord Won’t Mind, broke new ground by showing that an affirming, explicitly gay novel could be a bestseller. His subsequent gay novels were both a cultural phenomenon and a lightning rod for literary critics. This book also examines the complex, often conflicting responses to Merrick’s novels by gay readers and critics, and it thus recovers the early post-Stonewall debates over the definition of “gay literature.” By reconstructing Merrick’s life and critical fortunes, this book expands our understanding of what it means to be a gay man in the twentieth century.

The Case for Gay Rights

The Case for Gay Rights PDF

Author: David A. J. Richards

Publisher:

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

As Americans wrestle with debates over traditional values, defense of marriage, and gay rights, reason often seems to take a back seat to emotion. In response, legal scholar Richards reflects upon the constitutional and democratic principles--relating to privacy, intimate life, free speech, tolerance, and conscience--that underpin these often heated debates. The distillation of Richards's thirty-year advocacy for the rights of gays and lesbians, his book provides a reflective treatise on basic human rights that touch all of our lives. He places in context two key Supreme Court cases: the 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick decision, and the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision which overturned it. Drawing upon his own experiences as a gay man, Richards interweaves personal observations with philosophical, political, judicial, and psychological insights to make a case that gays should be entitled to the same rights and protections that every American enjoys.--From publisher description.

Dark Victory

Dark Victory PDF

Author: Ed Sikov

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2008-09-30

Total Pages: 516

ISBN-13: 9780805088632

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

A biography of Bette Davis, focusing on her acting career, drawing from interviews with friends, directors, and admirers, archival research, and a new look at her films to provide insights into her personal and professional life.

Mothers, Mammies and Old Maids

Mothers, Mammies and Old Maids PDF

Author: Axel Nissen

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2014-01-10

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 0786490454

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Continuing the exploration which began in Actresses of a Certain Character: Forty Familiar Hollywood Faces from the Thirties to the Fifties (McFarland, 2006), this companion volume analyzes the contributions of female supporting players in the films of Hollywood's Golden Age. The twenty-five actresses profiled herein range from the easily recognizable (Marie Dressler, Ethel Waters) to the long forgotten (Esther Howard, Evelyn Varden), and from the prolific (Clara Blandick, Mary Forbes) to the "one-work wonders" (Jane Cowl, Queenie Vassar). Each profile captures the essence of the individual performer's on-screen persona, unique talents and popular appeal--with special emphasis on a single definitive performance of the actress's motion picture career (who, for example, could ever forget Josephine Hull in Harvey?). The appendix offers a list of "The 100 Top Performances by Character Actresses in Hollywood, 1930-1960."

Becoming Irish American

Becoming Irish American PDF

Author: Timothy J. Meagher

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2023-11-07

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 0300126271

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The origins and evolution of Irish American identity, from colonial times through the twentieth century As millions of Irish immigrants and their descendants created community in the United States over the centuries, they neither remained Irish nor simply became American. Instead, they created a culture and defined an identity that was unique to their circumstances, a new people that they would continually reinvent: Irish Americans. Historian Timothy J. Meagher traces the Irish American experience from the first Irishman to step ashore at Roanoke in 1585 to John F. Kennedy's election as president in 1960. As he chronicles how Irish American culture evolved, Meagher looks at how various groups adapted and thrived--Protestants and Catholics, immigrants and American born, those located in different geographic corners of the country. He describes how Irish Americans made a living, where they worshiped, and when they married, and how Irish American politicians found particular success, from ward bosses on the streets of New York, Boston, and Chicago to the presidency. In this sweeping history, Meagher reveals how the Irish American identity was forged, how it has transformed, and how it has held lasting influence on American culture.

Homintern

Homintern PDF

Author: Gregory Woods

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2017-01-01

Total Pages: 457

ISBN-13: 0300228740

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

A landmark account of gay and lesbian creative networks and the seismic changes they brought to twentieth-century culture In a hugely ambitious study which crosses continents, languages, and almost a century, Gregory Woods identifies the ways in which homosexuality has helped shape Western culture. Extending from the trials of Oscar Wilde to the gay liberation era, this book examines a period in which increased visibility made acceptance of homosexuality one of the measures of modernity. Woods shines a revealing light on the diverse, informal networks of gay people in the arts and other creative fields. Uneasily called "the Homintern" (an echo of Lenin's "Comintern") by those suspicious of an international homosexual conspiracy, such networks connected gay writers, actors, artists, musicians, dancers, filmmakers, politicians, and spies. While providing some defense against dominant heterosexual exclusion, the grouping brought solidarity, celebrated talent, and, in doing so, invigorated the majority culture. Woods introduces an enormous cast of gifted and extraordinary characters, most of them operating with surprising openness; but also explores such issues as artistic influence, the coping strategies of minorities, the hypocrisies of conservatism, and the effects of positive and negative discrimination. Traveling from Harlem in the 1910s to 1920s Paris, 1930s Berlin, 1950s New York and beyond, this sharply observed, warm-spirited book presents a surpassing portrait of twentieth-century gay culture and the men and women who both redefined themselves and changed history.