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The Chicago jazz and blues scene of the 1920s birthed lesbian performers Ma Rainey, Alberta Hunter, and Ethel Williams, as well as scores of songs that addressed lesbians and “sissy men.”.Chicago was also the home of Henry Blake Fuller, author of the first American gay play and gay novel, and author and photographer Carl Van Vechten, supporter of African American writers.Chicagoan lesbian Margaret Anderson, editor of The Little Review, first introduced the writings of Ernest Hemingway, Djuna Barnes, Hart Crane, Amy Lowell, and others to the world. The “Chicago Renaissance,” spanning from 1912 to 1924, brought many gay and lesbian writers, poets, and playwrights to the forefront.A gay subculture was noted in Chicago as early as 1889 by the medical profession and the law.Between 18, Chicago burlesque theaters were famous for their drag performers.Chicago was the home of many Union soldiers who were later discovered to be female.Male on male prostitution in Chicago began in 1861, when thousands of single men moved to the city for work.
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Take heed, New Yorkers and Angelenos, of some surprising facts about LGBT Chicago: De la Croix breathes life into a history that deserves national recognition. In spite of the bumps, it is extremely difficult to put this book down. At the same time, a reader who takes a concrete sequential approach to history may get a shock when time fast forwards two hundred and fifty years, without transition, between the first and second chapters. This strategy allows a reader to pick up wherever they wish. He follows Katz’s tradition of writing thematic chapters instead of chronological ones. As much as his materials permit, he has them speak to us directly.”ĭe la Croix addresses the wide spectrum of pre-Stonewall lesbian, gay, and transgender cultures in Chicago. He states that de la Croix “chooses to stay very close to his sources… also displays great respect for the documents. D’Emilio honors Chicago Whispers by comparing it to Jonathan Ned Katz’s groundbreaking American LGBT history classic Gay American History. In addition to de la Croix’s well-researched chapters, Chicago Whispers includes a foreword by University of Illinois at Chicago LGBT history professor John D’Emilio.
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While many of the subjects have had their names changed, or remain anonymous, de la Croix includes their personal stories to support the historical narrative. While de la Croix may be proud of his bibliography, he could not have written Chicago Whispers without interviewing hundreds of LGBT Chicagoans for primary source material. There are rules to follow, whereas a journalist will sell his own grandmother to get to the bottom of a story…Gay history is so hidden and buried, that it sometimes requires intensive detective work…However, in the end, if the book is to be of any use to students, all the information has to be sourced, and I’m very proud of my bibliography. Historians have a set way of doing things, an academic clarity. According to an interview with de la Croix, Many people identify de la Croix as a historian, but he firmly insists on his journalist identity due to the nature of LGBT history research.
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He also had the honor of writing a 10-week series on Chicago’s LGBT history for the Chicago Tribune. De la Croix’s column about Chicago’s gay history landed him a job as a tour guide on the Chicago Neighborhood Tours gay history bus. The title of his book Chicago Whispers comes from the LGBT history column that he wrote for six years In Outlines and continued in the Windy City Times.
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Sukie de la Croix wrote Chicago Whispers: A History of LGBT Chicago Before Stonewall (University of Wisconsin Press) to fill that empty space on the shelf.Īn internationally published journalist, de la Croix moved to the United States from Great Britain in 1991 to become a columnist, editor, and reporter for gay Chicago publications such as Windy City Times, Outlines, Clout, Blacklines, En La Vida, Nightlines, Nightspots, Chicago Free Press and Gay Chicago. In spite of that, no one has published a history of LGBT life in Chicago until today. The land that we know today as Chicago has had an LGBT presence since the seventeenth century. Sukie de la Croixīased on 2010 Census numbers, Chicago has the third largest urban LGBT population in the United States, after New York and Los Angeles respectively. ‘Chicago Whispers: A History of LGBT Chicago Before Stonewall’ by St.