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A review by half_book_and_co
When Brooklyn Was Queer: A History by Hugh Ryan
5.0
In this meticulously researched and engagingly written non-fiction monography, Ryan traces queer lives, experiences, and communities in Brooklyn from 1855 (the year Walt Whitman published Leaves of Grass) until 1969. Ryan uses this focus to delve into a wide array of topics and themes, while always managing to hold all the threads together. He analyzes how ideas around gender and sexuality changed, writes about the architectural, social, and economic changes in Brooklyn, and gives a history of performing arts and literature in this time period. He portrays a wide array of individuals - some famous, others not. I found these more ordinary lives especially fascinating. Every page of this book is full of insights and interesting material. I appreciated Ryan's precise analyses, never trying to easily put people into boxes but rather describes their lives and contexts in detail, noting open questions or things we might never know, and also showing awareness of the contexts in which certain information was gathered (and why the wealth on material we have on groups of people varies). Going in, I was afraid this book might be overwhelming about white gay men (or what we might classify today as such) but this is not the case at all. Ryan is very much aware of gender, race, class, and makes a lot of effort to especially showcase the lives of those whose histories are rendered even more invisible than others. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.
"In the minds of many, queer American history is a straight line forever shooting upward, a march of incremental progress, where decades of closeted anger finally explodes into public view on the first night of the Stonewall Riots of June 28, 1969. The truth is much more complicated. What we know of as being 'gay,' 'lesbian,' 'bisexual,' or 'transgender' didn't exist until the early twentieth century, but there was still a strong presence of men who loved men, women who loved women, and gender outlaws of all kinds."
"In the minds of many, queer American history is a straight line forever shooting upward, a march of incremental progress, where decades of closeted anger finally explodes into public view on the first night of the Stonewall Riots of June 28, 1969. The truth is much more complicated. What we know of as being 'gay,' 'lesbian,' 'bisexual,' or 'transgender' didn't exist until the early twentieth century, but there was still a strong presence of men who loved men, women who loved women, and gender outlaws of all kinds."