In the four decades since, Katz and his contemporaries have proven beyond a doubt that not only does gay history exist, but it exists in cities and towns around the world as far back as one can reasonably search. Yet, even as he collected a mountain of evidence to support his thesis, Katz couldn’t help but wonder whether Gay American History was too bold a title-did such a thing really exist? From the outset, Katz intended for Gay American History to serve one very important purpose: to ground the transformative activism of the 1970s within a historical context. Based on Katz’s 1973 play, Coming Out!, the book is a collection of primary sources exploring gay life from the colonial era to the present. White is writing on behalf of the History Project, Boston.įorty years ago, Jonathan Ned Katz published his groundbreaking Gay American History.
Image credit: William Conrad Collection, The History Project, Boston.Įditor’s Note: This is the first of a series of posts reflecting on Gregory Rosenthal’s article, “Make Roanoke Queer Again: Community History and Urban Change in a Southern City,” published in the February 2017 issue of The Public Historian, and on how the Roanoke project relates to other LGBTQ public history projects.ĭavid C.
Poster for Sporter’s, one of Boston’s earliest gay bars, c.
