Bibliography: Lesbians and the 1950s

Copyright (c) by Amber R. Byers, 2008. All rights reserved.

Bannon, Ann. Beebo Brinker. Gold Medal Books, 1962.

Ann Thayer, born in 1932, published many books using the pseudonym, Ann Bannon. Ann graduated from college in 1954 and married; while her husband went to work, she stayed at home and began to write novels. Ann entered Sacramento State University to acquire her master’s degree. By this point she had stopped using the pseudonym “Bannon.” Her official name is Ann Weldy.

She graduated from Sacramento State in 1968 with a master’s degree (Nicholas Fricke, www.statehornet.com). She then returned to Sacramento State in 1974, after receiving her doctorate in linguistics at Stanford University . Ann Weldy, former Associate Dean of the former School of Arts and Sciences, became the 2005 recipient of the Sacramento State Alumni Association’s Distinguished Faculty Award.

Barale, Michele Aina. "When Jack Blinks: Sighting Gay Desire in Ann Bannon's Beebo Brinker." In GLS Reader.

D'Emilio, John. "Duel Identity and Lesbian Autonomy: The Beginning of Separate Organizing Among Women." In Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities. University of Chicago Press, 1983, 92-107.

John D’Emilio is currently a Professor in both the History and Gender & Women’s Studies Departments at the University of Illinois at Chicago . His major publications include: Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities, Intimate Matters (with Estelle Freedman), The World Turned, and Lost Prophet. D’Emilio is considered a founder in the field of lesbian and gay studies with publications dating back to the early 1980s.

Escoffier, Jeffrey. "The Political Economy of the Closet: Toward an Economic History of Gay and Lesbian Life before Stonewall." In American Homo. University of California Press, 1998, 65-78.

Jeffrey Escoffier is considered an “activist scholar.” He was one of the founders of Gay Alternative magazine and has been involved in journalism for over twenty-five years as the executive editor and publisher of OUT/LOOK. Escoffier taught at the college level in New Jersey and California . He has written a number of books, including: American Homo: Community and Perversity (1998), John Maynard Keynes (1994, biography), and Sexual Revolution (2003, edited anthology).

Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky, and Madeline D. Davis. "We're Going to be Legends, just Like Columbus is: The Butch-Fem Image and the Lesbian Fight for Public Space, and Now You Get this Spot Right here: Butch-Fem Sexuality During the 1940s and 1950s." In Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community. , 151-230.

Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold is a product of 14 years of collaborative research between the authors and the 45 narrators of the story. The book looks at the overall development of the lesbian identity and culture among working class lesbians in Buffalo, New York.

Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, Ph.D. heads the Women’s Studies program at the University of Arizona and was the founder of the Women’s Studies program at SUNY, in Buffalo. She has a Ph.D. in social anthropology, from Cambridge in England.

Madeline D. Davis is the Chief Conservator and Head of Preservation for the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library System.

Newton, Esther. "The Lithuanians and the Doughnut Rack: The Lesbian Minority 1936-1980 and the Fun Gay Ladies." In Cherry Grove, Fire Island: Sixty Years in America's First Gay and Lesbian Town . Beacon Press, 1993, 207-220.

This text details the lives and experiences of lesbians living in or renting space within the Cherry Grove resort community between 1936 and 1980.

Dr. Esther Newton was a founding member of Purchase College , on the faculty since 1971. While there she helped establish the Anthropology Program, the Women's Studies program, and the Lesbian/Gay Studies Program. She is a pioneer in the field of lesbian and gay studies and an internationally recognized expert. She has also been honored by the Purchase College Student Union and nominated twice for the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching. Newton has also served on the editorial boards of a number of scholarly journals and as an adviser for documentary films. She did her undergraduate work at the University of Michigan and completed her PhD at the University of Chicago on a study of drag and drag queens.

More works by Esther Newton include: Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America (1972), Amazon Expedition (1973), Womenfriends (1976), Margaret Mead Made Me Gay: Personal Essays, Public Ideas (2000), My Butch Career: A Memoir (2000)(Visual narrative-lecture of her life).

Stein, Marc. "No Man's Land: Commercial Districts in the “ Quaker City ”." In City of Sisterly and Brotherly Loves: Lesbian and Gay Philadelphia 1945-1972. , 49-83.

After growing up in suburban New York, Stein became involved in gay and peace activism in Boston , where he edited the Gay Community News and the Arms Control Reporter and helped to found the AIDS organization Act Out. In 1989 he became a doctoral student in history at the University of Pennsylvania . Stein is currently an Associate Professor of History at York University , he also developed and directs a Sexuality Studies Program and edits the Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in America.

Thorpe, Rochella. "A House Where Queers Go: African-American Lesbian Nightlife in Detroit , 1940-1975." In Inventing Lesbian Cultures. , 40-61.

Rochella Thorpe, seen as an activist, received her Ph.D. in History from Binghamton University . In 2001 she the Director of “Basic Rights Oregon,” a civil rights organization for same-sex marriage in Oregon . She also served as a councilwoman in Ithaca, NY .

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