Southern United States LGBTQ History Timeline

A chronology of LGBTQ History in the Southern U. S.

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Earliest to latest. Please include the fullest citations available.

Timeline

1836, June 16

Peter Sewally, an African American, tried in New York City for picking men's pockets while dressed as a woman, was asked "What induced you to dress yourself in Women's Clothes?" He answered:

I have been in the practice of waiting upon Girls of ill fame and made up their Beds and received the Company at the door and received the money for Rooms &c and they induced me to dress in Women's Clothes, saying I looked so much better in them and I have always attended parties among the people of my own Colour dressed in this way -- and in New Orleans I always dressed in this way -- . See: Peter Sewally - Mary Jones, June 11, 1836

1848, February 25-May 25

Walt Whitman visits New Orleans, Louisiana, for three months.

Whitman scholar Maverick Marvin Harris remarks on "the dramatic change in Whitman after the New Orleans trip, his sexual awakening, and the inspiration for the first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855).

In 1867 Whitman published "Once I Pass'd through a Populous City," in which he said, "Yet now of all that city I remember only a woman I casually met there who detain'd me for love of me . . . who passionately clung to me." However, Whitman's earlier manuscript read "the man" instead of "a woman".

In 1867 Whitman published "I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing" with the lines: "I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves, standing alone there, without its friend, its lover near—for I knew I could not".

In 1871-72, Whitman published a poem with the opening lines: "O Magnet-South! O glistening, perfumed South! My South! / O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love! good and evil! O all dear to me!" (in "Longings for Home" [later "O Magnet-South"]).

On August 19, 1890, Whitman responded to John Addington Symonds' queries about the American's man-love poems, saying: "My life, young manhood, mid-age, times South, &c: have been jolly bodily, and doubtless open to criticism". Though he had never married, Whitman then went on to claim having fathered six (!) children (for which there is no documented evidence despite years of research dedicated to finding some evidence them).

1901

Hartland, Claude (pseudonymn). The Story of a Life: For the Consideration of the Medical Fraternity.

St. Louis, Missouri.

1917-1977

Clark, Richard. "City of Desire: A History of Same-sex Desire in New Orleans, 1917-1977." Tulane University, History Supervisor: Rachel Devlin. Readers: Daniel Hurewitz, Randy Sparks.

2001, July

Howard, John. Men Like That: A Southern Queer History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, July 2001. ISBN-10: 0226354709. ISBN-13: 978-0226354705

2009

Clark, Richard. "City of Desire: A History of Same-sex Desire in New Orleans, 1917-1977." Tulane University, History Supervisor: Rachel Devlin. Readers: Daniel Hurewitz, Randy Sparks.

Richard Clark and Walter Stern win Peter T. Cominos Memorial Award: Richard Clark won for “Of Politics and Krewes,” a chapter of his dissertation, “City of Desire: A History of Same-Sex Desire in New Orleans 1917-1977," directed by Professor Devlin. The award committee noted that in imaginative and graceful prose, Clark makes a compelling case for the distinctive nature of homosexual culture in New Orleans. Based on a thorough analysis of a wide range of newspaper articles and oral interviews, his work emphasizes the political dimensions of homosexual Carnival organizations, and thus offers an important corrective to the established approach and interpretation of gay culture.

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