Legal Cases Appealed: January 1, 1800-December 31, 1899
OutHistory.org Legal Research Project
OutHistory.org is seeking volunteers to search for, copy, and place on the website the old published reports and the original records in about 100 cases dating from 1810 to 1899 that include the terms “buggery,” “crime against nature,” or “sodomy.”
The Project was conceived by Jonathan Ned Katz, the Co-Director of OutHistory.org, who believes that "the original legal records in these cases will certainly reveal fascinating new details about U.S. social life and legal history in the 19th Century.”
An example is the published report, brief and abbreviated, of an 1897 Texas case. It involved a libel charge against the publishers of a statement that Irish conductors employed by a Galveston street car company, who discriminated against “colored ladies,” were “the descendants of Oscar Wilde [meaning that they commit the crime of sodomy]” – the bracketed explanation is in the published report. The libel was affirmed by the appeals court. The brief published account is reproduced on OutHistory.org at W. L. Jones v. The State (Texas): November 24, 1897.
“That case apparently touched tellingly on race, class, sexuality, and gender as indicated in the brief published report," says Katz, “and the original legal records, and any newspaper accounts about it will, I’m convinced, provide additional intriguing details about what was going on.”
The Coordinator of OutHistory.org, Lauren Gutterman, adds: “We're asking LGBT community members and their friends nation-wide to help retrieve the old published reports and the original documents in these revealing legal cases. The non-profit, educational OutHistory.org is appealing for volunteers to help with this research,” she added, “it’s a new, web-based form of participatory history making.”
The Project involves, first, online research to find and copy the old published reports of these cases. The original publications are in the public domain.
Second, the Project involves research in the archives of 25 states or territories, including: Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington, and in the archives of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Third, the Project involves research in old newspapers and secondary sources to see if any relevant additional information about the cases or any of their participants, attorneys or judges can be found.
A chronological, annotated timeline of the 105 cases that mention "buggery," "crime against nature," or "sodomy" appear with their citations on OutHistory.org at:
Timeline: Published U.S. State Appeals Case Reports, 1800-1899
"The original legal records in at least some of these 19th century cases do exist," says Katz, as indicated by his earlier success in locating these document in two cases, the earliest, in Maryland in 1810 (Davis v. State), and the case in Texas, in 1867 (State v. Campbell). Katz found those original court records in the Texas State Archives, Austin, and the Maryland State Archives, Annapolis. The original records will be added to OutHistory.org.
Katz asks volunteers to email him at jkatz@gc.cuny.edu if they volunteer to search for any of these documents so that others do not duplicate their work. He stresses that the recovery of this group of records will provide important new insights into LGBT and heterosexual history, but warns that researchers will need to work independently, as his time for supervising this project is limited.
OutHistory.org, the website on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history, is a project of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, at the City University of New York Graduate Center, which is seeking donations online or by mail to support this project and the site’s operation, expansion, and improvement in 2011.
Contact for this project: Jonathan Ned Katz, jkatz@gc.cuny.edu
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