Major Problems in the History of American Sexuality

The book--which is suitable for courses on the history of American sexuality, gender studies, or gay and lesbian studies, presents a carefully selected group of readings organized to allow students to evaluate primary sources, test the interpretations of distinguished historians, and draw their own conclusions.

List of contents

1. Sexuality in History
ESSAYS
Jeffrey Weeks, The Social Construction of Sexuality
Rictor Norton, Essentialism and Queer History
John D. Wrathall, Reading the Silences Around Sexuality
2. Sexual Cultures and Encounters in the New World
DOCUMENTS
1. Baron Lahontan Describes Love and Marriage among the Hurons, 1703
2. English Trader John Lawson Describes Native Sexuality in North Carolina, 1709
3. Father Joseph-François Lafitau Praises Native Male Friendships, 1733
4. Father Luis Jayme Attacks Sexual Abuse of Indigenous Women, 1772
ESSAYS
Theda Perdue, Columbus Meets Pocahontas in the American South
Antonia I. Castañeda, Sexual Violence in the Spanish Conquest of California
Jennifer M. Spear, Interracial Unions in French Louisiana
3. Regulating Sexuality in the Anglo-American Colonies
DOCUMENTS
1. Massachusetts Colony's Laws on Sexual Offenses, 1641-1660
2. Virginia Regulates Sex among Servants, Slaves, and Masters, 1642-1769
3. William Bradford Witnesses "Wickedness Breaking Forth" in Puritan Plymouth, 1642
4. Thomas or Thomasine? A Case of Transvestism in Virginia, 1629
ESSAYS
Kathleen Brown, Changed...into the Fashion of Man,": The Politics of Sexual Difference in a Seventeenth-Century Anglo-American Settlement
Richard Godbeer, Sodomy in Colonial New England
4. Gender Conflict and Sex Reform in the Early Nineteenth Century
DOCUMENTS
1. A Trial for Rape in New York, 1793
2. Boston Female Moral Reformers Condemn "Licentious Men," 1838
3. Health Reformer William Alcott Discusses Nymphomania, 1855
4. Sylvester Graham Lectures Young Men on Self-Restraint, 1839
5. Navy Drummer Philip C. Van Buskirk's Private Journal, 1852-53
ESSAYS
Christine Stansell, Male License and Working-Class Women's Sexuality
Nancy F. Cott, Passionlessness: An Interpretation of Victorian Sexual Ideology, 1790-1850
5. Sexuality, Race, and Violence in Slavery and Freedom
DOCUMENTS
1. Fugitive Slave Lewis Clarke Explains Why "A Slave Can't Be a Man", 1842
2. J.W. Lindsay Describes Sexual and Family Relations under Slavery, 1863
3. Dr. Esther Hill Hawks Recounts the Rape of "Susan Black", 1865
4. Harriet Jacobs Relates Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, 1861
5. Chaplain A.B. Randall Writes about the Freedpeople's Ideal of Marriage, 1865
6. William H. Stallings Testifies about Ku Klux Klan Lynchings, 1871
7. Ida B. Wells-Barnett Exposes the Myth of the Black Rapist, 1892
ESSAYS
Brenda E. Stevenson, Slave Marriage and Family Relations
Nell Irvin Painter, Soul Murder and Slavery
6. Love and Intimacy in Nineteenth-Century America
DOCUMENTS
1. Julia Deane Freeman Praises "Woman-Friendship", 1861
2. Walt Whitman's Poetic Embrace of Comrades and Lovers, 1860
3. A Woman Writes Her Lover During the Civil War, 1865
4. A Smith College Student Discusses Her "Crush", 1881
5. Alice Mitchell as a "Case of Sexual Perversion", 1892
ESSAYS
Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, The Female World of Love and Ritual
Karen V. Hansen, An Erotic Friendship Between Two African-American Women
Karen Lystra, Sexuality in Victorian Courtship and Marriage
7. Free Love, Free Speech, and Sex Censorship
DOCUMENTS
1. National Police Gazette Advertisements for Sexual Literature and Devices, 1867, 1886, 1893
2. Dr. Ely Van de Warker Discusses the Sale of Abortifacient Drugs, 1873
3. Anthony Comstock Condemns Obscene Literature, 1883
4. Victoria C. Woodhull Denounces "The Scare-Crows of Sexual Slavery," 1873
5. Ezra Heywood Advocates Sexual Self-Government, 1878
ESSAYS
Jesse F. Battan, "The Word Made Flesh": Language, Authority, and Sexual Desire in Late Nineteenth-Century America
Shirley J. Burton, The Criminally Obscene Women of Chicago
8. Prostitution and Working-Class Sexuality in the Early Twentieth Century
DOCUMENTS
1. A Government Agent Explains the White Slave Traffic, 1911
2. Wong Ah So Describes Her Experiences as a Prostitute in the Early 1920s
3. Cantonese Rhymes from San Francisco's Chinatown, 1911-1915
4. "Farfariello" Sings about Courting and Marriage in America, 1910
5. Reformers Condemn "Tou

About the author

Kathy Peiss received her Ph.D. from Brown University in 1982. Her research specialties include the history of American women, gender, sexuality, leisure, consumption, and popular culture. She is the author of Hope in a Jar: The Making of America's Beauty Culture (1998) and Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York (1986), co-author of Men and Women: A History of Costume, Gender, and Power (1989), and co-editor of Passion and Power: Sexuality in History (1989). Her articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in numerous journals, including Genders, Social Problems, Business History Review, The Nation, Journal of American History, and Women's Review of Books. She has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation.

Summary

The book--which is suitable for courses on the history of American sexuality, gender studies, or gay and lesbian studies, presents a carefully selected group of readings organized to allow students to evaluate primary sources, test the interpretations of distinguished historians, and draw their own conclusions.

Product details

• Authors: Thomas G. Paterson, Kathy Peiss, Kathy (University of Pennsylvania) Peiss, Kathy Paterson Peiss
• Assisted by: Kathy Peiss (Editor)
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 11.08.2001
• EAN: 9780395903841
• ISBN: 978-0-395-90384-1
• No. of pages: 512
• Series: Major Problems in American His
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories