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Genre/Form: | History |
---|---|
Document Type: | Book |
All Authors / Contributors: |
Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy; Madeline D Davis |
ISBN: | 9781138785847 1138785849 9781138785854 1138785857 |
OCLC Number: | 900353105 |
Description: | 434 p. : illustrations |
Contents: | Preface to the 20th Anniversary EditionAcknowledgmentsPreface1. "To cover up the truth would be a waste of time" : Introduction2. "I could hardly wait to get back to that bar" : Lesbian Bar Culture in the 1930s and 1940s3. " A weekend wasn't a weekend if there wasn't a fight": The Tough Bar Lesbians of the 1950s4. "Maybe 'cause things were harder...you had to be more friendly" : Race and Class in teh Lesbian Community of the 1950s5. "We're going to be legends, just like Columbus is": The Butch-Fem Image and the Lesbian Fight for Public Space6. "Now you get this spot right here": Butch-Fem Sexuality during the 1940s and 1950s7. "Nothing is forever" : Serial Monogamy in the Lesbian Community of the 1940s and 1950s8. "It can't be a one-way street": Committed Butch-Fem Relationships9. "In everybody's life there has to be a gym teacher": The Formation of Lesbian Identities and the Reproduction of Butch-Fem Roles10. ConclusionNotesGeneral IndexIndex of Narrators |
Responsibility: | Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline D. Davis |
Abstract:
Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold traces the evolution of the lesbian community in Buffalo, New York from the mid-1930s up to the early 1960s. Drawing upon the oral histories of 45 women, it is the first comprehensive history of a working-class lesbian community. Kennedy and Davis provide a unique insider's perspective on butch-fem culture and argue that the roots of gay and lesbian liberation are found specifically in the determined resistance of working-class lesbians. This 20th anniversary edition includes a new preface by the authors"
Reviews
Publisher Synopsis
I cherish Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold for teaching me about butch-femme cultures I never knew existed and inspiring me to practice oral history and ethnography as queer research method. An instant lesbian and queer classic when it was published, twenty years later it has become a vital document of the 1990s butch-femme revivals that gave rise to queer theory and new forms of gender. And it remains invaluable as a model for radical research practices that document local and ordinary lives. -Ann Cvetkovich, author of An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public CulturesA bold, tender, and timely exploration of working class lesbians, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold is classic queer oral history that continues to inspire. Through the memories shared by butches and femmes from varied racial and ethnic backgrounds who lived and loved pre- and post-World War II, we learn lessons of individual courage and celebrate collective resistance. - Marcia M. Gallo, author of Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement Read more...


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Related Subjects:(13)
- Lesbians -- New York (State) -- Buffalo -- History -- 20th century.
- Lesbians -- New York (State) -- Buffalo -- Social conditions.
- Working class -- New York (State) -- Buffalo -- History -- 20th century.
- Women's studies -- New York (State) -- Buffalo.
- Buffalo (N.Y.) -- History -- 20th century.
- SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Lesbian Studies.
- SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Women's Studies.
- HISTORY -- United States -- 20th Century.
- Lesbians
- Lesbians -- Social conditions
- Women's studies
- Working class
- New York (State) -- Buffalo