Synopses & Reviews
Review
andldquo;Culminating years of inspired, passionate labor by de la Croix, Chicago Whispers is especially valuable for its substantial inclusion of a broad and culturally diverse swath of the LGBT spectrum.andrdquo;andmdash;Will Fellows, author of Farm Boys: Lives of Gay Men from the Rural Midwest
Review
andldquo;A groundbreaking book. Chicago Whispers connects LGBT life in Chicago to national historical events and firmly places the city in the social/historical spectrum of gay life in America before Stonewall.andrdquo;andmdash;Kathie Bergquist, editor of Windy City Queer: LGBTQ Dispatches from the Third Coast
Review
andldquo;
Chicago Whispers is gossipy and entertaining, and gives the lie to those who think that, for queers, life was a desert pre-Stonewall. But it also reminds us how courageous one had to be in those early years to maintain an active queer life despite police prosecution and mob exploitation.andrdquo;andmdash;
Gay City NewsReview
andldquo;Journalist St. Sukie de la Croix . . . brings an outsiderandrsquo;s perspective and sense of wonder to this seriously researched but eminently readable work. . . .
Chicago Whispers makes for an enjoyable addition to GLBT American history.andrdquo;andmdash;
The Gay and Lesbian ReviewReview
andldquo; A colorful and vivid account of LGBT life and love in the city from the late 1600s to the end of the 1960s.andrdquo;andmdash;
Philadelphia Gay NewsSynopsis
Chicago Whispers illuminates a colorful and vibrant record of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people who lived and loved in Chicago from the cityandrsquo;s beginnings in the 1670s as a fur-trading post to the end of the 1960s. Journalist St. Sukie de la Croix, drawing on years of archival research and personal interviews, reclaims Chicagoandrsquo;s LGBT past that had been forgotten, suppressed, or overlooked.
and#160;and#160;and#160; Included here are Jane Addams, the pioneer of American social work; blues legend Ma Rainey, who recorded andldquo;Sissy Bluesandrdquo; in Chicago in 1926; commercial artist J. C. Leyendecker, who used his lover as the model for andldquo;The Arrow Collar Manandrdquo; advertisements; and celebrated playwright Lorraine Hansberry, author of A Raisin in the Sun. Here, too, are accounts of vice dens during the Civil War and classy gentlemenandrsquo;s clubs; the wild and gaudy First Ward Ball that was held annually from 1896 to 1908; gender-crossing performers in cabarets and at carnival sideshows; rights activists like Henry Gerber in the 1920s; authors of lesbian pulp novels and publishers of andldquo;physique magazinesandrdquo;; and evidence of thousands of nameless queer Chicagoans who worked as artists and musicians, in the factories, offices, and shops, at theaters and in hotels. Chicago Whispers offers a diverse collection of alternately hip and heart-wrenching accounts that crackle with vitality.
About the Author
St. Sukie de la Croix is an internationally published journalist, columnist, fiction author, playwright, and photographer. In Chicago, he has written for Outlines, Windy City Times, Nightlines, Nightspots, Chicago Free Press, and Gay Chicago. As a historian, de la Croix has published dozens of articles about Chicagoandrsquo;s gay history, scripted and acted as tour guide on the Chicago Neighborhood Toursandrsquo; gay history bus, and written a ten-week series on Chicagoandrsquo;s LGBT history for the Chicago Tribune.
Table of Contents
Foreword
and#160;and#160;and#160; John D'Emilio
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 The Explorers
2 The Chicago Doctors
3 Chicago's Cesspools of Infamy
4 Mannish Women
5 The Little Review
6 Kings and Queens of Burlesque
7 Towertown
8 Henry Gerber and the German Sex Reformers
9 Some in the Arts
10 The Blues and All That Jazz
11 Powder Puffs
12 Gay Life in the 1930s
13 Bronzeville
14 World War II and the 1940s
15 The Cold War
16 Masculinity and the Physique Culture
17 Lesbian Pulp Paperbacks and Literature
18 Negro Arts and Literature
19 The Night Life
20 Trouble With the Law
21 Trans-Forming Drag
22 The Sodomy Laws
23 The Gay Pioneers
24 Mattachine Midwest and the Struggle Toward a Greater Visibility
Bibliography
Index