Synopses & Reviews
From the subaltern assemblies of the enslaved in colonial New York City to the benevolent New York African Society of the early national era to the formation of the African Blood Brotherhood in twentieth century Harlem, voluntary associations have been a fixture of African-American communities.
In the Company of Black Men examines New York City over three centuries to show that enslaved Africans provided the institutional foundation upon which African-American religious, political, and social culture could flourish. Arguing that the universality of the voluntary tradition in African-American communities has its basis in collectivism—a behavioral and rhetorical tendency to privilege the group over the individual—it explores the institutions that arose as enslaved Africans exploited the potential for group action and mass resistance.
Craig Steven Wilders research is particularly exciting in its assertion that Africans entered the Americas equipped with intellectual traditions and sociological models that facilitated a communitarian response to oppression. Presenting a dramatic shift from previous work which has viewed African-American male associations as derivative and imitative of white male counterparts, In the Company of Black Men provides a ground-breaking template for investigating antebellum black institutions.
Review
“Half the 14 essays in this interdisciplinary study of seventeenth- through nineteenth-century America are reprints—though its useful to have work that appeared in academic journals collected in one place. Among original work, Ramon A. Gutierrez's revisionist perspective on Native American berdache will raise the most eyebrows: rather than exalt their same-sex spirituality, fashionable among gay liberationists and radical faeries alike, the author's theory is that they led lives of sexual 'humiliation and endless work, not of celebration and veneration.' Among the reprints, Caleb Crain's account of a romantic triangle among three Philadelphia men that began in 1786, culled from their diaries, is the sweetest. Several essays draw on court records dating back as far as three hundred years to unearth queer lives, while others glean an intriguing and instructive glimpse of the past through a reading of Colonial-era fiction and journalism.”
-Q Syndicate,
Review
“Thoughtful, persuasive, solidly constructed, and likely to endure the test of time.”
-Choice,
Review
“Illuminate[s] the complexity, breadth, and social impact of sexuality in history.”
-The Gay and Lesbian Review,
Review
“An excellent introduction to the dynamic new work on sexuality in colonial and early national America, which not only expands our understanding of early America but forces us to rethink paradigms and periodizations that have long governed histories of sexuality in the U.S. A valuable contribution.”
-George Chauncey,author of Why Marriage?
Review
"This splendid collection illustrates the maturation of lesbian and gay history. The early American era emerges as a rich period for understanding same-sex desire in both law and culture. It also proves critical for reevaluating the dominant interpretations of the emergence of modern homosexual identities." - Estelle B. Freedman, author of Feminism, Sexuality, and Politics
Review
“A powerful interdisciplinary compilation that will keep specialists and general readers thoroughly engaged. . . . Long Before Stonewall redirects our attention to a period of American history that for too long has been undervalued as a field for scholarly inquiry into sexuality.”
-Journal of the Early Republic,
Review
“Though stony the road they trod, a small band of men developed and passed on an ethos of mutuality and collectivism brought from Africa. America owes a great debt to those men, and scholars owe a great debt to Craig Wilder, who has combined vast research and keen intelligence to tell their story. Wilders work will force a new look at a familiar landscape. Imagine—an African city at the base of the Hudson!”
-Noel Ignatiev,author of How the Irish Became White
Review
“In this groundbreaking and superbly written work Craig Wilder provides a gendered and richly textured discussion of the African origins of black political consciousness and moral traditions in the United States. Through a skillful comparative discussion of African associations in North America, the Caribbean, Brazil and Africa he demonstrates the connections between African systems of values and beliefs, masculinity and the black public sphere. This book is essential reading in African American history, Diaspora studies and American studies.”
-Irma Watkins-Owens,author of Blood Relations: Caribbean Immigrants and the Harlem Community 1900-1930
Review
“A beautifully researched, subtly argued exploration of the moral and intellectual life of New Yorks African American community in its first two hundred years. As Wilder shows how African societies provided a foundation for black religion, politics, and cultural institutions, he opens a new window on New York history. We hear the voice and aspirations of black New Yorkers as we have never heard them before. Written with verve, In the Company of Black Men repeatedly rewards its readers with fresh insights and provocative arguments that leaves one thinking long after it has been set aside.”
-Elizabeth Blackmar,Columbia University
Review
“Wilder explores cultural expression with and through African societies in New York City. . . . He follows them from their origin, through their heyday, to their decline as capitalist culture overwhelmed the voluntary tradition.”
-Book News,
Review
“In the historiography on blacks in the colonial and antebellum periods, Craig Steven Wilder”s In the Company of Black Men stands out as one of the finest works of scholarship in the last decade.”
-Journal of American Ethnic History,
Synopsis
2007 Choice Outstanding Academic TitleAlthough the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City symbolically mark the start of the gay rights movement, individuals came together long before the modern era to express their same-sex romantic and sexual attraction toward one another, and in a myriad of ways. Some reflected on their desires in quiet solitude, while others endured verbal, physical, and legal harassment for publicly expressing homosexual interest through words or actions.
Long Before Stonewall seeks to uncover the many iterations of same-sex desire in colonial America and the early Republic, as well as to expand the scope of how we define and recognize homosocial behavior. Thomas A. Foster has assembled a pathbreaking, interdisciplinary collection of original and classic essays that explore topics ranging from homoerotic imagery of black men to prison reform to the development of sexual orientations. This collection spans a regional and temporal breadth that stretches from the colonial Southwest to Quaker communities in New England. It also includes a challenge to commonly accepted understandings of the Native American berdache. Throughout, connections of race, class, status, and gender are emphasized, exposing the deep foundations on which modern sexual political movements and identities are built.
About the Author
Thomas A. Foster is associate professor of history at DePaul University, in Chicago, and author of Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America and the editor of Long Before Stonewall: Histories of Same-Sex Sexuality in Early America (NYU Press, 2007).