Hidden history

[Shana A]

Hidden history

By Terri Schlichenmeyer on June 29, 2012
     
http://www.washingtonblade.com/2012/06/29/hidden-history/

    'Re-Dressing America's Frontier Past'
    By Peter Boag

Joe Monahan's neighbors were shocked.

The fall of 1903 was short and winter came early. Tough and self-sufficient, Joe had come to the Mallory ranch complaining of illness and he didn't look good. Shortly after his arrival, he died in the warmth of his neighbors' home.

The shock came when they went to prepare Joe's body for burial: Grizzled Joe Monahan was a woman.

Peter Boag says that such scenarios were common in the West in the decades between 1850 and 1920. Cross-dressers, for myriad reasons, were "very much a part of daily life..." and while people tittered and talked, general attitudes were based on late-19th-century beliefs on gender. Medical experts eventually claimed that cross-dressing was part of a "neurological disease" called homosexuality, and "...homosexuality was understood as an unfortunate by-product of modernization."

[MadelineB]

Hidden history
...
    'Re-Dressing America's Frontier Past'
    By Peter Boag

Thanks for the book news!

He also wrote 'Same-Sex Affairs: Constructing and Controlling Homosexuality in the Pacific Northwest'.





I think I'm going to pick up a copy of both books. Has anyone read either of them?