Browse material on the OutHistory website by time period.
This timeline is a collaborative work-in-progress that has had many contributors over a long period of time. Some of the language used and concepts referenced, influenced by colonialism, imperialism, racism, sexism, and anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs and…
A chronology of references to same-sex desire and sexual activity in the life of Walt Whitman and in the works of Whitman's biographers and critics. This timeline is a collaborative work-in-progress. Some of the language used and concepts…
This chronology on U.S. LGBTQ+ working-class history has been created with the help of Miriam Frank's book Out in the Union: A Labor History of Queer America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2014), with the permission of the author.…
An exhibit that describes the work done to identify the author of groundbreaking memoirs from the early 1900s. Originally published on OutHistory in 2022.
An introduction to approximately sixty individuals who were assigned female at birth and lived as men from the 1870s to the 1930s in the United States. Published originally on OutHistory in 2022 and updated in 2023.
An essay, originally published in The Advocate in 1989, about U.S. President Grover Cleveland's sister Rose and her partner.
Links for exhibits on Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens and Moreau de Saint Méry, along with profiles of Frederick von Steuben and Deborah Sampson, published originally on OutHistory in 2020.
This exhibit features notes from an anonymous OutHistory contributor about a Civil War officer and biographer of U.S. President Ulysses Grant.
Adapted from an essay about Henry Melville's novel in The Village Voice Literary Supplement, April 1982, pages 10-12. Copyright Jonathan Ned Katz. First published on OutHistory in 2020.
An introduction to Junius Lucien Price, whose series of novels, All Souls, make him a pioneering homosexual author and resistor. Born in Kent, Ohio, Price attended Harvard University, worked as a journalist in Greater Boston, and began writing…
An overview of a research project in progress, created by a group effort to identify the birth name and other information about the pioneering author who went by the names Jennie June, Ralph Werther, and Earl Lind. Published originally on OutHistory…
See also: The Standard Model of the Social-Historical Universe, by Jonathan Ned Katz
An excerpt of Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (T.Y. Crowell, 1976), 129-34, along with a bibliography and sample document.
An exhibit on the discovery of documents related to the life and times of German Jewish sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935). Published originally on OutHistory in 2020.
An interview with the author of a groundbreaking 1975 essay on lesbian history.
This exhibit addresses the homosexuality of Arthur Kingsley Porter, who chaired Harvard University's Art History Department. An earlier profile of Porter, authored by Jonathan Ned Katz, was published by OutHistory in 2021 and revised in 2024.…
In 1864, John William Sterling graduated from Yale College. About 1870, in his mid-twenties, Sterling met James Orville Bloss, who was three years younger. The two formed a relationship of almost 50 years, and lived together in New York City for most…
An exhibit on the rediscovery of female impersonator and singer Gene Pearson. Published originally on OutHistory in 2020.
Two historians, Jonathan Ned Katz and Tavia Nyong’o, present and analyze the story and visual depiction of Peter Sewally/Mary Jones, a Black transgender person in New York City, in 1836. First published on OutHistory in 2017.
The growth of gossip magazines and tabloids during the first half of the twentieth century was partially fueled by the industry's embrace of sensational topics such as murder, violence, crime, and corruption. But no subject seemed to attract…