The Famous Lady Lovers
Black Women and Queer Desire before Stonewall
By Cookie Woolner

Approx. 208 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 4 halftones, notes, bibl., index
-
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4696-7548-0
Published: September 2023 -
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4696-7547-3
Published: September 2023
Gender and American Culture
Paperback Available September 2023, but pre-order your copy today!
Buy this Book
For Professors:
Free E-Exam Copies
Examining blues songs, Black newspapers, vice reports, memoirs, sexology case studies, and more, Woolner illuminates the unconventional lives Black lady lovers formed to suit their desires. In the urban North, as the Great Migration gave rise to increasingly racially mixed cities, Black lady lovers fashioned and participated in emerging sexual subcultures. During this time, Black queer women came to represent anxieties about the deterioration of the heteronormative family. Negotiating shifting notions of sexuality and respectability, Black lady lovers strategically established queer networks, built careers, created families, and were vital cultural contributors to the US interwar era.
About the Author
Cookie Woolner is associate professor of history at the University of Memphis.
For more information about Cookie Woolner, visit
the
Author
Page.
Reviews
"A compelling book that offers a fresh perspective on the sexuality of many well-known entertainers and, importantly, centers love in the context of a broader culture insistent on seeing only violence and jealousy. A striking contribution to the history of Black women, queerness, and urbanization."—Michele Mitchell, author of Righteous Propagation: African Americans and the Politics of Racial Destiny after Reconstruction