“That’s So
Gay: Outing Early America”—an exhibition featuring textual and visual material
in the Library Company’s collections that relates to gay history—will open in
February 2014. An accompanying blog being launched this month previews
the themes of the exhibition and invites participants to join in the fun. The
blog is moderated by Don James McLaughlin, a doctoral student in English
literature at the University of Pennsylvania, whose research focuses on
homosexuality across the 19th century.
Featured in the exhibition will be the first edition of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (1855), as well as the important third edition with
the Calamus poems and the discussion of “adhesive” love. Also on display will be portraits of the
sculptor Harriet Hosmer, with her short hair and cravat, alongside
contemporaries’ commentaries on her as “too independent of conventionalities;
too masculine in her habits.” Beyond our important and collectible books and
prints, “That’s So Gay” shows off the great depth of the Library Company’s
collections, which make it possible to embed iconic texts and images in
historical context.
Consider the
gayatlcp.org blog your opportunity to tell us more about items in the exhibition,
to ask questions about the further resources in the collection, or to help
queer early America by contributing your own material and interpretations
related to this too-often-invisible aspect of the American experience.
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