Gay New York

Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940

By: George Chauncey

Narrated by: Graham Halstead

The “monumental” (The Washington Post), field-defining history of gay life in New York City in the early to mid-20th century

Gay New York brilliantly shatters the myth that before the 1960s gay life existed in the closet, where all gay men were isolated, invisible, and ashamed. Based on years of research in diaries, letters, newspaper stories, and police reports, George Chauncey describes the saloons, speakeasies, and streets where queer men gathered; the intimate parties and immense drag balls where they celebrated; the highly visible residential enclaves they built in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and Times Square; and the complex prewar sexual culture they inhabited, which did not divide men into heterosexuals and homosexuals. It offers new perspectives on the LGBT rights revolution of our time by showing that the oppression the movement attacked in the 1960s was not unchanging, but had intensified in the 1930s as a direct response to the visibility of the prewar gay world.

Awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Organization of American Historians' prize for the best first book in any field of history upon its publication in 1994, Gay New York remains a revelatory account of a long-forgotten world and the most widely taught book in American LGBT history.

Critic reviews

"Monumental...a vital achievement in redefining and reassessing gay history."—Washington Post

"One of the most fascinating works of American social history I've ever read."—Frank Rich, New York Times

"A first-rate book of history...about all urban life, telling us as much about the heterosexual world as about the homosexual one."—New York Times

"A stunning contribution not only to gay history, but to the study of urban life, class, gender--and heterosexuality."—Kirkus

"Gay New York isn't just the definitive history of gays in New York from 1890 through 1940; it's also a wonderful account of the metropolitan character of modern gayness itself."—L.A. Times

"A brilliantly researched gift of history...unassailable."—Boston Globe

"A brilliant ethnographic analysis."—The Nation

"The impact made by this richly textured study is powerful."—Publisher's Weekly

"It's the fun, more than anything--the pleasure, the parties, the high jinks, the sex, and, yes, the love that gay men bear one another--that shines through so brightly...[a book of] erudition, discernment, sympathy, and wit."—New York Observer

"Chauncey's genius is the way he combines real lives and theory...a sharp and readable analysis of the way boundaries between 'normal' and 'abnormal' men bent and blurred in the early parts of the century."—Out

"Even if you are not a devotee of theory or history, you will want to read Gay New York for its profusion of anecdotal detail--its coordinates of a Gay Atlantis, a buried city of Everard Baths, Harlem drag balls, and Vaseline alley. Chauncey has found evidence of a gay world whose complexity and cohesion no previous historian dared to imagine."—Wayne Koestenbaum, Los Angeles Times

Pre-Stonewall psychology

Very useful. I am using this to help young actors understand the psychology of gay men prior to Stonewall.

Outstanding scholarship and Accessible language

This book covers the astonishing evolution of gay/sexual minority life in New York City . This is not a dusty scholarly work despite its fastidious documentation. It shows how New York led the country in how gays, lesbians, and sexually fluid people development their own self-definition and the sometimes embrace but more often suppression of these people. Highly recommended

Excellent cultural deep dive with questionable decisions on the production

Well narrated, excellently researched detail, but the oddly utilized censorship on words used seemingly at random (beeps over sex acts, but not slurs) took me out of the story. Also, the accompanying PDF is absolutely horrible quality, near impossible to see the references.

An Eye Opening History!

As a middle aged American it would seem a basic understanding of history might be mine. Further as a gay man having once lived in NYC I thought this book would reinforce what I already knew. Rather it exposed how little I, and indeed civilization in general know about Gay culture in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.
Eye opening! Amazing!

Very interesting

This is a very well researched and carefully written history. I knew almost nothing that is contained in this book and I’m grateful George Chauncey put it all together. The narration is solid.