Book dossier

Same-sex dynamics among nineteenth-century Americans

by D. Michael Quinn

What were same-sex relationships like in America's heartland during the nineteenth century, far from the Bohemian enclaves of New York City and San Francisco? The extraordinary answer - that same-sex intimacy was widely accepted - is found in D. Michael Quinn's Same-Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-Century Americans, which traces the incidence of and response to same-sex behaviors in the United States to the midtwentieth century. It will be must reading for anyone interested in gay and lesbian issues and the changing concepts of friendship and sexuality. This book will be of special interest to historians, sociologists, anthropologists, religious leaders, psychiatrists, and physicians, as well as to Mormons. A respected scholar of Mormon social history, Quinn demonstrates the extent of early America's acceptance of same-sex intimacy, charting the nation's descent into homophobia by examining Mormonism as a case study of middle America.