Library of Congress's Blog, page 22

Crime Classics Returns: “The Thinking Machine”

This is a guest post by Grace Conroy, an intern in the Library’s  Publishing Office .

Intriguing, astonishing, mind-boggling — such are the intellectual feats of professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, otherwise known as “The Thinking Machine” in Jacques Futrelle’s short story collection of the same name. The 1907 volume, the latest in the Library’s Crime Classics series, follows the eccentric scientist on a series of exploits as he attempts to prove there is no such thing as a perfect crime.

As Crime Classics series editor Leslie S. Klinger states in the introduction, Futrelle’s first story about the Thinking Machine introduced “one of the most admired creations in the history of crime fiction.”

Born in Georgia in 1875, Futrelle was a journalist who worked his way from Atlanta to Boston by the time he was in his late 20s. He dabbled in crime writing until 1905, when his newspaper, the Boston American, published “The Problem of Cell 13.” Published in six parts, the story follows neurotic professor Van Dusen, nicknamed the Thinking Machine, as he vows to break out of prison using only his cleverness and ingenuity. In the story, the details of his eventual escape astonished the professor’s colleagues and the prison’s warden. In real life, it fascinated readers around the country.

The Thinking Machine’s frail body, wild blond hair and aloof mannerisms made him a peculiar protagonist. Stories featuring the enigmatic professor proved so popular that Futrelle left his newspaper job and churned out more than 40 crime stories to meet the public’s demand, as well as several novels.

This Crime Classics entry includes “The Problem of Cell 13” and six other stories dedicated to the Thinking Machine’s clever mind. Standouts include “The Flaming Phantom,” revealing how Van Dusen debunks the theory of a haunted house; “The Scarlet Thread,” in which he solves the mysterious case of a murderous gas light; and “The Mystery of a Studio,” in which he takes on the case of a missing girl from an infamous painting. Throughout these adventures, the Thinking Machine is accompanied by journalist Hutchinson Hatch, who serves alternately as accomplice, interlocutor and stand-in for the reader, in the tradition of the Holmes-Watson partnership.

Jacques Futrelle. Photo from the frontispiece of “My Lady’s Garter.”

Futrelle’s life ended prematurely. He and his wife, May, booked first-class passage on the Titanic’s maiden voyage. On April 14, 1912, the “unsinkable” ship failed to evade a large iceberg. May recounted her final moments with her husband in the April 20, 1912, edition of The Pensacola Journal:

“Jack died like a hero. … He was in the smoking room when the crash came. The noise of the smash was terrific. I was going to bed. I was hurried from my feet by the impact. I hardly found myself when Jack came rushing into the room.

“‘The boat is going down; get dressed at once,’ he shouted. When we reached the deck everything was in the wildest confusion. The screams of women and the shrill orders of the officers were drowned intermittently by the tremendous vibrations of the Titanic’s deep bass fog horn. …

“I didn’t want to leave Jack but he assured me that there were boats enough for all and that he would be rescued later.

“‘Hurry up, May! You’re keeping the others waiting,’ were his last words as he lifted me into a lifeboat and kissed me good-bye. I was in one of the last lifeboats to leave the ship. We had not put out many minutes when the Titanic disappeared. I almost thought as I saw her sink beneath the water that I could see Jack standing where I had left him and waving at me.”

Approximately 1,500 people died aboard the Titanic, including Jacques Futrelle. Photo: New York World-Telegram & Sun. Prints and Photographs Division

After her husband’s death, May published two of Futrelle’s novels. She also published two of her own, “Secretary of Frivolous Affairs” and “Lieutenant What’s-His-Name.” (During their marriage, May had helped write the first part of “The Grinning God,” as a creative challenge for Futrelle to finish the second half.)

A few of Futrelle’s stories had lives beyond their pages. “The Problem of Cell 13” was adapted into two television episodes; other novels, unrelated to the Thinking Machine, were also adapted into films.

Paramount Artcraft Pictures used “My Lady’s Garter” to produce the 1920 silent film of the same name. Futrelle’s “thrilling mystery-romance,” as it was promoted by Paramount, centered around the Countess of Salisbury’s stolen jeweled garter. Raymond L. Schrock also adapted Futrelle’s novel about a battle of wits between English and American diplomats, “Elusive Isabel,” into a six-reel picture. The Library also has descriptive material relating to copyright registrations for “A Model Young Man” and “The Diamond Queen.”

To promote “My Lady’s Garter,” Paramount Artcraft Pictures released a press book. National Audio-Visual Conservation Center.

His influence wasn’t lost on other writers, either. More than a century after Futrelle’s death, Gene Weingarten, the two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist at the Washington Post, nicknamed his laptop Augustus Van Dusen because it was. of course, a thinking machine.

The world lost an incredible crime author on the Titanic but his legacy endures in his short stories and novels and their film adaptations. This most recent publication of the Library’s Crime Classics series reintroduces readers to the excitement of Jacques Futrelle’s mysteries.

Library of Congress Crime Classics are published by Poisoned Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks, in association with the Library of Congress. Each volume includes the original text, an introduction, author biography, notes, recommendations for further reading and suggested discussion questions from mystery expert Leslie S. Klinger. “The Thinking Machine,” published on June 6, is available in softcover ($14.99) from booksellers worldwide, including the Library of Congress shop.

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Library’s Baseball Card Collection: It’s (Mostly) the Topps!

This story also appears in the July-August issue of the Library of Congress Magazine.

Baseball’s best players come together each summer for the annual All-Star Game, as they will tomorrow night in Seattle. An even greater gathering of stars permanently resides in the baseball card collections of the Library.

The 2,100 cards in the Benjamin K. Edwards Collection, for example, depict many legendary figures from the sport’s first half-century: Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson and Cy Young. To those, the Library recently added over 45,000 cards — most produced by Topps — that illustrate stars of more recent decades.

The cards were collected by Peter G. Strawbridge, who preserved complete sets of every major league team from 1973 through 2019 along with some Boston Red Sox cards from earlier years. His family donated the collection to the Prints and Photographs Division, which recently placed a sampling online.

Behind each card is a story of dreams realized or lost.

Derek Jeter was drafted sixth in the 1992 draft. He made his Major League debut in 1995. Prints and Photographs Division.

Here’s a fresh-out-of-school Derek Jeter, just drafted by the New York Yankees and looking every bit a kid. No one who picked up that card could know what glory lay ahead: Jeter went on to win five World Series and play in 14 All-Star Games, and in 2020 he was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

In his final at-bat of the 1972 regular season, Pittsburgh Pirates great Roberto Clemente doubled to left center and became just the 11th player in history to reach the 3,000-hit milestone. Three months later, on New Year’s Eve, he died in a plane crash while trying to deliver supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.

Early the next year, Clemente was voted into the Hall in a special election, the first Latin American player inducted into the shrine. Around that time, Topps decided to issue the Clemente card now in the Library’s collections — a tribute to one of baseball’s brightest stars, fallen too soon.

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Our Invitation to You: Celebrate America’s 250th Anniversary

In 2026, just three years from now, we will commemorate the United States Semiquincentennial and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

The Library of Congress, along with other Federal agencies, will be taking part in this commemoration. We’ll be sharing our great collections and insights from our incredible staff, and inviting you to rediscover the Library of Congress for yourself.

In the lead-up to this milestone, the America250 Commission has launched America’s Invitation, a nationwide campaign for all Americans to share stories and hopes and dreams for our future.

America’s Invitation is an opportunity for Americans across the country, from every background, to take part in reflecting on our past and looking to the future by sharing their stories, and the things they love about America, as we continue to strive for “a more perfect union.”

Taking part in America’s Invitation is easy — visit stories.america250.org to share photos, videos, artwork, essays, songs, poems, or anything else that highlights what America means to you and how you hope to commemorate this milestone. This content may be showcased by America250 on its website, in videos, on social media, and more. Together, these contributions will highlight what makes America unique and ensure we are building a commemoration that includes all of us.

For some inspiration, you might enjoy this “From the Vaults” episode about the Dunlap Broadside, the first printing of the Declaration of Independence that was printed throughout the night of July 4, 1776. This is how the text of the Declaration was first sent out into the world:

And if you’re looking for more about the history of the Declaration of independence, we have you covered.

Over the next three years, America250 will continue to host commemorative events across the country. To learn more, visit America250.org, and follow the Commission on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

 

The Lasting Magic of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Mari Nakahara, curator of Architecture, Design, and Engineering in the Prints & Photographs Division, chooses favorite collection items related to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. This article appeared in slightly different form in the May-June issue of the Library of Congress Magazine.

Architect and Artist Together

In 1981, Paul S. Oles, one of the world’s premier architectural illustrators, created a drawing to reveal Chinese American artist and architect Maya Lin’s design for the memorial in a realistic style. Lin shyly asked Oles to include her in the drawing; Oles agreed on one condition: She would appear on his arm. In the image at the top of this post, you can see them walking together along the top of the monument at the left.

Portrait of Maya Lin

Lin poses in front of her wax piece “Phases of the Moon” in this photograph by Nancy Lee Katz at the Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles in 1998.

Detail from photo portrait of Maya Lin. Photo: Nancy Lee Katz. Prints and Photographs Division.

Vietnam Memorial Original Design

The Vietnam War resulted in over 58,000 U.S. military fatalities and divided the nation. Veteran Jan Scruggs proposed a memorial to help bring people together. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund received over 1,400 proposals for the design competition, held in 1981. Maya Lin, a 21-year-old student at the Yale School of Architecture, created the winning drawings, one of which is seen below. Lin situated the wall so that one invisible axis connects the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to the Lincoln Memorial and one of the black granite walls vanishes into the ground in the direction of the Washington Monument.

One of Lin’s original drawings, showing a front, slightly elevated view of the black granite wall of the memorial. Prints and Photographs Division.

A Living Memorial

Since its completion in 1982, the Vietnam Memorial has remained a popular site for visitors to Washington, D.C. Many leave personal mementos and letters commemorating lost family members or friends — the men and women whose names are inscribed on the walls. The National Park Service collects and archives these tributes.

Items left at the memorial. Photo: Carol M. Highsmith. Prints and Photographs Division.

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Historical Newspapers Reveal Hidden LGBTQ+ History

This is a guest post by Megan Metcalf, a reference librarian in the Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room.

The Library’s collections of historical newspapers uniquely illuminate the spectrum of LGBTQ+ history.

These rich resources provide a record of LGBTQ+ lives that otherwise would have gone undocumented. In these pages, one can find the history of resistance, community and, of course, love.

In a story entitled “Thirteen Years a Girl-Husband,” The Ogden Standard issue of June 13, 1914, dedicated almost an entire page to the story of Ralph Kerwineo of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Born female, Kerwineo lived as a man and even married a woman — twice.

Kerwineo was eventually outed and arrested on charges of disorderly conduct. But, on May 15, 1914, The Tacoma Times published Kerwineo’s own account of their experiences on the front page. These stories were picked up by other papers around the country. This kind of firsthand perspective is rarely available and offers a glimpse into how LGBTQ+ individuals and couples survive when their love and identities are criminalized.

The Ogden Standard issue of June 13, 1914, devoting coverage to the story of Ralph Kerwineo. Chronicling America, Serial and Government Publications Division.

“Evidence of Homosexuality,” published by the Evening Star on Oct. 3, 1955, reports on a police raid on the Pepper Hill Club in Baltimore and the arrest of 162 people. The Cumberland Evening Times provided more context the same day, describing a woman who was “… convicted of assaulting policemen who tried to load her into a paddy wagon.”

This Pepper Hill raid occurred 14 years before the Stonewall riots of 1969. News coverage of this raid and similar ones allows researchers to expand the timeline of LGBTQ+ resistance, which began long before Stonewall.

More than a half-century later the Ogden newspaper’s report on Kerwineo, The New York Times described the first Pride march in a June 29, 1970, story headlined, “Thousands of Homosexuals Hold a Protest Rally in Central Park.” Newspaper coverage of Pride events through the years can include attendee estimates, photographs, quotes, names of participants or sponsoring organizations as well as locations of events.

The articles highlighted in this piece can all be found online in Chronicling America and in print or on microfilm in the Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room. Many newspapers can also be accessed on eresources.loc.gov.

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Bloomsday! The Library’s One-of-a-Kind Copy of “Ulysses”

James Joyce in 1915. Photo: Alex Ehrenzweig. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

It’s Bloomsday, the annual celebration of James Joyce’s landmark modernist masterpiece, “Ulysses.” Published 101 years ago, Joyce’s book famously examines one day — June 16, 1904 — in the life of Leopold Bloom of Dublin, Ireland. The book’s stream-of-consciousness style and dense symbolism have made it a cult favorite to fans around the world, who celebrate today with readings, festivals, dressing in period costumes and, if possible, wandering around Dublin themselves. Pubs do bang-up business.

Across the Atlantic, the Library has some of the most extraordinary copies of the book ever printed. But first, a quick recap:

Paris, 1922: Sylvia Beach, proprietor of Shakespeare and Company, the famous bookshop, decides to publish “Ulysses.” This is risky because pre-publication excerpts had been declared obscene by U.S. courts.

Beach limited her first edition to 1,000 copies. All were numbered, and 100 were signed by Joyce. It was a brilliant decision. The novel went on to be regarded as one of the premier literary works of the 20th century and Joyce one of the era’s great authors. Copies of that first print run became some of the most sought-after books of the age. (A first edition famously sold at auction in London in 2009 for the equivalent today of of $636,000; signed and personal copies have sold for much more.)

The bespoke calfskin cover of the LIbrary’s edition of “Ulysses.” Photo: Shawn Miller.

And yet all of that scarcely begins to describe the first edition of “Ulysses” acquired in 2021 by the Library. It’s a marvel to behold: Copy #361 is bound in bespoke calfskin, front and back covers initialed by the author, the title page inscribed by Joyce to a friend, with inserts that include Joyce’s guide to deciphering the book.

Two other “Ulysses” first editions were included in the acquisition of the Aramont Library (the property of a private owner), including the signed #1 copy — the first copy of the first edition, an almost unbelievable find of such an important book.

“All of these copies are exceptional, but there is one that is truly unique,” said Stephanie Stillo of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, indicating the custom-made copy.

Joyce, a native of Ireland, spent years laboring over the complicated novel while living in Europe. It’s modeled on Homer’s epic poem “The Odyssey,” told in 18 chapters in almost bewildering fashion. One sentence runs 4,391 words. As the British Library sums it up “… each episode is represented by a different organ of the body, colour, symbol, technique, art, place and particular time of day.”

Beach, a friend of many modernist artists, published the first copies on Feb. 2, 1922, Joyce’s 40th birthday.

While finishing the book, Joyce befriended a young French admirer, Jacques Benoist-Méchin. Just 20 years old, Benoist-Méchin was a promising intellectual who helped Joyce finalize the book’s famous last sentences, a soliloquy by the fictional Molly Bloom.

They apparently worked together to make #361 an unforgettable copy. Joyce inscribed the copy to him. A sketch map of Dublin adorned the front, as it was the book’s setting. The back cover was a map of Gibraltar. This was a nod to Benoist-Méchin’s help in interpreting Molly’s famous closing scene; in the book, she is born in Gibraltar.

Detail of Joyce’s explanation of the book’s themes and symbols. Photo: Shawn Miller.

But the real gems were at the back.

A four-page scheme, or outline, explains the book’s convoluted plot and its symbolism, including Joyce’s notation that the book was based on “The Odyssey,” without which the world might never have noticed the connection. (Only seven of these outlines are known to exist.) Then, another stunner — a full-color foldout anatomical chart of a human body, likely taken from a medical textbook, annotated in red ink, noting how each body part relates to the plot.

Tucked inside the back cover is this drawing of a human body, with notes showing how various body parts correspond to different chapters. Photo: Shawn Miller.

Finally, tucked inside this copy are portraits of Joyce (likely taken by famed photographer Man Ray) and Beach. There’s also a letter from Joyce to Benoist-Méchin.

The final twist: Benoist-Méchin grew into a prominence of his own as a historian and journalist who enthusiastically collaborated with Nazi Germany’s takeover of France in World War II. He was condemned to death as a traitor after the war and eventually had his sentence commuted after seven years in prison.

All of that 20th-century history, bound in one completely original book. It’s something to behold.

The rear cover of the book features this map of Gibraltar. Photo: Shawn Miller.

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Ralph Ellison’s “Juneteenth” Lives on at the Library

—This is a guest post by Barbara Bair, a historian in the Manuscript Division. It appears in the May-June issue of the Liibrary of Congress Magazine.

The nation will pause for a national holiday on Monday to mark Juneteenth, the anniversary of the day when enslaved people in Texas finally heard the news of emancipation at the end of the Civil War. The Library preserves the history of that day in many ways, including Ralph Ellison’s delirium-dream of a second novel, “Juneteenth,” in which he took a deep dive into the complexities of race and violence and the costs of transformation in America.

The novel, like the struggle for equality and justice itself, was a long time in the making — a wrestling with the self and a perpetual work in progress. Ellison began to formulate the book in thoughts and notes in the 1950s, during the era of Brown v. Board of Education and the 1952 publication of his masterpiece, “Invisible Man.” But its genesis was longer, stemming from Ellison’s difficult childhood and the world he witnessed around him in his youth and as a student at Tuskegee Institute.

Ellison died in 1994, leaving behind over 2,000 pages of drafts and notes and revised episodes and passages for what he thought might be one book, or maybe three. All are now in the Ralph Ellison Papers at the Library.

A manuscript page from “Juneteenth,” with handwritten notations. Manuscript Division.

With the blessings of his widow, Fanny Ellison, the Manuscript Division preserved and organized the papers and Ellison’s literary executor, John F. Callahan, crafted his words into the posthumous version of the novel as it is known by readers today. Callahan and Adam Bradley produced a revised version under the title “Three Days Before the Shooting …” in 2010.

“Juneteenth” is deeply rooted in historic struggle across time. It is titled for a day of revelation, also known as Freedom Day, June 19, 1865.

While the jubilation of Juneteenth was real and the day remains a holiday of celebration and independence, it also signifies — like Ellison’s unfinished, morphing, questioning novel — that the full work of freedom is longstanding and intergenerational and that the forces of chaos and human failures are strong.

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The Ketubah, An Ornate Jewish Marriage Tradition

This is a guest post by Maria Peña, a writer-editor in the Office of Communications. This article also appears in the May-June issue of the LIbrary of Congress Magazine.

No Jewish marriage is complete without a ketubah (plural, ketubot), a traditional legal document introduced during the wedding ceremony. The ketubah not only legitimizes the marriage but, following Jewish law, also spells out the groom’s financial and conjugal obligations to his bride during their life journey.

Most traditional ketubot are written in Hebrew and Aramaic, and their artistry reflects the time, place and culture of their creation. The earliest surviving ketubah, found in Egypt and written in Aramaic on papyrus, dates from circa 440 B.C.

The earliest illustrated ketubot, however, originated in Venice and date to the late 16th and early 17th centuries. There, some Jewish communities began decorating ketubot with lavish colors, symbols and designs — arches, columns, decorated borders, human figures and motifs inspired by nature.

Some documents, like those produced in certain Italian cities such as Ancona, included an additional financial agreement between families written beneath the standard text, a practice that faded with time. The traditional ketubah described the groom’s contractual protections for his wife and, much like a contemporary prenuptial agreement, his financial obligations to her in case of divorce or widowhood.

The Library holds 11 traditional ketubot. An 1805 ketubah from Ancona, a center of ketubah production from the 17th to the 19th centuries, is decorated with human figures. One produced 70 years later in Tetuan, Morocco, displays only nature motifs — ketubot from Islamic lands weren’t decorated with human figures, instead drawing their richness from bright plant and animal motifs.

The oldest ketubah at the Library dates to 1722, from Ancona. Written in Hebrew and Aramaic and ringed by an elaborate network of colorful flowers and birds, the document records the marriage of Diamanti, daughter of Moses ben Raphael Ha-Cohen, to Samuel ben Moses, son of David Ha-Cohen. Text at the bottom describes valuables the bride brought into the marriage and other financial arrangements agreed upon by both families.

Modern-day Jewish marriage contracts remain as ornate and personalized as wallets will allow — with some including commissioned art, silver or gold leaf, and they become family heirlooms and lifelong treasures.

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My Job: Megan Metcalf & LGBTQ+ at the Library

Megan Metcalf is the collection specialist and recommending officer for LGBTQ+ studies and women’s and gender studies for the general and international collections. She’s also a reference librarian in the Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room. This article also appears in the May-June issue of the LIbrary of Congress Magazine.

Describe your work at the Library.

A typical workday usually involves a combination of assisting researchers, working on collection development and planning or producing outreach. Librarians assist researchers in person at the Library and remotely via our Ask a Librarian service and online programming.

Outreach is a very big part of what I do. I produce events and experiences, including research talks and panels, online presentations, tours and research orientations, hands-on workshops and more. I enjoy any opportunity to share our wonderful collections, especially as part of an exhibit or pop-up display. I also regularly write for Library blogs and social media, which is a great way to raise awareness and increase engagement.

When I work on collection development, I seek out materials in a variety of formats and languages to add to the collections. In 2020, we published the first collections policy statements for LGBTQ+ studies and women’s and gender studies at the Library. This helps to further define the scope of collecting efforts in these subjects. I also create resources for researchers, which includes curating five web archive collections and several research guides.

How did you prepare for your position?

I started working in bookstores as a teenager and got my first library job as an undergrad. I earned bachelors and master’s degrees in women’s and gender studies and a master’s in library and information science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. During my time at UWM, I worked and taught in the women’s and gender studies department as well as the university library. When I finished graduate school, I worked as the instructional design librarian and women’s, gender and LGBTQ+ studies subject specialist for the UWM libraries until I moved to Washington, D.C., in August 2015.

What are your favorite collection items?

The Library has an impressive selection of LGBTQ+ periodicals, from the mid-20th century to present day. This includes rare early titles like The Ladder, The Mattachine Review and One magazine. Periodicals and other self-published materials provide a record of LGBTQ+ voices that otherwise wouldn’t have been preserved. It’s incredibly moving to realize that when these early magazines were published, people could have been arrested just for carrying them or sending them through the mail. Nothing moves me more than self-published materials.

What have been your most memorable experiences at the Library?

Getting to show the “Queer Eye” cast around the Library and collections in 2019 was such a thrill! In general, I love the possibility for serendipity that seems to live around every corner. Recently, I was giving a tour for LGBTQ+ historian Eric Cervini, and we just happened to run into “Atonement” author Ian McEwan with the Library’s literary director, Clay Smith. Our tours joined together for a short while, and it was so delightful and unexpected. Almost as unexpected as the time I ran into a live penguin in the Main Reading Room on World Penguin Day.

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Kluge Scholar George Chauncey on Libraries and LGBTQ+ History

This is a guest post by George Chauncey, the DeWitt Clinton professor of history at Columbia University and the 2022 recipient of the Library’s John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity. It also appears in the Library of Congress Magazine.

For a long time, most people thought LGBTQ+ people had no history before Stonewall and the rise of the gay liberation movement in the late 1960s. Or that if there were a longer history, it consisted only of the police repressing isolated people who hid themselves in fear and shame.

When I began the research for my book “Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940,” I knew there had to be more to the story than this. But I didn’t know what I’d find. Or where I’d find it.

So, I headed to my local library, one of the great research libraries of the world, the magnificent, marble-clad New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, and spent months in its reading room poring over old manuscripts, organizational records, newspapers and photographs.

“Gay New York,” George Chauncey’s landmark book, built on library research.

It quickly became clear that the records of so-called “anti-vice societies” would be among my richest sources. From 1905 to 1932, one society dispatched secret investigators across the city to inspect saloons, speakeasies, dance halls and tenements they suspected of harboring vice. They were primarily looking for female prostitution, but along the way they periodically stumbled across what they called “perversion.” I read 10,000 of their typewritten reports to find about 200 reports concerning LGBTQ+ life. The world those reports revealed was astounding.

At a Brooklyn dance hall in 1912, an investigator observed two “fairies,” known as Elsie and Daisy, partying with a group of young immigrant women, borrowing their powder puffs, singing bawdy songs and dancing together, much to the women’s delight.

In 1928, an investigator visited a Harlem tenement where 15 Black lesbians and gay men were enjoying themselves at what the hostess called a “freakish party.” “The men were dancing with one another,” he reported, “and the women were dancing with one another.” When he asked one guest if she was “a normal, regular girl,” she defiantly replied, “Everybody here is either a bull dagger or a f–, and I am here.”

That same year, other investigators attended a “Fairy Masquerade Ball” in a prominent Harlem ballroom, where they found “approximately 5,000 people, … men attired in women’s clothes, and vice versa.” It was “an annual affair,” they learned, “where the white and colored fairies assemble together with their friends,” along with “a certain respectable element who go there to see the sights.” The ball was so acclaimed that Harlem’s newspapers published flattering stories about it, with drawings depicting the most glamorous gowns.

Rather than cowering in fear, in other words, many LGBTQ+ people boldly claimed their right to live freely. Rather than despising them, many “straight” people celebrated them.

The investigators were shocked. So was I. Here was evidence that LGBTQ+ life was far more visible and accepted in early 20th-century Black and immigrant neighborhoods than I had imagined, despite the policing of the anti-vice societies. This was the story I told in “Gay New York.” I could only tell it because a library had recognized the importance of preserving boxes of yellowing typewritten reports — and countless other records — that one day would make it possible for us to see our history anew.

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