History of Gender Commons^™

Barkley Roy, Jill, Rachel Gilbert

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Jill Barkley Roy is a 42-year-old woman from Sault, Ste. Marie, Michigan who moved to Maine in 2004. A self-described “democrat from birth”, Jill grew up in a small conservative town with her sister older sister Christine. She attended the University of Michigan Ann Arbor as a women’s studies major. Jill found herself surrounded by new and exciting opportunities in college, becoming involved in several LGBT organizations that would eventually bring her to the East Coast. At age 23, Jill began working with Family Crisis Services, now known as Through These Doors, a domestic violence resource center. Upon working as …

Brodack, Jason, Emily Cook

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Jason Brodak is a 44 year old man of Polish heritage, currently working at the University of Southern Maine and living in Bath, Maine, with his husband. Brodak discusses living in Detroit Michigan, Chicago Illinois, and New York. He attended Michigan State University and later received his bachelor's degree in Interior Design from an arts school in Chicago. He discusses his childhood, coming out, briefly joining the Navy, the role of gay bars and gay chatrooms in his life, gay marriage, and the HIV AIDS epidemic.

Please cite as: Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection, Lesbian, Gay, …

Poulin-Burrage, Edward "Teddy", Brendan Mcbrine

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Edward “Teddy” Poulin-Burrage is a biracial queer man who has lived in the Portland area for just about his entire life. Teddy has been deeply involved in the world of activism for more than half his life at this point, including with the Southern Maine Workers Center, Sexual Assault Response Services, Portland Racial Justice Congress, Pride Portland, Equality Maine, and other groups. Teddy has mostly done behind the scenes work for these organizations, usually focusing on coalition-building and forging relationships with other organizers. On top of this, Teddy has been a regular in the local gay bar scene for quite …

Marcous, Dana, Robben Harris

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Dana Marcous is a spiritual, successful and fascinating man who at times lives in the extremes, but always seems to maintain his balance. His life story and his spiritual path are so closely intertwined, it might appear as if he has eclipsed the spiritual and physical world. From being a world-class hairdresser and opening one of the most successful hair salons in Maine, to pursuing a career as an actor in L.A., Dana is a person who always follows his dreams and looks for the signs. This interview contains stories of Dana’s early life, including his process of coming out …

Leighton-Cory, Jocelyn, Bella Shannon

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Jocelyn identifies as a Queer woman but also aligns with the label Gender-Queer. They are 40 years old and currently live in the city of South Portland where they serve as a member on the City Council and also work as a managing director at Space Gallery in downtown Portland. Jocelyn was born in Bangor, Maine, and lived there for a year before moving briefly to South Princeton, Maine, and eventually settling in Princeton, Maine, where they grew up. Jocelyn was raised by their single mother along with their older brother and younger sister. They received their B.A. in Arts …

Cadwallader, Megan, Gretchen Thiele

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Meghan Cadwallader was born in 1976 in a small, rural town in Upstate New York. She grew up with a stable family and surrounded by the Catholic religion. Cadwallader realized she was lesbian around her junior year of high school. However, her sexuality was never a huge deal, more just another part of her. She went to college at Holland’s University, and all-girls school, in which she initially came out to people resulting in mixed responses. Meghan then went to Bucknell University In Pennsylvania. She received a degree in French and English with a concentration in creative writing. She talks …

Parker, Heidi, Tegan Bryne

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Heidi Parker is a 47-year-old lesbian, who uses she/her pronouns. Heidi Parker grew up in the South and Seventh-Day Adventist. One of her favorite parts about living in the South and still one of her favorite things today is the mountains. Heidi Parker has moved to a few places around the United States; including New York, Maine, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Morrow Beach. Heidi Parker worked as a PE teacher before getting a higher degree in Sports Management. After getting her degree, she moved to New York and worked at Syracuse and then moved to Maine to work …

I Was Crazy Once: An Examination Of Elizabethan Insanity In Shakespeare’S Work, Hope L. Kobus

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

William Shakespeare wrote numerous works, diving into the common motifs of love, revenge, power, but most importantly, madness. While Elizabethan audiences were more accustomed to seeing madness as a ploy for comedy, Shakespeare changed the appeal through shows such as King Lear, Hamlet, and Macbeth. He presents the power and ambition of women, as well as the failings of the upper-class, but he disguised them through the idea of insanity. At a time when the public had little understanding of mental health, it was easy to blame madness on gender, social status, and even the supernatural. Through …

Mama’S Got A Brand New Degree: Education And Changing Perceptions Of Femininity During The Mexican Revolution (1910-1917), Eden E. Baize

The Cardinal Edge

Bloody struggles, tense political debates, and general unease characterized Mexico in the early twentieth century. Under former president Porfirio Díaz, tensions grew as the lower classes pleaded for labor and land reform, culminating in a violent period of revolution from 1910 to 1917. As with all conflicts of this scale, the Mexican Revolution prompted the challenging of many long standing social conventions, specifically as they pertained to the role of government and the organization of social classes. With the restructuring of society already underway, many activists capitalized on the uncertainty of the era to push against the subjugation of women. …

The Definition Of A Black Man: The Entanglement Of Race, Sexuality, And Space, Michael Moore

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how Black queer men and transmasculine individuals navigate Black heteronormative and White queer spaces in New Orleans. Over the last few decades, articles, including anthropological and sociological, have focused on the relationship between race, gender performance, sexuality, and emotional expression among men such as Christian (2005), which analyzed how Black queer men expressed their masculinity within queer spaces (Christian 2005). This thesis builds on this literature to explore how societal and cultural pressures of masculinity can hinder Black queer men institutionally, socially, and romantically.

Black Pugilism: The First Act In Twentieth Century America, Angel Mario Lopez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

When teaching about the twenty-first century in the United States of America, educators delve deeply into how the Jim Crow Era was but a new manifestation of a slave-era philosophy. As W.E.B. Du Bois states in his 1903 book The Souls of Black Folk, “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line.” Inspiring pro-Jim Crow government officials and citizens to impose economic and political segregation on black citizens that, on paper, are “separate but equal” when infringing on their civil and human rights deliberately. Limiting the black individual to the status of second-class citizenship where …

American Identities In Virginia Education, Michael Mallery

Masters Theses, 2020-current

The students who attended The University of Virginia (UVA), Virginia Military Institute (VMI), Harrisonburg State Normal and Industrial School (HSNIS), and Fredericksburg State Normal and Industrial School (FSNIS) during the early twentieth century (1900-1918) showed changes in Southern gender identities. At UVA and VMI young men challenged the southern ideals of how they felt about their education by disagreeing with faculty and showing stressors within their education. Young men also fell into conflict with each other on certain social behaviors such as the usage of alcohol which went against Southern Christian morals and gentlemen behaviors if one embraced the idea …

Black Women And Theoretical Frameworks, Laschanda Johnson

The Scholarship Without Borders Journal

Despite the upsurge in the number of woman students as well as novice faculty /administrators, there are still too few women leaders to inspire the shifting demographics. The growing number of female undergraduate students in most parts of the world has created the erroneous perception that gender equality in higher education has been attained. While women's contribution to higher education has increased, the attainment of leadership positions is practically unknown from the global perspective. Given that higher education is becoming a more complicated global enterprise, gender equality in leadership is not only an issue of impartiality but also a need …

Neal, James, Wendy Chapkis

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Jim Neal is a 65 year old gay man born and raised in Galesburg, Illinois. Following his parents’ divorce at age 7, he moved with his mother and brother into their grandmother’s home. Neal discusses how, throughout his childhood, he witnessed predatory men in positions of power abusing boys; this served to inform his early perception of homosexuality. Those experiences also presented an internal struggle for Jim Neal between his own identity as a gay man and his perception of adult gay men. As a child, he found support in his family and closest community for his non-traditional gender interests …

Attempted Book Bans: The Censorship Of Queer Themes In The 1950s, María J. Quintana-Rodriguez

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This article aims to explore queer book banning during the 1950s in response to Cold War national defense tactics. The decade witnessed the formation of the first public LGBTQ+ rights organizations in the United States as well as a rise in queer literature and publications. This publicization of queerness in society was seen as a rejection of traditional societal norms and threatened the Cold War-imposed gender ideology. In addition, the fear of Communist expansion led to the conflation of homosexuals and Communists, categorizing queerness and queer-related themes as immoral and as an interference in the United States' fight for democracy. …

Editor's Introduction, Sharon A. Kowalsky

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Survivor Accounts Of Sexual Violence In The Holocaust And Rwandan Genocide: A Comparative History, Marisa Silva

Honors Projects

This research seeks to analyze and understand the approach and treatment of victims of sexual assaults stories and accounts using case studies of the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. Research was conducted by collecting and reading first-hand accounts of survivors and their experiences of sexual assault, then analyzing the historical response following the events. The two case studies are synthesized and compared in this project to understand which attributes of political and social policy effected the reception of stories of victims and witnesses of rape and assault. Both genocides are affected by unique struggles in collecting witness accounts, as well …

The Women Of Justice: Narratives Of Women Attorneys In California During The 1960s And 1990s, Sarah Zion

Master's Theses

This thesis interviews two women attorneys who have not previously shared their stories to relate their experience of going to law school and entering the field after graduation. The study of women lawyers and their stories is not a new topic, however, there is a focus in the scholarship to only explore the tales of the women who reached the big firsts, such as first female lawyer or first female judge. By providing interviews of women who have not reached these big accomplishments, the field gains a more rounded understanding of the history of female lawyers. The two women interviewed …

Holy Matter Making Holy Meaning: Fashioning Memory, Community And Dissimilar Similitude In Middle Dutch Sister-Books And The Book Of Margery Kempe, Godelinde G. Perk

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

The Middle Dutch sister-books and The Book of Margery Kempe are fifteenth-century vernacular texts by women chronicling their female subjects’ conversion and arduous attempts at a holy life. They share an (auto)hagiographic enterprise and formal and thematic features, including a display of rags and riches by the vitae’s subjects and a desire for mnemonic engagement on the part of the readers with the text. This article is the first to present the Diepenveen and Deventer sister-books and the Book as conversation partners. I draw on two main conceptual tools: 1) medieval memoria and 2) the notion of “dissimilar similitude” …

The Queer Life Of Lorena Hickok, Samantha D. Leyerle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the life of Lorena Hickok, a remarkable woman whose story has been glossed over throughout history. Hickok was an accomplished journalist and writer, and her life offers a fascinating glimpse into being queer in the early twentieth century. While much has been written about Hickok’s relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt, this thesis aims to go beyond their connection to examine Hickok’s entire life and experiences in greater detail. Through analyzing her work as a writer, as well as her personal correspondence and unpublished autobiography, this thesis illuminates the quiet details of defining moments in history, including the Great …

[2023 Winner] The Reclamation Of Two-Spirit Identity, Kelly Christensen, Paige Monier

Ethnic Studies Research Paper Award

Our project looked into the history of two-spirit people, briefly talking about what happened to them during colonization, with a deeper look into how the two-spirit identity as been reclaimed and used as a way for queer indigenous people to connect with both their culture, and their personal identity.

Sartorial Representations Of Trans Men In The Post-Frontier West: A Case Study In Gender, Class, And Concepts Of Societal Degeneration, Rose Caughie

University Honors Theses

Clothing is communication. How it is perceived reveals a society's values and anxieties. In the post-frontier American west, moralistic laws against cross-dressing combined with fears of societal degeneration, resulting in the formation and enforcement of normative visions of gendered dress. When trans men Harry Allen and Milton Matson were arrested, images of them were published in newspapers across the nation. Allen's working class wear and close criminal contact with racial minorities reflects one perceived source of degeneration while Matson's high class look and British immigrant status reflects the other. This essay will consider how these men's clothing and bodies were …

Woman Flytrap, Brianna Jo Hobson

Student Theses and Dissertations

Woman FlyTrap is a short story zine collection that explores the topic of sexual violence through the perpetrator and victim relationship with an explicit lens. Replete with cultural and entomological themes and motifs, Woman Flytrap seeks to remind survivors that we are not alone. In our bodies or in our lives. Neither in the world. There are over a million insects to every human, proving that there is strength in numbers. All five stories in the collection present different abstracts: revenge, transformation, justice, healing, body image, self-harm, mourning, etc. There is also a playlist and a section about the author. …

Working For The Benefit And Advancement Of Women: Three Women's Organizations That Commemorated The American Civil War, 1880-1920, Annette F. Guild

Masters Theses, 2020-current

In the past forty years, scholars and members of the public alike have obsessed over the complex legacy of the American Civil War (1861-1865). As debates over Confederate monuments and the United States’ racial past have frequently emerged in politics, many Americans have disagreed as to how the Civil War should be remembered. In examining the evolution of Civil War memory in American society, numerous scholars have noted the important role that women’s organizations played in influencing the Civil War’s collective memory in the fifty years following the conflict. However, while scholars have noted the significance of these organizations for …

Femininity In Medieval Scandinavia: How Paganism Forged Gender Equality, Erin M. Caffey

Graduate Theses

The brutality of the Vikings and the conquests of medieval Scandinavian men have often garnered the majority of interest from the media, the armchair historian, and the scholar alike, with the pursuits and lives of their female counterparts seldom discussed. Medieval Scandinavian women’s lives though, when examined, are just as enthralling as those of the men. And while their stories are not necessarily as full of bloodshed or glory, the lives of women, those seen in both mythology and memory, provide an insight into the secular and religious foundations of medieval Scandinavian communities. Through an examination of various mythological texts, …

"They Were Men In Those Days": Gender, Class, And Ethnicity In The Paul Bunyan Tales, Dean Schmit

Honors Capstone Projects

This paper examines the development of the Paul Bunyan stories from the nineteenth century through the twenty-first century through a gendered lens.

Acquitted By Reason Of Paroxysmal Insanity? Science And Gender In The Nineteenth-Century Murder Trial Of Mary Harris, Emmalee Morgan

History Honors Program

The acquittal of Mary Harris in 1865 demonstrates the culmination of new social and scientific ideologies through the strategy of her defense counsel and the utilization of expert medical witnesses. While at the same time, the prosecutorial strategy embodied the opinions of gender and insanity that were being phased out.

The aim of this project is to demonstrate the overlap and reciprocal influence of science, law, and society, with narratives of gender acting as consistent undertones in these three realms. The trial and acquittal seem to fall in line with the idea that the insanity plea is a sham — …

An Ideal Monarch: The Piety, Masculinity, And Kingship Of King Louis Ix Of France, Tell Joyner

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

King Louis IX of France, who ruled from 1226 to 1270, is widely considered to have been one of the greatest European kings of the Middle Ages. His rule was long remembered as an ideal period of good government and prosperity, and future kings sought and were expected to emulate him for centuries. Historians have often discussed the key role that the king’s pious exercise of his kingship played in his reign. In particular, historians have discussed the role that his belief in the twin missions of saving his subjects and making France into a Christian kingdom played in his …

Community In The Cell: Queer Women’S Space And Place In New Orleans, Jordan Hammon, Jordan Hammon

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines queer women’s history and space/places of community in New Orleans using spatial analysis and feminist theory to fill the silences. The Special Citizens Committee for the Vieux Carré laid the foundation for regulating queer women and transmasculine people starting in the 1950s. Even after the committee ended, New Orleans Police Department and the Vice Squad had the power to invade and harass places of community for queer women and transmasculine people. Despite this hostility, queer women and transmasculine people resisted and made a place for themselves in New Orleans. As a result of their persistence through visibility …

The Story Of Jennie Steers: An Examination Of Race, Gender, And Lynching In Northwest Louisiana, Lauren Smith

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

As the nineteenth century ended, the American South entered a new century equipped with the foundations of a Jim Crow society. Through political intimidation, segregation, and racial violence—most notoriously through the practice of lynching—white Southerners reasserted white supremacist rule. Yet the lynching of Black men in this era is more often documented than the plight of Black women at the hands of white mobs and local authorities. By focusing on Jennie Steers, a woman lynched outside of Shreveport, Louisiana in 1903, this project sheds light on the violent history of Northwest Louisiana and the ways in which Black women navigated …