Awards

• Commended for Lambda Literary Awards (Transgender Nonfiction) 2012

Overview

Americans have long cherished romantic images of the frontier and its colorful cast of characters, where the cowboys are always rugged and the ladies always fragile. But in this book, Peter Boag opens an extraordinary window onto the real Old West. Delving into countless primary sources and surveying sexological and literary sources, Boag paints a vivid picture of a West where cross-dressing - for both men and women - was pervasive, and where easterners as well as Mexicans and even Indians could redefine their gender and sexual identities. Boag asks, why has this history been forgotten and erased? Citing a cultural moment at the turn of the twentieth century - when the frontier ended, the United States entered the modern era, and homosexuality was created as a category - Boag shows how the American people, and thus the American nation, were bequeathed an unambiguous heterosexual identity.

Full Product Details

Author:   Peter Boag
Publisher:   University of California Press
Imprint:   University of California Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.499kg
ISBN:  

9780520270626

ISBN 10:   0520270622
Pages:   272
Publication Date:   01 September 2011
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Out of Print
Availability:   Awaiting stock  

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction. A Trip Along the Pike's Peak Express: Cross-Dressers and America's Frontier Past PART ONE. Females in Male Attire, and Males in Petticoats : Remembering Cross-Dressers in Western American and Frontier History 1. Known to All Police West of the Mississippi : Disrobing the Female-to-Male Cross-Dresser 2. I Have Done My Part in the Winning of the West : Unveiling the Male-to-Female Cross-Dresser PART TWO. The Story of the Perverted Life Is Not Attractive : Making the American West and the Frontier Heteronormative 3. And Love Is a Vision and Life Is a Lie : The Daughters of Calamity Jane 4. He Was a Mexican : Race and the Marginalization of Male-to-Female Cross-Dressers in Western History 5. Death of a Modern Diana : Sexologists, Cross- Dressers, and the Heteronormalization of the American Frontier Conclusion. Sierra Flats and Haunted Valleys: Cross-Dressers and the Contested Terrain of America's Frontier Past Notes Index

Reviews

This is fascinating stuff, on many levels... If you're a western history buff especially, you need to outfit yourself with this book soon. --Inland Empire Weekly A extremely valuable work. --Pacific Northwest Quarterly Challenging, informative work... Highly recommended. --Choice A lovely (and at times wry) new volume. --Western Historical Qtly Fascinating... [An] impressive contribution to western and gender history. --American Historical Review

This is fascinating stuff, on many levels... If you're a western history buff especially, you need to outfit yourself with this book soon. --Inland Empire Weekly A extremely valuable work. --Pacific Northwest Quarterly Challenging, informative work... Highly recommended. --Choice A lovely (and at times wry) new volume. --Western Historical Qtly Because it uncovers a wealth of stories that are overdue for telling, Re-Dressing America's Frontier Past is the ticket. If you're a western history buff especially, you need to outfit yourself with this book soon. --Dallas Voice

Challenging, informative work... Highly recommended. --Choice

This is fascinating stuff, on many levels... If you're a western history buff especially, you need to outfit yourself with this book soon. Inland Empire Weekly 20120628 A extremely valuable work. -- Blake Allmendinger Pacific Northwest Quarterly 20120901 Challenging, informative work... Highly recommended. -- S. D. Reschly Choice 20120501 A lovely (and at times wry) new volume. -- Daniel Hurewitz Western Historical Qtly 20120901 Fascinating... [An] impressive contribution to western and gender history. -- Richard Stott American Historical Review 20121018 Because it uncovers a wealth of stories that are overdue for telling, Re-Dressing America's Frontier Past is the ticket. If you're a western history buff especially, you need to outfit yourself with this book soon. -- Terri Schlichenmeyer Dallas Voice 20120831 Absorbing and essential reading for those interested in transgender history, the history of sexuality, and the history of the American West. Pacific Historical Review 20130201 Innovative... Fascinating... Original and convincing... With a keen scholarly edge, [Boag] successfully breaks down gender and sexual binaries. -- Michael J. Lansing, Augsburg College Jrnl Of American History 20130301 Both an enjoyable read an an illuminating addition to our knowledge of the real American frontier experience. -- Lybeth Hodges Historian 20130401 Meticulously documented and eminently readable, the book is an essential contribution to our understanding of gender in American history. -- William Benemann Great Plains Quarterly 20130801 Boag has made a significant addition to the new histories of the Old West. -- Jacqueline M. Moore Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 20131001 The recovery of these accounts over a century later is an important step toward understanding a hitherto hidden aspect of our frontier past. -- Terri Schlichenmeyer Gay & Lesbian Review/Worldwide 20120901

Author Information

Peter Boag holds the Columbia Chair in the History of the American West at Washington State University. He is the author of Environment and Experience: Settlement Culture in Nineteenth-Century Oregon and Same Sex Affairs: Constructing and Controlling Homosexuality in the Pacific Northwest, both from UC Press.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions