Postcards of Masculine Women and Feminine Men from the Early Twentieth Century, by Marshall Weeks and Jonathan Ned Katz

Postcards collected by Marshall Weeks and dating to the early twentieth-century present satirical images of women who wore "mannish" shoes, shirts, collars, ties, and coats, who smoked, went to bars, and who moved independently in the world. Other cards portray effeminate men and, specifically, those then called "fairies" and "pansies." With an introduction by Jonathan Ned Katz. First published on OutHistory in 2011.

Effeminate Male Clerks

On the first of these cards an effeminate male clerk in a dry-goods store fixes his hair and primps while customers go unattended. This man's unmanly vanity and the needs of consumer capitalism are implicitly at odds.

As early as 1860 a parody of Walt Whitman's poem "Song of Myself" attacked the poet by picturing him as a "weak and effeminate" dry-goods salesman or "counter-jumper," an occupation thought suitable for only the most effete of males.[2]

Another document, of 1868 refers to a song titled the "Gay Young Clerk in the Dry Goods Store," by Will S. Hays, a female impersonator.[3] This is one of the earliest documented uses of the word "gay" applied to an effeminate man.