LGBTQ+ American History before 1830, by Jonathan Ned Katz

To mark the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence from Great Britain, this exhibit reprints pre-1830 materials from Jonathan Ned Katz’s books Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (1976; New York: Crowell, 1992) and Gay/Lesbian Almanac: A New Documentary (New York: Harper & Row, 1983). The exhibit also features pre-1830 materials that Katz prepared for Gay American History (circa 1972-1975) but did not use because of size restrictions. These unpublished manuscript pages are presented here as Katz wrote them in the early 1970s. Published originally on OutHistory in June 2026.

Unpublished manuscript pages for Gay American History (circa 1972-1975)

Presented here as unpublished manuscript pages are Jonathan Ned Katz's notes from and about historical documents from 1749 to 1830 found during research for his book Gay American History (New York: Crowell, 1976) circa 1972-1975.

1749: "Old Bachelors," The New York Gazette, 20 March 1749, 1.

1751-1762: Jean-Bernard Bossu, Travels in the Interior of North America, 1751-1762, trans. and ed. Seymour Feiler (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962), 169. (I)

1751-1762: Jean-Bernard Bossu, Travels in the Interior of North America, 1751-1762, trans. and ed. Seymour Feiler (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962), 169. (II)

1754-1758: Letters between Sarah Prince and Esther Burr, from Philip J. Greven, The Protestant Temperament: Patterns of Child-Rearing, Religious Experience, and the Self in Early America (New York: Knopf, 1977), 135, 137; and from Nancy F. Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood: "Women's Sphere" in New England, 1780-1835 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), 168-169, 170, 172.

1754: Report on Sodomy, Maryland Gazette, 3 January 1754.

1760s-1880s: Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, "The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century America," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 1, no. 1 (Autumn 1975): 1-29.

1771: Suffolk County Inferior Court, Massachusetts, Gray v. Pitts, 26 July 1771, from John Adams, Legal Papers of John Adams, ed. Hiller B. Zobel (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1965), 157-161.

1772: William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book the Fourth, Reprinted from the British Copy (Philadelphia: Robert Bell, 1772), 215-217.

1774: Richard Starke, The Office and Authority of a Justice of Peace (Williamsburg, VA: 1774), 61.

1775: Bernard Romans, A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida (New York: Printed for the Author, 1775; reprinted by Pelican Publishing, 1961).

1775: Pedro Fages, A Historical, Political, and Natural Description of California by a Soldier of Spain, trans. Herbert Ingram Priestly (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1937), 48.

1775-1776: Pedro Font, Diary of an Expedition to Monterey by Way of the Colorado River, 1775-1776, in Anza's California Expeditions, vol. IV, trans. and ed. Herbet Eugene Bolton (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1930), 105.

1775: Benjamin Thompson report to Lord George Germain, 4 November 1775, in Alan Chester Valentine, Lord George Germain (Oxford: Clarendon, 1962), 472-475.

1777: Cesare Bonesana,"Of Crimes of Difficult Proof," from An Essay on Crimes and Punishments, Translated from the Italian; with a Commentary Attributed to Mons. De Voltaire (Charleston, SC: South Carolina Bruce, 1777), 73-77.

1777: Francisco Palóu, Relación histórica de la vida y apostólicas tareas del venerable padre fray Junipero Serra (Mexico: Done Felipe de Zúñiga y Ontiveros, 1787), 222.

1777: Horatio Marbury and William H. Crawford, eds., Digest of the Laws of the State of Georgia, from its Settlement as a British Province in 1755, to the Session of the General Assembly in 1800 (Savannah: Seymour, Woolhopter, and Stebbins, 1802), 400-401.

1778: John McAuley Palmer, General Von Steuben (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937), 92-94, 206, 208-209, 271-272, 362-363, 403.

1779: Acts and Laws of the State of Vermont in America (Dresden: Judah-Padock and Alden Spooner, 1779), 5, 73-74, 94.

1779-1782: Alexander Hamilton, Letters from April 1779 to October 1782, in Harold C. Syrett, ed., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), 34-38, 165-169, 254-255, 303-304, 347-349, 426-428, 431-432, in Vol. II, and 183-184 in Vol. III.

1779: Thomas Jefferson report, 18 June 1779, in Julian P. Boyd, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. II (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950), 305-326, 497, 663-664; Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, with an Introduction by Thomas P. Abernathy, ed. Thomas P. Abernathy (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), 139.

1780-1835: Nancy F. Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood: "Women's Sphere" in New England, 1780-1835 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), 160-196.

1782: Herman Mann, The Female Review: Or, Life of Deborah Sampson, the Female Soldier in the War of the Revolution (Boston: J.K. Wiggin and Wm. Parsons Lunt, 1866; originally published in 1797; reprinted by Arno Press, 1972).

1785: Basic Montague, The Opinions of Different Authors upon the Punishment of Death (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orne, 1809), 252-280.

1785: The Perpetual Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (Boston: Adams and Nourse, 1789), 187.

1786: James Mitchell and Henry Flanders, comps., The Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania 1682-1801, vol. XII (Pennsylvania: Wm. Stanley Ray, 1903), 281.

1786: Richard Krauel, "Prince Henry of Prussia and the Regency of the United States," American Historical Review 17, no. 1 (October 1911): 44-51.

1787: Laws of the State of New-York Comprising the Constitution and the Acts of the Legislature Since the Revolution (New York: High Gaine, 1789), 45.

1788: Laws of the State of New-York Comprising the Constitution and the Acts of the Legislature Since the Revolution (New York: High Gaine, 1789), 242.

1788: George Washington, The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799, vol. XI, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1934), 83-84.

1788: Helen Hornbeck Tanner, Zespedes in East Florida, 1784-1790 (Miami: University of Miami Press, 1963), 167-168.

1790-1821: Joseph I. Dirvin, Mrs. Seton: Foundress of the American Sisters of Charity (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Cuhady, 1962), 31-33, 54-55, 146-147.

1792: Laws of the State of New Hampshire together with the Declaration of Independence (Portsmouth, NH: John Melcher, 1792), 245.

1792: Francois Xavier Martin, Esq., ed. Collection of the Statutes of the Parliament of England in Force in North Carolina (New Bern, NC: Editor's Press, 1792), 208.

1792: Elihu Hubbard Smith, The Diary of Elihu Hubbard Smith, 1771-1798, ed. Joseph E. Cronin (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1973), 112-113.

1792: A Collection of All Such Acts of the General Assembly of Virginia (Richmond, VA: Samuel Pleasants, Jr., and Henry Pace, 1803), 179.

1793: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 74.

1793: William Bradford, An Enquiry How Far the Punishment of Death is Necessary in Pennsylvania (New York: T. Dobson, 1793), 20-21, 24.

1793: William Kitty, ed., Chapter LVII, The Laws of Maryland, vol. II (Annapolis, MD: Frederick Green, 1800).

1794-1798: Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry, St. Méry's American Journey, 1793-1798, trans. and ed. Kenneth Roberts and Anna M. Roberts (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1947), 286, 312.

1794: Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Roderick Random (Philadelphia: Mathew Carey, 1794; reprinted by E.P. Dutton, 1927), 306-310.

1795: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 20.

1795: William Waller Hening, The New Virginia Justice, Comprising the Office and Authority of a Justice of the Peace in the Commonwealth of Virginia (Richmond, VA: T. Nicholson, 1795), 93-94.

1795-1798: Elihu Hubbard Smith, The Diary of Elihu Hubbard Smith, ed. James E. Cronin (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1973), 1-2 ,15-17, 24-26, 97, 208-210.

1796: Acts and Laws of the State of Connecticut (Hartford, CT: Hudson and Goodwin, 1796), 182.

1796: William Paterson, ed., Laws of the State of New Jersey, Revised and Published under the Authority of the Legislature (Newark, NJ: Matthias Day, 1800), 208-209.

1796: Frances Burney D'Arblay, Eveline: Or, A Young Lady's Entrance into the World, vol. I (Worster: Son and Thomas, 1796), 23; Lawrence Stone, Family, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1500-1800 (New York: Harper and Row, 1977), 745.

1796: Menie Muriel Dowie, ed., Women Adventurers (London: T.F. Unwin, 1893), 133-171.

1797: Herman Mann, The Female Review: Or, Life of Deborah Sampson, the Female Soldier in the War of the Revolution (Boston: J.K. Wiggin and Wm. Parsons Lunt, 1866; originally published in 1797; reprinted by Arno Press, 1972), 174-175, 213, 215, 225, 242-243, 250.

1798: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 34.

1798: The Public Laws of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (Providence, RI: Carter and Wilkinson, 1798), 586.

1799: Charles Brockden Brown, Ormond; Or, the Secret Witness (New York: G. Forman, 1799), 180, 186, 188, 61, 191, 207-209, 212, 217, 221, 241-242, 63-64, 153-157, 160, 162, 165, 167-168, 171.

1801-1803: François Marie Perrin du Lac, Voyage dans les deux Louisianes, et chez les nations sauvages du Missouri, par les États-Unis, l'Ohio et les provinces qui le bordent, en 1801, 1802 et 1803 (Lyons: Chex Bruyset Aine et Buyand, 1805), 318, 352.

1801: Alexander Henry, "New Light on the Early History of the Greater Northwest," in The Manuscript Journals of Alexander Henry and David Thompson, ed. Elliott Coues (New York: Francis P. Harper, 1897), 163-165.

1801: James Kent and Jacob Radcliff, eds., Laws of the State of New York, vol. I (Albany, NY: Charles R. and George Webster, 1802), 253.

1802: Charles Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, "Of the Crime Against Nature," from Ch. VI, Book XII, The Spirit of the Laws, Translated from the French; First American from the Fifth Edition in Two Volumes (Worcester, MA: Isaiah Thomes, 1802), 221-222.

1803: Letters from Eunice Callender to Sarah Ripley, 24 May 1803, 24 September 1803, 29 October 1803, from Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, "The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century America," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 1, no. 1 (Autumn 1975): 12, 25; and from Nancy F. Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood: "Women's Sphere" in New England, 1780-1835 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), 175.

1804: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 20.

1804: Nicholas Biddle, Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expeditions, 1804-1806, vol. I, ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1904), 239; Donald Jackson, ed., Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents, 1783-1854 (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1962), 531.

1805: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 20.

1805: Asahel Stearns, Lemuel Shaw, and Theron Metcalf, eds., The General Laws of Massachusetts, from the Adoption of the Constitution to February 1822, vol. II (Boston: Wells & Lilly and Cummings & Hilliard, 1823), 129.

1806: Alexander Henry, "New Light on the Early History of the Greater Northwest," in The Manuscript Journals of Alexander Henry and David Thompson, ed. Elliott Coues (New York: Francis P. Harper, 1897), 347-348.

1807: A Friend to the Sex [John Adams], Sketches of the History, Genius, Disposition, Accomplishments, Employments, Customs, Virtues, and Vices of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World; Interspersed with Many Singular and Entertaining Anecdotes (Boston: Joseph Bumstead, 1807), 102-105.

1807: Mary Hays, Female Biography; Or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women, Of All Ages and Countries (Philadelphia: Byrch and Small, 1807), 91-106 in Vol. II, and 459-461 in Vol. III.

1809: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 34.

1810: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 34.

1810: Davis v. State 111 Md. 154, in Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Court of Appeals of Maryland, comp. Thomas Harris and Reverdy Johnson (Annapolis, MD: Jonas Green, 1826), 154-158.

1811-1837: Claude E. Schaeffer, "The Kutenai Female Berdache: Courier, Guide, Prophetess, and Warrior," Ethnohistory 12, no. 3 (Summer 1965): 195-216; William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 112.

1812: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 62.

1812: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 34.

1812: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 112.

1812: Albert Stillman Batchellor, ed., Laws of New Hampshire, vol. VIII (Manchestor, NH: John B. Clarke, 1904), 130.

1814-1826: Geronimo Boscana, Chinigchinich: A Revised and Annotated Version of Father Geronimo Boscana's Historical Account of the Belief, Usages, Customs and Extravagancies of the Indians of this Mission of San Juan Capistrano called the Acagchemem Tribe, 1st rev. edition, ed. Phil Towsend Hanna and John P. Harrington, trans. Alfred Robinson (Santa Anna, CA: Fine Arts Press, 1933), 54.

1815: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 34.

1816: Lucius Q.C. Lamar, ed., A Compilation of the Laws of the State of Georgia, Passed by the Legislature since the Year 1810 to the Year 1819, Inclusive (Augusta, GA: T.S. Hannon, 1821), 571.

1816: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 34.

1817: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 34.

1817: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 37.

1819-1820: Edwin James, comp., Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains in the Years 1819 and '20, by Order of the Hon. J.C. Calhoun, Sec'y of War: Under the Command of Major Stephen H. Long, vol. I (Philadelphia: H.C. Carey and I. Lea, 1823), 129, 267.

1819-1869: Nancy F. Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood: "Women's Sphere" in New England, 1780-1835 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), 182-184.

1820: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 28.

1820-1860: Barbara Welter, "The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860," American Quarterly 18, no. 2, part 1 (Summer 1966): 151-174, reprinted in Michael Gordon, ed., The American Family in Social-Historical Perspective (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973), 224-250.

1820: Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Vol. I: 1819-1822 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), 22, 38, 39, 52-55; Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson 1824-1832, ed. Edward Waldo Emerson and Waldo Emerson Forbes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1909), 291-292, 321-322, 353, 94-95, 129-130, 131, 289-290; Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Complete Essays and Other Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. Brooks Atkinson (New York: Random House, 1950), 282-283.

1821: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 20.

1822: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 34.

1822: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 112.

1822: Coburn v. Harwood, Minor, 93, 12 Am. Dec. 37, in Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Alabama, vol. I, ed. Henry Minor (New York: Collins and Hannay, 1829), 93-95.

1823: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 34.

1823: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 20.

1823: William H. Keating, comp., Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River, Lake Winnepeek, Lake of the Woods, &c., &c., &c. Performed in the Year 1823, by Order of the H.n. J.C. Calhoun, Secretary of war, under the Command of Stephen Harriman Long, vol. I (Philadelphia: H.C. Carey and I. Lea, 1824), 210-211.

1824: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 38.

1824: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 34.

1824-1854: Albert G. Hess, "Introduction," Reports of the Prison Discipline Society of Boston, The Twenty-nine Annual Reports of the Board of Managers, 1826-1854 (Montclair, NJ: Patterson Smith, 1972), i, vii-xxiii; Louis Dwight, Sodomy among juvenile delinquents letter, 25 April 1826; First Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Prison Discipline Society, 1 June 1826 (Boston: Perkins and Marvin, 1828), reprinted in Reports of the Prison Discipline Society of Boston, The Twenty-nine Annual Reports of the Board of Managers, 1826-1854 (Montclair, NJ: Patterson Smith, 1972), 47, 12, 43.

1825: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 34.

1825: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 28.

1825: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 20.

1826: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 112.

1826: Willard Hall, ed., Laws of the State of Delaware (Wilmington, DE: R. Porter and Son, 1829), 139.

1826: First Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Prison Discipline Society, 1 June 1826 (Boston: Perkins and Marvin, 1828), reprinted in Reports of the Prison Discipline Society of Boston, The Twenty-nine Annual Reports of the Board of Managers, 1826-1854 (Montclair, NJ: Patterson Smith, 1972), 46-47.

1826: Thomas A. McKenney, Sketches of a Tour to the Lakes, of the Character and Customs of the Chippeway Indians, and of Incidents Connected with the Treaty of Fond du Lac (Baltimore: Mielding Lucas Jr., 1827), 315-316.

1827: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 34.

1828: William Crawford, "Report on the Penitentiaries of the United States," from Crime and Punishment: Prisons, vol. II, in Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968), 112.

1829: Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Prison Discipline Society, 1829 (Boston: Perkins and Marvin, 1830), reprinted in Reports of the Prison Discipline Society of Boston, The Twenty-nine Annual Reports of the Board of Managers, 1826-1854 (Montclair, NJ: Patterson Smith, 1972), 266, 267, 271, 274, 276, 278, 279, 280, 287.