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Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement (Columbia Studies in the History of U.S. Capitalism)
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About Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked A
Product Description *Winner of The John Boswell Prize from the Committee on LGBT History of the American Historical Association *Winner of Smithsonian's Award for Scholarship in Postal History *Named a best LGBT book of 2019 by The Advocate and Attitude magazines *Finalist for the American Publishers PROSE Award in U.S. History *Finalist for the Hagley Prize in Business History *Finalist for the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction In 1951, a new type of publication appeared on American newsstands--the physique magazine produced by and for gay men. For many in Cold War America, these magazines served as an initiation into an extensive world of photography studios, mail-order catalogs, pen-pal services, and book clubs targeting a gay market. In Buying Gay, David K. Johnson shows how this gay commercial network--long thought to be a result of the gay rights movement--was actually a crucial catalyst for the gay rights movement. Each chapter offers a vivid, behind-the-scenes look at a physique entrepreneur and their battle with the U.S. Post Office, which considered their products obscene and engaged in a relentless campaign to shut them down. It reveals how Bob Mizer founded Physique Pictorial in Los Angeles as a direct response to postal authority intimidation. It uncovers the story of The Grecian Guild, founded by a gay couple who met at the University of Virginia, who offered their subscribers access to a gay fraternal order. It tells the story of a New York publishing executive who pioneered the notion of niche marketing of gay books. It tells the story of Elsie Carlton, a straight woman who ran one of the nation's first gay mail-order book clubs. Threatening all these physique entrepreneurs was Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield, who had members of the first gay pen pal service arrested and sent its founders to prison. It would take Lynn Womack, who consolidated the field into a physique publishing empire--including his own distribution network, printing plant, and legal library--to take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court and win one of the first and most important gay rights cases. Manual v. Day in 1962 paved the way for a vibrant gay print and commercial world that could help sustain a movement. Combining LGBT studies and the history of capitalism for the first time, Buying Gay reconceives the history of the gay rights movement and shows how consumer culture helped create community and a site for resistance. Review **Named one of the best LGBT books of 2019 by The Advocate, Attitude Magazine, and the Over the Rainbow Committee of the American Library Association** "A revelatory and compelling history"-- George Chauncey, author of Gay New York "A thorough and extremely entertaining read" --Hyperallergic "Exciting . . . Riveting . . . Compelling" --Journal of Social History "Richly documented, groundbreaking" --Choice "An accessible, detailed, and riveting journey into the physique zine industry" --Attitude Magazine (London) "A creative and challenging rethinking of the prologue to the explosion of the LGBT movements" --Business History Review "In this compelling book, David Johnson unearths stories of shrewd businessmen and hungry consumers who, through asserting their right to sell and buy and read what the law tried to ban, challenged repression, fostered gay community, and helped to build a movement" -- Leila J. Rupp, author of A Desired Past: A Short History of Same-Sex Love in America "Johnson's convincing fleshy history challenges conventional wisdom, arguing that what we have called the 'homophile era' was actually 'the physique era'" -- Lucas Hilderbrand, author of Paris is Burning: A Queer Film Classic "Johnson's lucid writing and enthralling story startlingly remaps and complicates movement history, sugge
