Documenting Intimate Matters: Primary Sources for a History of Sexuality in America

Over time, sexuality in America has changed dramatically. Frequently redefined and often subject to different systems of regulation, it has been used as a means of control; it has been a way to understand ourselves and others; and it has been at the center of fierce political storms, including some of the most crucial changes in civil rights in the last decade. Edited by Thomas A. Foster, Documenting Intimate Matters features seventy-two documents that collectively highlight the broad diversity inherent in the history of American sexuality.

Complementing the third edition of Intimate Matters, by John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman—often hailed as the definitive survey of sexual history in America—the multiple narratives presented by these documents reveal the complexity of this subject in US history. The historical moments captured in this volume will show that, contrary to popular misconception, the history of sexuality is not a simple story of increased freedoms and sexual liberation, but an ongoing struggle between change and continuity.

Thomas A. Foster is professor of history at DePaul University. He is the author of Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America and Sex and the Founding Fathers: The American Quest for a Relatable Past. He is also the editor of Long Before Stonewall: Histories of Same-Sex Sexuality, New Men: Manliness in Early America, and Documenting Intimate Matters: Primary Sources for a History of Sexuality in America.

John D’Emilio is professor emeritus of history and gender and women’s studies at University of Illinois at Chicago. A Guggenheim Fellow and a pioneer in the field of gay and lesbian studies, he is the author, coauthor, or editor of numerous books, including Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities and Intimate Matters, which was cited in Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 Supreme Court case overturning US anti-sodomy laws. Both are also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Estelle B. Freedman is the Edgar E. Robinson Professor in US History at Stanford University and the author of No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women.