A groundbreaking oral history, culled from the collected histories of forty-five women and featuring numerous photographs, offers a chronicle of the lives of lesbian women in Buffalo, New York from the 1930s to the 1960s. Reprint. National ad/promo.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Academic:
I like this book for the vast amount of information. I like it so much I want someone to take the information write it in a less academic style of writing. Say the way Lillian Faderman or Jonathan Katz does. I've been wading through it for several months, it is that captivating yet the redundancy of information makes me wish I were doing the blue pencil role. Leslie Feinberg's "Stone Butch Blues" would be a good companion piece.
A Fine Study:
Graceful stylists these authors aren't. But what their book lacks in elegance, flow, and punctuation, it more than makes up in content. Their material is fascinating; their analyses are thorough, thoughtful, and illuminating. Even if one doesn't fully accept all their conclusions, Davis and Kennedy have asked the right questions and have explored their subject with sensitivity and subtlety. Their narrators are compelling women; I would love to know where they all are now. And I would love to see more... more info
Thank you, ladies.:
The painstaking research and preparation for Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold by Madeline Davis and Elizabeth Kennedy included lengthy and comprehensive interviews of over 30 women who openly participated in lesbian social life in Buffalo, New York, during the 1940s and 1950s. The women interviewed here are quoted at great length; their accounts are informative, heartfelt, and sometimes humorous as they speak of the suffering, frustration, liberation, and delight they experienced. I am profoundly grateful... more info
Comprehensive and comprehensible:
Kennedy and Davis have written an excellent ethnography on lesbian culture in Buffalo in the 1940's and 50's! The authors take great care to give first hand accounts, interpret them, explain their interpretations, as well as place them in the broader context of what was occuring socially at the time. They are careful to point out differences in opinion of the various women from whom the information was gathered; moreover, they attempt to rationalize these differences. The books is also well organized in its... more info
