The Straight State:Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America

294 Pages·2009·6.248 MB·English

by  Margot Canaday

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The Straight State
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POLITICS AND SOCIETYIN TWENTIETH-CENTURYAMERICA
SERIES EDITORS
William Chafe, Gary Gerstle, Linda Gordon, and Julian Zelizer
Alist of titles
in this series appears
at the back of
the book
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The Straight State
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SEXUALITY AND CITIZENSHIP IN
TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICA
Margot Canaday
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD
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Copyright © 2009 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street,
Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Canaday, Margot.
The straight state : sexuality and citizenship in twentieth-century America /
Margot Canaday.
p. cm. — (Politics and society in twentieth-century America)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-691-13598-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Homosexuality—United
States—History—20th century. 2. Homosexuality—Political aspects—
United States—History—20th century. 3. United States—
Social policy—1980-1993. 4. Political rights—
United States—History—20th century.
I. Title.
HQ75.16.U6C36 2009
323.3!2640973—dc22
2008041020
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Palatino
Printed on acid-free paper. !
press.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
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For Rachel
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Contents
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List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
PARTI: Nascent Policing
1. IMMIGRATION
“ANew Species of Undesirable Immigrant”:
Perverse Aliens and the Limits of the Law, 1900–1924 19
2. MILITARY
“We Are Merely Concerned with the Fact ofSodomy”:
Managing Sexual Stigma in the World War I–Era
Military, 1917–1933 55
3. WELFARE
“Most Fags Are Floaters”:
The Problem of “Unattached Persons”
during the Early New Deal, 1933–1935 91
PARTII: Explicit Regulation
4. WELFARE
“With the Ugly Word Written across It”:
Homo-Hetero Binarism, Federal Welfare Policy,
and the 1944 GI Bill 137
5. MILITARY
“Finding a Home in the Army”:
Women’s Integration, Homosexual Tendencies,
and the Cold War Military, 1947–1959 174
6. IMMIGRATION
“Who Is a Homosexual?”:
The Consolidation of Sexual Identities in
Mid-twentieth-century Immigration Law, 1952–1983 214
Conclusion 255
Index 265
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Illustrations
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“Another Emergency Project,” Saturday Evening Post 209
(February15, 1937) 28
Screening soldiers (as well as immigrants) brought sex/gender
difference to the attention of federal officials 63
Transients at work setting up a Pennsylvania camp 104
An example of the homoerotic content that was common
in transient newspapers 111
“Ex-Serviceman Seeks Answers” 157
Psychiatrist Marion Kenworthy training officers on recruit
selection methods at the WAC Training Center at Fort Lee
inVirginia 182
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Acknowledgments
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I once told a colleague that I decided to become an academic because I
wanted to surround myself with smart and unconventional people. She
snorted in response, but it really wasn’t such a bad call. As I have
worked on this project, I have been continually delighted by the wealth
of (smart and unconventional) people who have taken time to encour-
age, mentor, and even offer me their friendship. They have been critical
to my development as a historian, and it is my pleasure to be able to
thank them here.
This book began as a dissertation at the University of Minnesota,
where I was incredibly fortunate to get my own start as well. At Min-
nesota, I benefited greatly from being in a history department that was
not only intellectually dynamic, but also held up feminism, democracy,
and kindness to graduate students as core principles. I know that long
before I arrived on the scene, my co-adviser Sara Evans played a criti-
cal role in imprinting those values on the department, and I thank her
especially for creating an environment in which so many of us would
thrive. She was, along with co-adviser Barbara Welke, an exquisite men-
tor, and I thank them both for their distinct but complementary guid-
ance during my years as a graduate student. Elaine Tyler May was es-
sentially a third adviser to the dissertation, and I am grateful for all her
generosity and insight. Sally Kenney, Erika Lee, and Kevin Murphy also
served on my committee, read dissertation chapters, provided research
advice, and moral support. Anna Clark, Mary Dietz, and Lisa Disch
each made critical contributions to my graduate education. I also want
to thank my friends in American studies (Kim Heikkila, Kate Kane, and
Mary Strunk) for inviting me into their terrific dissertation group. I
thank as well members of the Comparative Women’s History Work-
shop and those in Elaine and Lary May’s dissertation group for their
many thoughtful critiques.
The next stop was (and still is) Princeton University, where a postdoc-
toral fellowship in the Society of Fellows has provided me ample time
to write and think. I thank Leonard Barkan, Mary Harper, Carol Rigolot,
and Michael Wood for creating the ideal conditions under which to
write a book. Graham Jones, Mendi Obadike, Miriam Petty, Sarah Ross,
Jennifer Rubenstein, and Gayle Salamon kept a bit of adolescence alive
on the second floor of the Joseph Henry House, and I thank them and
all the fellows for their camaraderie. I am also grateful for the warm
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xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
welcome from many wonderful colleagues in the history department—
Jeremy Adelman, Janet Chen, Angela Creager, Ben Elman,Shel Garon,
Michael Gordin, Tony Grafton, Molly Greene, Josh Guild, Judy Hanson,
Tera Hunter, Bill Jordan, Kevin Kruse, Michael Laffan, Phil Nord, Bar-
bara Oberg, Bhavani Raman, Dan Rodgers, Chris Stansell, Helen Tilley,
Sean Wilentz, Julian Zelizer, and most especially Dirk Hartog, who has
been my friend in New Jersey from day one.
Beyond Minnesota or Princeton, I have been extremely fortunate to
be able to count on the support and mentoring of those more experi-
enced than I. For their kind words and generous deeds over many
years, I thank especially Susan Cahn, John D’Emilio, Linda Kerber, Re-
gina Kunzel, Laura McEnaney, Joanne Meyerowitz, Sonya Michel, and
Chris Tomlins. More generally, I want to acknowledge a broader com-
munity of queer historians and a broader community of legal historians
for their respective commitments to nurturing young scholars. In a re-
lated but slightly distinct category, Pippa Holloway has been the most
steadfast of professional companions and my favorite person to play
hooky with at annual meetings. In innumerable ways, she has helped
me to keep joy firmly centered in my professional life. (And talk about
smart and unconventional!)
My relationship with Barbara Welke now transcends any institutional
tie (and also merits its own paragraph). Barbara was an amazingly giv-
ing dissertation adviser, but her support and friendship have meant
even more to me in the years since graduate school. She reads everything
I write (often multiple times) and consistently asks questions that make
me think about my work in bigger ways. She has fielded questions from
me on every imaginable topic. I call her when things go well, and I call
her when they don’t. Her unwavering belief in me and my work has
given me a confidence that I doubt otherwise I would have. Above all, I
appreciate her skepticism about the things in our profession that don’t
really matter, as well as her optimism about the things that do.
This book is far better because of those who read it and told me how to
improve it. Individual chapters were read by Mary Anne Case, Andrea
Friedman, Sandy Levitsky, Sonya Michel, Kevin Murphy, Chris Stansell,
members of the Gender and Sexuality Studies Workshop at the Univer-
sity of Chicago, members of the Modern America Workshop at Princeton
University, fellows at the Hurst Institute in Legal History at the Univer-
sity of Wisconsin, and participants at the annual retreat of the Program
in Law and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Brian Balogh, Nancy
Cott, John D’Emilio, Gary Gerstle, Linda Gordon, Dirk Hartog, Beth Hill-
man, Linda Kerber, Kate Masur, Joanne Meyerowitz, Bethany Moreton,
Claire Potter, Rachel Spector, and Barbara Welke read the entire manu-
script (at various stages). All of you were vitally important. Thank you.
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