When We Found Each Other: Gay Men in 19th Century America

by William Benemann

The long nineteenth century witnessed the rapid evolution of the American experiment. For men who desired sex with other men, it was a time marked by both bold exploration and tentative community building, as issues of sexual orientation and gender identity played out against the backdrop of a new nation in the process of creating itself. For the most part, these individuals had neither words nor theory to explain their sexual desires, but they left behind fragments of their stories in widely-dispersed archival sources. The essays in this collection, many first published in the Gay & Lesbian Review, cover a diverse range of experiences, gathering together the scattered stories of men who found ways of connecting—at a time and in a country where men like them needed to remain prudently unknown.

195 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 30, 2025