| My dissertation traces modes of depicting and interpreting desire and romance between women in U.S. culture before lesbian identity solidified. I argue that during the interwar era, various sorts of lesbian-leaning women, what I call "sapphic types," were recognized and acknowledged, and, indeed, were woven into the social fabric. Drawing from a range of sources---including popular tabloids and magazines, dime novels, erotica, medical studies, films, sociological treatises, and psychological theory---I compare and contrast popular perceptions of intimacy between distinct but overlapping social categories of women, including "college girls," married women, juvenile delinquents and criminals, and women in the urban entertainment industry. Significantly, these women were seldom perceived as abnormal. I show that homosexually-inclined women were frequently recognized as such, but were nevertheless positioned within various social mainstreams; their sexual proclivities only rarely formed the sole or primary means of cultural identification, for themselves and others. Because these sapphic types proliferated at least until the end of the interwar era---later than expected---my dissertation suggests the necessity of reconsidering the expected chronology of the homosexual-heterosexual binary, especially as it shaped women's experiences.;In parsing lesbianism, participants in interwar popular culture appraised and negotiated the terms of female sexual normalcy and sexual modernity. Various sapphic types were frequently presented as either overly "fast" or dangerously repressed: these were understood as both sexual and social categorizations. The active popular discourse surrounding lesbianism thus served as an arena for observers and commentators to negotiate a form of sociosexual normalcy that embodied neither stifled regression nor dangerous velocity. Such discussions encompassed female sexuality, but also substantively addressed male economic and sexual failures, changing dimensions of class and race, and the growing eroticization and commodification of female sexuality in popular culture.;In my first chapter, I address popular perceptions of "sapphism" amongst female college students. I argue that, far from a dangerous sign of sexual modernity and nascent lesbianism, same-sex romantic friendships were primarily understood as emotional, rather than sexual, bonds, and were frequently popularly perceived as a sign of social and cultural retardation. I show that the innate desires and natural sociosexual development of college girls were thought to be thwarted by the pathologically feminine environments of women's college campuses, resulting in emotional maladjustment and sexual repression.;I trace the range of female sapphic "types" in the interwar urban entertainment industry in the Chapter Two. Detailing a swathe of acknowledged sapphists---including wealthy lesbians, feminine predators, mannish lesbians, and Hollywood sapphists---I argue that while such women were recognized for their sexual proclivities, they were only rarely primarily categorized by their sexual desires and habits. In explicating the scope of feminine sapphists, I seek to challenge an enduring historiographical focus on mannish lesbians. I show, too, that these "types," for the most part, were not divided along racial lines, as we might expect. I also explicate the symbolic use of lesbianism in an ongoing series of cultural debates; for critics of urban life, lesbianism served as a prime example of the dangerous disregard of convention and morality that supposedly defined show business, while for entertainment industry insiders, meanwhile, lesbianism was emblematic of the freedom, individuality, and progressiveness of nightlife culture.;In my third chapter, I argue that popular fascination with lesbian-leaning married women reflected widespread concerns over male economic, sexual, and social failures, and women's potential sociosexual immaturity in the face of rapid cultural change and instability. I argue that while sapphic-inclined married women were understood as a distinct social type, they were overwhelmingly positioned as "normal" women suited to matrimony. This view, I show, was emblematic of the interwar approach to companionate marriage, which, in its plasticity, was seen as both flexible and restrictive. This was to change, I suggest, by the era's close.;Finally, in the fourth chapter, I argue that both female criminals were popularly considered heterosexual in behavior and impetus. Lesbian practices in reformatories, while viewed as a problem by various social observers, were considered of lesser import than other issues faced by juvenile delinquents and female criminals. Situational lesbianism in reformatories nevertheless garnered a public debate largely split along racial lines. African-American community leaders portrayed female homosexuality in mixed-race female reformatories as emblematic of problems in management or, conversely, as a cheap attempt to justify racist practices. White female prison authorities, conversely, approached lesbianism as a relatively benign aspect of the rehabilitative process. |
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