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My American History
Sarah Schulman’s writing is bold, provocative, and refreshingly
unrepentant. First published in 1994, My American History: Lesbian and
Gay Life During the Reagan and Bush Years combines critical commentary
with a rich and varied collection of news articles, letters, interviews,
and reports in which the author traces the development of
lesbian and gay politics in the U.S. In her coverage of many tireless
campaigns of activism and resistance, Sarah Schulman documents
a powerful political history that most people – gay or straight – never
knew happened.
In her Preface to this second edition, Urvashi Vaid argues for
the continued relevance of Schulman’s writing to activism in the
21st century, particularly in light of the resurgence of the right
in American politics. Also included is a selection of articles by
Sarah Schulman for Womanews, in their original print format, with
illustrations by Alison Bechdel. The book closes with an interview
with the author, conducted by Steven Thrasher, especially for this
new edition. It explores AIDS and homophobia during the Reagan/
Bush administrations and at the dawn of the Trump era.
My American History is a collection that gives voice to both the
personal and political struggles of feminist and lesbian and gay
communities in the 1980s. It is an important historical record
that will enlighten and inform activists, as well as academics of
women’s, gender and sexuality studies, in the 21st century.

Sarah Schulman is Distinguished Professor of English at the College of

Staten Island, CUNY, USA. She is a novelist, playwright, screenwriter,
nonfiction writer, AIDS historian, journalist, and active participant
citizen.
My American History
LESBIAN
AND
G AY L I F E
DURING
THE
REAGAN AND BUSH
YEARS

Second Edition

Sarah Schulman
Second edition published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2019 Sarah Schulman
The right of Sarah Schulman to be identified as author
of this work has been asserted by her in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or
by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only
for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 1994
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Schulman, Sarah, 1958– author.
Title: My American history : lesbian and gay life during
the Reagan and Bush years / Sarah Schulman.
Description: Second edition. | Abingdon, Oxon ;
New York, NY : Routledge, 2018. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018009721| ISBN 9781138563506
(hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138563513
(pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315121765 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Homosexuality—Political aspects—
United States. | Lesbians—Political activity—United
States. | Feminism—United States. | United States—
Social policy—1980–1993.
Classification: LCC HQ76.3.U5 S38 2018 | DDC
306.76/60973—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018009721

ISBN: 978-1-138-56350-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-56351-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-12176-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Diotima and Futura
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Dedicated to Peg Byron
Inspirational Journalist
and Loving Friend
Li s t o f p u b l i c at i o n s

Womanews Monthly feminist newspaper, with an emphasis on the lesbian community. Volunteer
collective. Writers include Jewelle Gomez, Peg Byron, Paula Martinac, Vendora Cora-
zon, and many others.
Gay Community News Boston-based weekly newspaper. One of the first and only to serve men and
women. News from a gay left perspective. Writers include Michael Bronski, Sue
Hyde, Liz Galst, Scott Tucker, Elisabeth Pincus, Eric Rofes, Urvashi Vaid, Richard
Burns, Cindy Patton, and many others. Minimal paid staff. Always on the verge of
bankruptcy.
The New York Native The oldest gay newspaper in New York City, published by Charles Ortleb. Highly controversial
for its political conservatism and white, male hegemony. Long a hotbed of contested views
about AIDS. Early opponent of AZT and of ACT UP. Writers have included Marcia Pally, Daryl
Yates Rist, Patrick Merla, Sally Chew, Anne Christine D’Adesky, David France, Craig Harris,
Anne Fettner, and many more.
Off Our Backs Oldest surviving feminist newspaper in America. Based in Washington, D.C. Known for
conference coverage and disorganized design. In the late seventies and early eighties
it served as a forum for national feminist debate. Writers include Charlotte Bunch,
Adrienne Rich, Tacie DeJanikus, Carole Ann Douglas, and many, many more.
Seattle Gay News Community-based weekly newspaper for women and men.
The Village Voice Weekly newspaper with progressive origins, now straddling both sides of the balance
sheets. Entrenched, stratified, gay and lesbian staff often at odds with community
activists and community-based publications. Often the only available forum for discus-
sion of gay and lesbian issues. Only mainstream publication to take gay and lesbian
artists seriously.
The Nation Left newsweekly with token (at best) gay and AIDS coverage.
Outweek Short lived but controversial weekly magazine – first to combine gay politics with
popular design due to art director Maria Perez. Failed to represent women and people
of color. Driven out of business due to dubious financing. Writers included Michelan-
gelo Signorile, Gabriel Rotelo, Sarah Petit, and Vicki Starr, among others.
Interview Glossy, groovy, up-to-scale gossip sheet founded by Andy Warhol.
Outlook Quarterly gay and lesbian cultural publication out of San Francisco, attempting to
address gender and racial issues as well as generic gay ones. Had its great moments.
Writers included Jackie Goldsby, Jeff Escoffier, Alan Berube, Cherrie Moraga, and
many more.
The Guardian The last of the Marxist weeklies. Scattered and peripheral gay and lesbian coverage
until the last minute when it became unavoidable. Folded.
Cineaste Quarterly progressive film magazine.
The Guardian of London One of Britain’s three daily newspapers.
QW Gay weekly that replaced Outweek. Even more upscale – competing with Details and
GQ for the white male gay reader. Later called NYQ. Writers included Maer Roshan,
Avril MacDonald, Walter Armstrong, Helen Eisenbach, Ann Northrop, and many others.
Lambda Book Report Gay book review published by Lambda Rising Bookstore in Washington, D.C. Sponsor of
the Lammies – the only book awards available to openly gay and lesbian books.
C ontents
Acknowledgements ix
Preface to the Second Edition by Urvashi Vaid x
Foreword to the First Edition by Urvashi Vaid xv
Preface to the First Edition: My Life as an
American Artist xviii
Introduction 1

Part I: Essays 1981–1994

1981 F ear and Loathing on the Hallelujah Trail (Address) —21; An Open Letter
by Stephanie Roth and Sarah Schulman (Womanews) —25
1982 T ensions Run High as Reproductive Rights Activists Form Coalitions (off
our backs) —28; Critical History of Black Women (Womanews) —33;
The Convention (Womanews) —36; Nyack and a History of Strategies
Disputed (Womanews) —41; The Pro-Family Left (Womanews) —47;
Riding the Go-Go Bus Home: An Interview with Diane Torr (Womanews)
—50; Who Wants to Drive Blues out of Business? by Sarah Schulman
and Peg Byron (Womanews) —54
1983 F ifteen Hour Circus Ends in Arrests (Womanews) —57; Gay Books Back
in School (New York Native) —63; I Have My Doubts about the Sen-
eca Peace Encampment (Womanews) —66; Zaps Off with Fines after
Threatening Congress (Womanews) —69; Adrienne Rich Transformed
by Nicaraguan Visit (Gay Community News) —72
1984 Low Marks for German Democracy (Womanews)—74
1985 E
 ntry Fee Disputed at Black Lesbian Bar (Gay Community News) —83; Feds
Stop Anti-Violence Grants to Women’s Groups: Cite Lesbian Rights as Anti-
Family (New York Native) —85; AIDS Reported in the Soviet Union (New
York Native) —88; New York: A Mass of Individually Beautiful Faces (Gay
Community News Travel Supplement) —89; A.C.L.U. Founds Gay Project
(New York Native) —92; AIDSPAC Established by DC Group (New York Na-
tive) —93; Lip-Synching at Shescape (New York Native) —95; Straight Ads
Hurt Gay Firm (New York Native) —97; Saving Our Space on the Lower
East Side: An Interview with Marguerita Lopez (Womanews) —99; Health
or Homophobia? Responses to the Bathhouse Guidelines (New York Native)
—102; Koch Ready to Close More Bathhouses (New York Native) —111;
Committee Resolves to Close Baths: Maloney Joins Anti-Gay Sellout; Gay
Activist Arrested (New York Native) —114; Becoming an Angry Mob in the
Best Sense: Lesbians Respond to AIDS Hysteria (New York Native) —120
1986 W
 hen We Were Very Young: A Walking Tour through Radical Jewish
Women’s History on the Lower East Side 1879–1919 (The Tribe of Dina,
Sinister Wisdom) —125; Court Battles Continue in Lesbian Visitation Case
(New York Native) —149; Joy of Gay Sex Removed from Brooklyn Libraries
(New York Native) —152; Desert Hearts (Gay Community News) —154;

vii
 Heal Thyself (New York Native) —157; Jean Genet (New York Native) —
161; Third World Gays Important Presence at Anti-Apartheid March (New
York Native) —163; Is Lesbian Culture Only for Beginners? (New York Native)
—165; Wake-Up, AIDS Hysteria Will Change Your Life (Womanews) —170
1987 Queens Triumph at Waldorf-Astoria Bash (Seattle Gay News) —174
1988 W
 omen Need Not Apply: Institutional Discrimination in AIDS Drug Trials
(Village Voice) —176; Thousands May Die in the Streets: AIDS and the
Homeless (The Nation) —180; The Left and Passionate Homosexuality:
Presented at the Socialist Scholars’ Conference (Gay Community News)
—185; Children and AIDS: Debate Stirred over Placebo Tests (New York
Native) —188; Taking Responsibility: Co-Dependence and the Myth of
Recovery by Kay Hagen (Outweek) —191
1990 A
 IDS and the Responsibility of the Writer (Address, Outwrite) —194;
Outing: The Closet is Not a Right (Village Voice) —198; Is the NEA Good
for Gay Art? (Outweek) —199; Eileen Myles (Interview) —204
1991 W
 hat Ideals Guide Our Actions? (Outlook) —206; Delusions of Gender
(Village Voice) —211; Whatever Happened to Lesbian Activism? (Address,
The Lesbian and Gay Center) —216; Why I Fear the Future (in Critical
Fictions) —220; Laying the Blame: What Magic Johnson Really Means
(Guardian) —223; Thelma, Louise, and the Movie Management of Rape
(Cineaste) —226
1992 F ame, Shame, and Kaposi’s Sarcoma: New Themes in Lesbian and Gay Film
(Address) —228; Consumed by Neglect: Who is to Blame for the TB
Epidemic? (Village Voice) —233; The Denial of AIDS and the Construction of
a Fake Life (Address, Outwrite) —236; Tokyo Rose (QW) —241; Coming to
Terms: An Interview with Carole DeSanti (Lambda Book Report) —247;
What Is the Role of Gay Film Festivals? (Address) —253; I Was a Lesbian
Child —256; Why I’m Not a Revolutionary (Address, The Publishing
Triangle) —258; Letter to Jennifer Dunning (Turn-Out) —265
1993 U
 nited Colors of Homophobia (The Nation) —269; A Modest Proposal
(Outwrite) —272

Part II: The Lesbian Avengers

The Lesbian Avengers Part One —279; The Lesbian Avengers Part Two —
283; The Lesbian Avengers Part Three: Excerpts from The Lesbian Avengers
Handbook (April 1993, compiled by Sarah Schulman with contributions from
Marlene Colburn, Phyllis Lutsky, Maxine Wolfe, Amy Parker, Sue Schaffner,
Carrie Moyer, and Ana Maria Simo) —289; The Lesbian Avengers Part
Four: The Freedom Ride —313
Conclusion 321
Articles by Sarah Schulman for
Womanews, 1984 325
An interview with Sarah Schulman, 2018
by Steven Thrasher 329
Index 343

viii
A cknowledgements

I am very grateful to Norbert Buller and Carl Owens for the

gift of my first computer, on which this book was composed.
Thanks also to Ruth Karpel, Marie Honan and Su Friedrich for
the use of their printers, Debby Karpel, Lesly Curtis, Carrie Moyer,
and others who read the manuscript and gave helpful and sup-
portive advice and encouragement, especially Maxine Wolfe, David
Robinson, Jacqueline Woodson and Beryl Satter. For financial sup-
port during the development and preparation of this book, I am
grateful to the Author’s League Fund, PEN Writer’s Fund, the Carn-
egie Fund for Authors, and my agent Diane Cleaver at Sanford
Greenburger Associates.

ix
 P reface to the second edition

by Urvashi Vaid

In the wake of the right wing’s ascendance in America and around

the world, My American History has the ring of prophecy. Sarah Schul-
man’s collection of essays and articles reads as fresh today as it did
twenty-seven years ago when it was first published. It remains a
unique archive. At once a contemporaneous record of the grass-
roots LGBT movement of the eighties and nineties, and a critical
analysis of the arguments, tensions and context of that movement.
The book powerfully conveys, as only the work of a supremely
gifted writer can do – the emotional intensity, spirit, and sense of
crisis of the Reagan-Bush years. And it illuminates many of the ten-
sions and obstacles that continue to face LGBTQ, feminist, racial
justice, and progressive movements.
Since the emergence of social movements that challenge racial,
gender, sexual, and other hierarchies, an array of voices in media,
the academy, and politics, have argued that these movements
are doomed to failure. They have argued, like it’s a new idea, that
only an economic politics that appeals to white working men can
win – especially because it subsumes the messiness of race, gender,
and sexuality into the (false) universals of jobs, family, and com-
munity. Bill Clinton won explicitly espousing such a view. Arguably
Barack Obama and Donald Trump did as well. Feminists, racial jus-
tice advocates, and progressives are told all the time that our form
of identity politics is a failure, that we can’t win, that we must tack
to the center or “reach out across the aisle to the right.”
These critics are partially right. Identity politics does deserve to
be examined and criticized. But they wrongly focus on the identities
of women, people of color and queer folks as the problem. The real
identity politics at play in each era of American history are those that
seek to maintain the dominance of white, male, Christian, rich and

x
preface preface preface preface preface Preface preface

heteronormative people. And it is this limited and narrow assertion

of identity that reasserts itself each time it faces a threat.
James Baldwin wrote, “I am afraid that most white people I have
ever known impressed me as being in the grip of a weird nostalgia,
dreaming of a vanished state of security and order, against which
dream, unfailingly and unconsciously, they tested and very often
lost their lives.”1 It is this fantasy of restoring old hierarchies, that
the Republican Party, and its white nationalist and white Christian
fundamentalist base, promise to people who fear the ground that
has shifted under them. And it is this nostalgic yearning that Ron-
ald Reagan, and every demagogue since, rides into power.
How perfect that these appeals to nostalgia emerge when the
structure of the old order is collapsing. Think about it – in a world
built on binary codes of zeroes and ones – the binary is falling apart.
The old binaries – male/female, gay/straight, immigrant/national,
left/right, truth/lies, us/them, black/white – are all being challenged
and sometimes destroyed. Nationalist and white supremacist poli-
tics are a backlash tsunami against the collapse of the old binaries,
and against the emergence of people of color, women, religious
pluralism, and movements challenging gender and heterosexual
hierarchies.
Baldwin wrote, “. . . for power truly to feel itself menaced, it
must somehow sense itself in the presence of another power –
or, more accurately, an energy – which it has not known how to
define and therefore does not really know how to control.”2
Sarah Schulman’s My American History tells the story of a move-
ment that embodies this world-threatening power.
My American History captures the spirit, energy, organizing, fis-
sures, and practicalities of the post-Stonewall queer movement, long
before it settled into and for marriage equality – when it unsettled
the world. Reading the specific arguments within the reproductive
rights movement, or the splits that occurred at a conference or a talk
Schulman gave about the political context of these times, leads one
to appreciate the creativity and ambition of this movement, the odds
stacked against it and the heroism of the ordinary activists who have
been fighting the right wing for decades.
Schulman has produced astonishing novels, plays, screen-
plays, and films that explore everything from race, homopho-
bia, love, friendship, community as family, AIDS, and fascism to
loneliness, surviving against repression, abortion rights, LGBT co-
optation, and artistic freedom. She is unique as a contemporary

xi
history My american history my american history my american

writer who consistently speaks as and about being a lesbian,

explores what that means to the political and aesthetic sensibility
she has, and while being clear about who she is, transcends and
defies limits and reductive categorization. Schulman’s extensive
work – as an essayist, strategist, intellectual, playwright, novel-
ist, theorist, and organizer – is notable for its breadth and depth.
Like the best cultural critics, she interrogates a wide archive of
experience.
As an activist, Schulman’s forensic theorizing has been invalu-
able. From her unique analysis of familial homophobia and its
consequences, to the critical reflections on the dynamics of the
boycott and divestment movement against occupation, to the
analysis of misogyny’s many forms, to her new work analyzing
the difference between conflict and dissent and abuse or silenc-
ing – Schulman’s work is brave, insightful, original, and, perhaps
most exciting for someone like me, actionable.
Re-reading My American History reminded me again of the extent
to which praxis is the field to which Schulman turns her critical gaze,
and it is towards new practices that her insights are often aimed.
Schulman’s reports on what happened at a movement meeting, or
the tensions that emerged at a presentation or conference, provide
such great insights into moments of tension in social movement
that have repeated themselves to this day. Are we advancing or sell-
ing out by pursuing acceptance by the hetero-patriarchy? Is the col-
lapse of direct action the biggest warning sign of a movement on the
verge of disappearing? What happens to a social movement when
the right wing seems to win it all?
The original essays in this collection begin in 1981 when Ron-
ald Reagan entered the White House, and they end in 1994, as
Bill Clinton was mid-way into his first term. It is shocking to see
how many of the dynamics continue in the contemporary politi-
cal landscape.

• The dominance in government at the national level of

the ideas and influence of the Christian and racist right’s
views on abortion, homosexuality, family structure, gen-
der, and race.
• The ways that AIDS shaped and continues to shape our
lives.
• The ways in which the agenda and funding of LGBT main-
stream organizations are determined by white gay men
and the impact of this on movement politics.

xii
preface preface preface preface preface Preface preface

• The absence of lesbian spaces and lesbian-politics.

• The ignorance of the left about homosexuality.
• The absence of lesbian writers in the mainstream publish-
ing world and the lack of lesbian content in most works
of art.
• The niche marketing of LGBT writing in ways that con-
tinue to marginalize work that should be seen by all.
• The urgency and challenge of direct action.

The social justice movements in 21st century America are sig-

nificantly larger and include many more queer, trans, and people of
color than at the time that Schulman originally wrote these essays.
Interconnected and intersectional movements for racial, gender,
economic, social, and environmental justice have become the
norm – and these contemporary movements are the new power
that menaces the old players of the game.
This new power is decentralized, distributed, and difficult to
defeat. It is power that comes from the intersectional informing
the identity. This new power space of common purpose and action
can be seen in each of the progressive movements that are MOV-
ING today.
One can see new power in the intersectional action of the
Movement for Black Lives, a brilliant and deep, thoughtful move-
ment, with strong, distributed leadership that emerges from black
feminism, and is radically inclusive. And in the intersectional
nature of the Women’s March in early 2017, during which 1 in 100
people in the U.S. participated.
One sees it in the new Latinix organizing represented by
Mijente – which comes out of the expansion of the immigrant
rights movement, by the skill of young leaders, many of whom are
queer and trans and women. One sees this new hopeful spirit of
positive solutions and resilience in movements and organizing by
transgender and gender non-conforming people, in the undeni-
able transformation of the gender binary now underway.
One can point to the anti-criminalization and prison abolition
movements, the worker’s rights organizing for paid sick leave and
the fight for $15 minimum wage, in the Chicago Teachers Union
strikes, in the reproductive justice movement which still fights for
birth control access and fights against the ban on public funding
for abortions and reproductive control, in the anti-poverty activ-
ism, in the global climate justice movement, the environmental
justice movement, and more.

xiii
history My american history my american history my american

My American History is amazing to read today because it shows the

deep connection between contemporary progressive movements
and their historical antecedents. I don’t believe that the “past is pro-
logue” (as it says above the pillars at the entrance of the National
Archives Building in Washington, D.C.). But I do believe that the
roots of contemporary challenges can be understood through a
study of history. We are confronted today with the challenge of
undoing the legacies of traditions like patriarchy, colonialism, slav-
ery, nationalism, to name a few. What I admire most about Sarah
Schulman’s work and about this book is the practical optimism
and compassion with which she explores and tackles these chal-
lenges.

—February 19, 2018

Notes
1 Baldwin, James, “The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy,” The Price of The
Ticket: Collected Nonfiction 1948–1985 (New York: St. Martins Press, 1985),
p. 290.
2 Baldwin, James, “No Name in the Street,” in The Price of The Ticket, supra,
p. 494.

xiv
F oreword to the first edition

by Urvashi Vaid

For lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered people, the

Reagan-Bush years were the worst years of our lives. Their only
value was the stimulus and urgency that repression gave to the
(still) unfinished project of building a gay and lesbian movement.
To be a movement activist during Reagan/Bush was to work in
the Resistance. We waged a daily, low-tech, guerrilla war to influ-
ence policy and widen the public space to live as lesbian, gay, and
bisexual people. Glimpses of freedom were won with posterboard,
spray paint, press releases, and banners; with legislation, litigation,
lobbying, and most importantly, with our bodies on the street.
It is exhausting to remember the many battles the lesbian
and gay movement fought in this time: from the Moral Majority
and the Family Protection Act in 1980 to the Oregon and Colo-
rado fights of 1992, from the anti-porn sex wars of the early
1980s; from the smug denial of the huge problem of anti-gay
violence which pervaded in 1982, to the passage of the federal
Hate Crime Statistics Act in 1990; from less than $100 million in
AIDS Funding in 1985 to more than $3 billion in 1993. Every vic-
tory had a body count.
It is this experience—of activism and resistance—that
grounds Sarah Schulman’s work. My American History: Lesbian and
Gay Life During the Reagan/Bush Years not only collects the political
articles of an extremely talented American writer, it documents a
radical political history that most people—gay or straight—never
knew happened. This book is an absorbing journey through a
remarkable writer’s nonfiction, and it is a unique chronicle of the
debates that shaped the radical lesbian and gay movement in the
1980s and early 1990s.
My American History collects selected news articles and speeches
written by Schulman for feminist and gay publications (some

xv
history My american history my american history my american for

defunct like Womanews and the old Gay Community News), as well as
pieces prepared for conferences and meetings. Most of the events
covered were largely unnoticed by the “mainstream” press and poorly
reported even by “alternative” media. The succinct commentary after
each piece updates the events discussed, and provides a broader
context for them. This book collects only a fraction of Sarah’s actual
nonfiction work—some 50 of more than 200 pieces.
Schulman’s reporting takes us back to the lesbian-led Seneca
Women’s peace encampment, the raid on the New York City bar
Blues in 1983, the closing of the bathhouses in 1985, the dyke-
baiting and defunding of the National Coalition Against Sexual
Assault by Ed Meese, the direct action in Congress in 1983 to
protest the Human Life Amendment restricting abortion, the
1991 Outwrite conference, the Dyke March at the 1993 March on
Washington, and much more.
Reading these pieces is both energizing and sobering. It’s energizing
because Sarah’s writing is so provocative. It provoked me to underline
emphatically (“in a way the sex wars really saved the grass-roots from
total co-optation”), to disagree furiously (with her analysis of the NEA
battle), and to question old assumptions (that direct action may have
had its heyday). The work is full of opinion, and powerfully argued.
Sarah is an original and rigorous political analyst. She writes with a
confidence that leaves her insights ringing like bells in your head.
The book is also sobering, because in the act of remembering
the past, Sarah Schulman exposes how much of it is lost forever.
Yesterday’s political activists are remembered today only by the
handful of us who happened to work with them. Organizations
come and go, activists die, and defeats or internecine battles burn
passionate people out.
Queer, lesbian, and bisexual radicals especially have a skimpy his-
torical context in which to place themselves. There are only a dozen
histories, and even fewer which cover the direct action, street activist,
lesbian-feminist, or left gay movements. We have little record of the
fact that every city has a significant gay American history—tales of
individuals who fought the police, the media, the government, and
the church in virtually every town in this nation. This book makes a
huge contribution to closing this gap.
In these shifty times, when conservative values monopolize
all cultural discourse, when a theocratic state is embraced by Bill
Clinton and the religious fanatics on the right, when it feels like the
gay and lesbian movement slouches towards Republicanism to

xvi
foreword foreword foreword foreword foreword Fo r e w o r d fore

be reborn, Sarah Schulman’s writing is bold, and refreshingly

unrepentant in its progressive moorings.
The poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote, “Pay attention to what they
tell you to forget.” This is an admonition Sarah Schulman heeds.
By paying attention while these events were happening, she cre-
ated a record, a history, that is invaluable. By gathering these pieces
in this collection, she reminds us of what lesbian and gay people
continue to face—both what has changed and what remains still
to be transformed.

xvii
 pr

P reface to the first edition :

my life as an american artist

I was born in 1958 in New York City. From childhood I was emotion-
ally a social realist. My mother was a social worker and a modernist.
She had reproductions of Diego Rivera and Moses Soyer on the
walls. My sister and I put on leotards and the three of us did mod-
ern dance on the floor of our apartment. The first books I read had
memorable lines like “Good Night, Moon. Good Night, Red Balloon.”
and “What Do Daddies Do All Day? Daddies Work While Children
Play.” I was read to at night before I fell asleep. We received books as
rewards.
My grandmother Dora Yevish gave me unconditional love. In
Tarnopl, Austro-Hungary she had been a Zionist and a Socialist. She
came to America at the age of twenty-one and married my grandpa
Charlie three months later. She spent the rest of her life working in
laundries, theirs and other people’s. My grandmother had lost two
sisters and two brothers to a combination of Nazis and Russians. The
tailor sewing in the window across the street had a number on his
arm. We bought our clothing in a store in Brooklyn run by people
who had all been in the same concentration camp. I was only size
6X so the numbers on their forearms were eye level for me. One of
the first real books I remember receiving was The Diary of Anne Frank
purchased at the Eighth Street Bookshop. It was intended, I think, to
remind me of my historical burden, my place as a Jew. But, simul-
taneously, it taught me that Jewish girls can be writers. In my diary,
at the age of six, I wrote, “When I grow up I will write books.” I threw
that diary away.
I wrote all through my girlhood. I wrote a history of baseball. I
wrote plays for Hanukkah which my younger brother and sister
enacted, often under duress. I made newspapers about the family,
about the neighborhood. I only read books from the history sec-
tion at my school library. I was an intellectual and a leader from
the age of four. I was a troublemaker, an underachiever, creative,
a behavior problem. I took myself seriously. In kindergarten Peter

xviii
preface preface preface My life as an american artist preface

Pope and I played Rocketship to Mars. But when education students

from Hunter College came to observe us we determined that we
were not representative of other five-year-olds and decided to play
house instead. Only, he stayed home with the children and I went
off to work. My mother was mortified; she thought the teacher
would think it was really like that in our house.
My mother had been at Peekskill for the riot surrounding a
concert by Paul Robeson. Her father was afraid of being deported.
She took us to Washington for peace rallies on buses sponsored
by the National Association of Social Workers. My father, the doc-
tor, waited at home by the window for us to return at three o’clock
in the morning.
In high school I fell in love, had my first girlfriend, read The Bell
Jar, attended consciousness raising, read The Female Eunuch, read Jean
Genet’s Funeral Rites. My lover and I got caught by my father who
continues to punish me to this day. I was emotionally ejected from
my family and never allowed back in. I found out about Patti Smith
and Prufrock, got my first job as a theatrical lighting technician, and
saw Robert Altman’s Nashville all at the same moment. I attended my
first gay event, a lecture at the Firehouse on Lesbian Witches. I tried
to go to Gay Youth but got scared and turned back.
In college I had boyfriends and girlfriends. Found out about Jack
Kerouac, Sun Ra, Archie Shepp, Blondie, The Protestant Work Ethic and the
Spirit of Capitalism. There were two women’s groups on campus, the
gay one and the straight one. I was in the straight one. I waitressed,
sold records, worked as a secretary, a file clerk. I got arrested when
Robert McNamara received an award for International Understand-
ing, got put in a cell in Cook County Jail with prostitutes. One had
burned, scarred hands underneath her leather gloves. One asked me
if we were “no-nukers.” I dropped out.
Back in New York I became a journalist, continued to be polit-
ically active. In 1980 I found out about a theater company called
“More Fire! Productions” run by a bunch of waitress/artists. “More
Fire!” is what you call to the kitchen if the burger isn’t done enough.
“More heat for the meat.” The directors were Robin Epstein and
Dorothy Cantwell, a lesbian and a straight woman who were best
friends. Their play was called Junk Love and I was hooked. I went
back night after night until they let me be their stage manager,
and soon after, Robin and I started collaborating on plays. Our
first was called Art Failures about two lesbian stand-up comics
trying to make it in New York City. Our second play was called
Whining and Dining and starred Jennifer Miller and Susan Seizer as

xix
history My american history my american history my american pr

God and the Devil. My grandmother died. I wrote extensively on

the new right. Our third play was called Epstein on the Beach.
When the Hyde Amendment passed depriving poor women
of Medicaid funding for abortion, I attended a community
meeting in the West Fourth Street Church. In the middle of the
usual combination of rhetoric and panic that accompany politi-
cal catastrophes, a small woman with a New York accent stood
up and proposed that we not repeat any strategy that had not
worked before. This, believe it or not, was heresy in the old/new
left which fears change more than they fear stagnancy. In the days
before VCRs and personal computers, she suggested that instead
of long boring leaflets, we should be on street corners with video
monitors because they would attract people’s attention. I was
hooked. Her name was Maxine Wolfe, and now, fourteen years
of friendship and political comraderie later, she remains the
singularly most creative, caring, visionary, and committed politi-
cal person that I have ever encountered. If the lesbian and gay
movement has produced its Emma Goldman – i.e., someone with
unique clarity and effective independent thought rooted in real
experiences – that person is Maxine. Inspired, I joined a repro-
ductive rights group, wrote political articles, organized locally and
nationally, and learned more and more about alternative modes
of activism. I was arrested for interrupting an anti-abortion hear-
ing in Washington, D.C. and was later convicted, with five others,
of “Disruption of Congress.”
I started learning more and more about theater and perfor-
mance art, about dance, about improvisational new music. I cov-
ered the robbery of a Brink’s truck and wrote a novel about it called
The Sophie Horowitz Story, the third lesbian detective novel on the
face of the earth. It had twenty-five rejections. My brother Charlie
dressed up like a messenger and hand-delivered it to various edi-
tors but I kept getting letters like “This would offend conservative
librarians.” I got kicked out of my political group in a lesbian purge.
I started reading Wilhelm Reich. A lesbian named Rebecca Sperling
was a temp at Scribner’s when my manuscript came across her
desk. She sent it to a lesbian publisher, Naiad Press, in Florida, with
a letter on Scribner’s letterhead. They thought they were getting it
from Scribner’s. Naiad published my first novel in 1984.
I started writing for the Native and trying to get into other
publications. I studied Yiddish at the YIVO Institute and took a
class at Hunter College with Audre Lorde. It was officially listed as
“American Literature After World War II,” but the first day of class she

xx
preface preface preface My life as an american artist preface

changed the name to “The Poet As Outsider.” She told us, “That you
can’t fight City Hall is a rumor being circulated by City Hall.” I applied
for a Fulbright in Jewish Studies to Belgium because I had a lover in
Belgium. Maxine told me to check “Yes” next to the question “Do you
have a BA?” So I did. I got the Fulbright. I went to Empire State College,
desperately trying to get a BA, submitting my novel and articles for
credit. I went to Belgium and was miserable. I broke up with my girl-
friend and wrote another novel. This time the writing was different.
I suddenly realized that word order had some meaning and wrote
Girls, Visions and Everything which is still my favorite. It was all about the
lesbian boyhood, identifying with Jack Kerouac and life in New York
City the summer before Reagan’s re-election. Naiad hated it because
it had no plot. Somehow all that theater, performance, postmodern
dance and improvisational new music had had its impact. It was
published by Seal Press in 1986.
I came back to New York and resumed working as a waitress
with Robin at Leroy’s Coffee Shop in Tribeca. I waited on Mere-
dith Monk, Yvonne Rainer, and David Lynch. Meredith was doing
a cabaret piece called Turtle Dreams, and she invited the waitresses
at Leroy’s to be the waitresses. I watched that piece every single
night. Someone told me to apply to the MacDowell Colony, so I
did. I waitressed until the day I got there and I waitressed the day
after I returned, but those two weeks absolutely changed my life. I
was in the middle of my third novel and had still never really met
another novelist. I had no idea that I was an artist. At MacDowell
I met composers, painters, and fell in love with an experimen-
tal filmmaker. I came home and watched films for the next seven
years. Jim Hubbard and I founded the Lesbian and Gay Experimen-
tal Film Festival. I joined ACT UP. I started to write for the Voice.
A girl I didn’t know stopped me in the health food store and told
me that a friend of hers was an out lesbian and a senior editor at a big
publisher and I should call her. I went to the corner and called her. She
told me to come over and bring my manuscript. Three days later she
called me and said she wanted it. Her name was Carole DeSanti. The
novel was After Delores. Writing that book was an exercise in honesty.
I admitted to the full range of human emotions—including jealousy
and rage. I also admitted that words could be put together in a way
that replicates emotions instead of describing them.
When Dutton published the novel in 1988 I surpassed every
dream and goal that I had ever set up for myself. I was not born into
a world where openly lesbian novels could be the stuff of careers.
It was a choice between the two, or so I thought, and I made that

xxi
history My american history my american history my american pr

choice without question. I remember sitting down at the breakfast

table at MacDowell with three other gay writers and each one told
me that as long as I had primary lesbian characters I would never
be able to get a general audience. They were from the old school of
primary straight characters and secondary fey ones. “Oh, you can
have your fabulous fags and your fabulous dykes,” one said to me.
“But you have to throw in some blahs or they’ll never publish you.”
Carole DeSanti and I were from the same generation. We had
both always been out. I discovered that smart women who were
not apologetic about their lesbianism could have an enormous
impact – to a degree. Understanding the limitations of that degree
was the subtext to our relationship over the next seven years as
we worked together on four books. So, I wrote successful novels,
got New York Times reviews, continued to be obsessed with experi-
mental film, theater, performance art, Kathy Acker, Carla Harryman,
postmodern dance, discovered opera. Tried to write an opera. Con-
tinued to write plays. Stayed in ACT UP. Started to experience death
of the young on a regular basis. Felt helpless. Saw how alone we
are. Lived with dying, participated in denial, felt uncontainable grief.
Learned to contain my grief. Wrote on social aspects of AIDS. Grew
angrier and angrier at the passivity of artists when it came to poli-
tics. Began to hate the avant-garde. Got more involved in ACT UP.
Realized that personal homophobia becomes societal neglect. That
there is a direct relationship between the two. Wrote a social real-
ist novel People in Trouble trying to explain this idea. Tried increasingly
to close the gap between politics and art. Could not believe how
sexist gay men were. Read poetry (Edwin Denby, Jimmy Schuyler,
Eileen Myles, Sapphire, Joan Larkin, Bernadette Mayer, more Carla
Harryman, Frank O’Hara, Theresa Cha, Bob Gluck, Frank Bidart,
Nicole Brossard, William Carlos Williams, Kenny Fries, Ponge, Zukof-
sky, Larry Eigner, Muriel Rukeyser, more). Read Jane Bowles three
times. Read Reich’s Mass Psychology of Fascism. Watched experimental
films (Su Friedrich, Abigail Child, Jim Hubbard, Carl George, Roger
Jacoby, Cecilia Dougherty, Michael Bryntrup, Peggy Ahwesh, Jennifer
Montgomery). Got arrested with ACT UP when we occupied Grand
Central Station at the Day of Desperation Action three days after the
beginning of the Persian Gulf War. Wrote more articles about AIDS.
By 1992 I discovered that I was in a ghetto as a lesbian novelist.
My fifth novel Empathy was published. I got reviewed in Entertainment
Weekly but still could not get one straight bookstore in New York City
to let me read there except during Gay Pride Month. The best-selling

xxii
preface preface preface My life as an american artist preface

books by lesbian writers had no lesbian content. When that con-

tent was introduced, the books plummeted in the esteem of crit-
ics, book buyers, and the general public. My books were translated
into eight languages. Straight people never heard of me. I went to
my high school reunion. I could tell who was straight and who
was gay because the gay people said, “Oh Sarah, you’ve been doing
so much.” and the straight people said, “Oh Sarah, what have you
been doing?”
Five friends and I founded the Lesbian Avengers. I read Taylor
Branch’s Parting the Waters about Dr. King and his movement. How
each strategy was carefully chosen and orchestrated. Some girls
from LA called me up at home to option one of my novels. They
flew into town and took me out to the Tribeca Grill. I had a twelve
dollar cheese sandwich. They bought the option. Nothing ever
happened. I went on a book tour through the American South,
reading at twenty-three bookstores and founding four Lesbian
Avenger chapters. In many cities not one man or straight person
came to see me. I was/am still a novelty act. I was/am not part of
the intellectual life of the nation. I wrote more plays, screenplays,
began my sixth novel, Rat Bohemia with Carole. No male editor has
ever even bid on any of my manuscripts. I got arrested with the
Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization on Saint Patrick’s Day when a
court order took away their right to have a counterdemonstration
against the Saint Pat’s parade that officially excluded them.
I started putting this collection together and had a crisis of
confidence about taking my own work seriously. I realized that
few of the people I mention or the events or organizations that I
describe have ever made it into the history books. I realize that I
am proposing a re-periodization and re-conceptualization of the
lesbian and gay community as a protest from below. I admit that I
am not typical. My view is not a typical view. I am thirty-four years
old. This is, I suppose, volume one.

—June 15, 1993

Author’s note: Some articles have been slightly changed for clarity, readability, or to reinstate ini-
tial drafts before they were dramatically altered for publication by a variety of anonymous editors.

xxiii
I ntroduction

In 1979, at the age of twenty-two, I took on my first journalistic

writing assignment. A newly founded feminist newspaper called
Womanews sent me out to cover a demonstration by Women
Against Pornography at the Playboy Club on Valentine’s Day. Wom-
anews, Women Against Pornography, and the Playboy Club have all
passed out of this life, but that emblematic assignment was the
beginning of an ideal training for this young reporter.
History has revisioned seventies feminism as either dominated
by dogmatic and prudish lesbians or deeply homophobic. While
the larger organizations, like NOW, were the site of well-known
lesbian purges, the version of feminism that I had inherited at
the end of the seventies, and that many lesbians identified with,
was a vibrant, activist movement, engaged in re-evaluating and
re-imagining every aspect of social life. Its practitioners opened
up new venues for the imagination as they asserted women’s
lives and lesbian lives as justifiable terrain for autonomous politi-
cal organizing, challenged male power and hegemony, raised con-
sciousness, and learned to re-conceptualize the social and physi-
cal functions and the desires of the female body.
The seventies was still a time in America where it was pos-
sible to challenge traditional roles in general. Androgyny among
lesbians, to the extent that it existed then more than any other
time, was as appropriate to the historical moment as ponytails
on men. The transformative influence of international freedom
movements increasingly broadened radical feminism’s vision-
ary field. And despite the crippling legacy of McCarthyism on the
American left, there was a growing determination in the feminist
movement(s) to articulate an economic basis for women’s political
power. The political maturation of global and economic compo-
nents of a social movement rooted, initially, in the private sphere,
seemed imminent as feminism articulated its goal of rescuing the
United States and the world from minority rule.

1
history My american history my american history my american t i o

Yet, Ronald Reagan was just around the corner. The starting
point for this collection is the week of Ronald Reagan’s inauguration
into the presidency of the United States—January 20, 1981. Despite
the youthful enthusiasm of my early writing, reviewing these events
from the perspective from which they were experienced provides
dramatic evidence, almost twelve years and three presidential terms
later, of how unprepared we were for the ravages of Reaganism.
Cold War high school history classes had convinced my generation
to expect neat scenarios, somewhat along the lines of Invasion of the
Body Snatchers, in which oppressive regimes come to power over-
night and are just as easily replaced. I don’t think that many of us
anticipated the systematic deprivation of services, the increasingly
precise determination of who would live and who would die. Nor
did we understand the massive propaganda campaigns that were
to be conducted through the corporate media to normalize these
conditions in the mind of the public. The manipulation of the public
through advertising is as American as home-ownership and house-
wives, but the movements for freedom did not really articulate an
understanding of the impact of advertising and T.V. “news” on Ameri-
can “opinion” until the sixties. This critique was still primitive when
Reagan came to power.

Abortion, the left, and the media

Of course, anyone who has ever participated in an act of politi-
cal rebellion only to see it ignored or distorted in the next day’s
newspaper learns quickly about the role of the media in maintain-
ing a status quo of power. But the selling of Reaganism becomes
particularly obvious as I read over these early pieces on the tacti-
cal developments in the anti-abortion movement. In the television
and print press throughout the Reagan/Bush years, anti-abortionists
were portrayed as sincere people, devoted to their own personal
understanding of human life. Abortion, the media continues to
convince us, is simply a matter of opinion. In reality, however, the
anti-abortion movement has proven repeatedly that it is composed
of maniacal fanatics, under the thumb of the organized religions
who have consistently funded them. The period discussed here
illuminates the historically crucial coming together of the right-to-
lifers and the Catholic left. Their shared strategies of civil disobedi-
ence have become the norm in the nineties as abortion clinics are
bombed, practitioners murdered, and women harassed on a regular
basis. As Reagan’s policies provoked broader and broader opposi-

2
t i o n i n t r o d u c t i o n i n t r o d u c t i o n In t r o d u c t i o n i n t r o

tional coalitions, abortion rights were sacrificed repeatedly for the

“sake” of generic progressive organizing. In my years in CARASA
(Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse),
it was a regular occurrence for the abortion issue to be dropped
from anti-Reagan coalitions in order to not “offend” Catholics,
keeping the entire abortion issue on the margins of the left. This
strategy was later used by heterosexuals in CARASA to keep les-
bian issues equally marginal. During the 1983 antinuclear march of
one million people on Central Park, the official platform included
the broadest possible range of progressive issues with the excep-
tion of abortion and lesbian and gay issues because of the par-
ticipation of the Catholic left and the canonization of the Church
as a representative of “the masses” by a perennially deluded left.
In fact, it wasn’t until ACT UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power)
and WHAM (Women’s Health Action Mobilization) demonstrated
at and inside of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in November 1989, that
the left directly took on the church, in a form it did not own and
would not consider to be “the left.”

The rise of the right and the attack on feminism

When I came out in the 1970s, I came out into a feminist move-
ment of lesbians and heterosexual women working together for
women’s liberation. Abortion was legalized in this country in 1973
when I was fifteen years old. And, my first real activist commitment
was to keep abortion safe, legal, and funded. Reagan’s coalition with
ruthless right-wing political and religious cults had changed the way
political organizing was being done. We were suddenly subjected to
a bizarre, extremist line of attack that was already computerized
and heavily financed through direct mail campaigns when these
tactics were virtually unknown among progressives. The economic
conservatives had gotten in bed with right-wing zealots such as
Phyllis Schlafly and Jerry Falwell in order to get elected. Overnight
this vicious fringe was in the White House, and we were being hit
with both a devastating economic agenda and a hypocritical “fam-
ily values” agenda. But the liberal abortion rights movement was
unable to adjust their organizing style. They were caught up in
feigning normalcy by using euphemistic words like “choice” instead
of sticking to the moral ground of a woman’s right to control her
own life. At the same time the direct action roots of gay liberation
were also being traded in for assimilation as many gay men focused
on trying to access heterosexual men’s social advantages.

3
history My american history my american history my american t i o

By the early eighties, feminism, as an activist grass-roots

movement, was on the verge of collapse. Reaganism had severely
disempowered our constituency. The cuts in social services pri-
marily affected women and children, making political mobiliza-
tion more difficult in terms of time, financial resources, and atten-
tion. The fashion of conformity that accompanied Reaganism was
one of strict sex roles and little counterculture. Few alternatives to
mass media images of masculinity and femininity were in general
circulation.
In addition, the relentless mediazation of “feminism” insisted
that it was a movement of white middle-class women striving for
success in the corporate world. These distortions began to over-
whelm the grass-roots definitions and ultimately the media-cre-
ated myth became the defining understanding of feminism for
most Americans. On the left, the need for working in broader
coalitions often meant that lesbianism and/or abortion were hid-
den. I remember absurd battles with heterosexual leftists where
they insisted that using the word “lesbian” would “alienate Hispan-
ics”—or claiming that homosexuality and abortion were fringe, life-
style, or middle-class issues. And, conflicts within the movement
over racism, homophobia, and sexual practice began to obstruct
organizing. The kind of confusion reported in my coverage of the
Reproductive Rights National Network convention in 1982 was
indicative of national trends.
Meanwhile abortion rights were being dismantled piece by
piece. First, the Hyde Amendment deprived poor women of Med-
icaid funding for abortion, then, in a “States’ Rights” environment,
individual statutes obstructing access to abortion services began to
appear more quickly than the small national abortion lobby could
respond. In particular, parental consent and “spousal” (euphemism
for husband) consent laws played into false fantasies about Ameri-
can family life as a place where individuals were protected and
nourished instead of abused and isolated. These right-wing strat­
egies pushed highly charged emotional buttons in the press. The
rapidly enacted restrictions of women’s most fundamental rights
became blasé standard news items provoking no response except
for that of a small group of obsessed women who spent the eight-
ies trying to mobilize their constituency.
Interestingly, the handful of committed abortion-rights activ-
ists in the early eighties ran a broad political spectrum from Cath-
olics For a Free Choice to the population control advocates of
International Planned Parenthood to left groups like CARASA. Even

4
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 white onion, 125
Oxford brawn, 137
common oyster, 114
good oyster, 114
piquante, 118
common pudding, 402
delicious German pudding, 403
pine-apple pudding, 405
pine-apple syrup, 405
punch, for sweet puddings, 402
sweet pudding, 404
raspberry, 404
remoulade, 137
Robert, 118
shrimp, 115
common sorrel, 120
Soubise, 126
Soubise (French receipt), 126
Spanish, 100
sweet, for venison, 100
Tartar, 143
common tomata, 123
a finer tomata, 124
tournée, or thickened pale gravy, 105
excellent turnip, 127
very common white, 111
English white, 111
wine sauces, 402
French white, or béchamel, 107
vegetable marrow, fine, 127
velouté (obs.), 107
Sauces, to thicken, 105
green, for colouring, 129
Saucisses aux truffes, or truffled sausages 263
Saunders, 270
Sausage-meat, cake of, 261
in chicken-pie, 353
Kentish, 261
to make, 261, 262
pounded, very good, 262
boned turkey, filled with, 268
Sausages, boiled, 262
and chestnuts (an excellent dish), 262
common, 261
excellent, 262
truffled, 263
Sauté pan, for frying, 176
Savoury toasts, 390
Scientific roasting, 171
Scotch marmalade, 528
Scottish shortbread, excellent, 557
Sea-kale to boil, 316
stewed in gravy (entremets), 316
Sea-pheasant, or pintail, to roast, 294
Sefton, a, or veal custard, 362
Shad, Touraine fashion, 79
Shrimp sauce, 115
Shrimps, to boil, 93
boudinettes of, 92
potted, 306
to shell quickly and easily, 93
Sippets à la Reine, 5
fried, 4
Sirloin of beef, to roast, 184
Smelts to bake, 78
to fry, 77
Snipes to roast, 293
Snow-balls, orange, 420
apple, 421
Soles, baked, or au plat, 66
baked, a simple receipt, 66
to boil, 64
to choose, 48
fillets of, 65
to fry, 64
stewed in cream, 67
Solimemne, a, or rich French breakfast cake, 549
Soufflé, Louise Franks’ citron, 378
cheese, 379
Soufflé-pan, 377
Soufflés, remarks on, 377
Sounds, cods’, to boil, 63
to fry in batter, 63
Soup, apple, 21
artichoke, or Palestine, 19
good calf’s head, not expensive, 27
Buchanan carrot, 46
common carrot, 20
a finer carrot, 20
carrot, maigre, 45
chestnut, 19
cocoa-nut, 19
cucumber, 38
fish, cheap, 46
des Galles, 28
clear pale gravy, or consommé, 10
another gravy, 10
cheap clear gravy, 11
superlative hare, 32
a less expensive hare, 32
in haste, 43
à la Julienne, 38
Mademoiselle Jenny Lind’s (authentic receipt), 16
the Lord Mayor’s, 17
the Lord Mayor’s (author’s receipt for), 18
maccaroni, 13
milk, with vermicelli, 44
mock turtle, 25
old-fashioned mock turtle, 26
mullagatawny, 35
vegetable mullagatawny, 37
mutton stock for soups, 16
ox-tail, 42
white oyster, or oyster-soup à la Reine, 30
parsnep, 22
another parsnep, 22
partridge, 35
common peas, 41
peas, without meat, 42
rich peas, 41
cheap green peas, 40
an excellent green peas, 39
green peas, without meat, 39
pheasant, 33
another pheasant, 34
potage aux nouilles, or taillerine soup, 14
potage à la Reine, 29
potato, 21
rabbit, à la Reine, 31
brown rabbit, 31
rice, 14
cheap rice, 44
rice flour, 15
white rice, 15
sago, 14
sausage (Swedish receipt), 577
semola and soujee, 13
 semoulina, 12
semoulina (or soup à la Semoule), 12
a cheap and good stew, 43
spring, 38
taillerine, 14
tapioca, 14
economical turkey, 33
common turnip, 21
a quickly made turnip, 21
turtle, mock, 23
mock turtle, old-fashioned, 26
vermicelli (or potage au vermicelle), 12
stock for white, 15
Westerfield white, 22
a richer white, 23
Soups, directions to the cook for, 2
to fry bread to serve with, 5
ingredients used for making, 1
nouilles to serve in, 5
mutton stock for, 16
to thicken, 4
time required for boiling down, 4
vegetable vermicelli for, 5
Spanish sauce, or Espagnole, 100
sauce, with wine, 100
Spiced beef, 199
Spinach, à l’Anglaise, or English fashion, 317
common English modes of dressing, 317
French receipt for, 316
green, for colouring sweet dishes, &c., 455
dandelions dressed like, 318
Sprouts, &c., to boil, 332
Steaming, general directions for, 172
Stewed beef-steak, 189
 beef-steak, in its own gravy, 189
beet-root, 340
cabbage, 333
calf’s feet, 228
calf’s liver, 228
carp, 82
celery, 341
cod-fish, 62
cucumber, 323
eels, 84
figs, 492
fillet of mutton, 238
fruits (various), 456-459
hare, 286
lamb cutlets, 246
leg of lamb with white sauce, 243
loin of lamb in butter, 246
lettuces, 319
mackerel, in wine, 72
fillets of mackerel in wine (excellent), 72
mutton cutlets in their own gravy, 240
onions, 342
ox-tails, 195
ox, or beef tongue (Bordyke receipt), 203
oysters, 86
sea-kale in gravy, 316
soles in cream, 67
tomatas, 327
trout, 80
turnips in butter, 334
turnips in gravy, 335
knuckle of veal, with rice or green peas, 221
shoulder of veal, 219
shoulder of venison, 283
Stew, a good English, 191
a good family, 242
a German, 190
 an Irish, 242
baked Irish, 243
Spring stew of veal, 224
a Welsh, 191
Stew, to, shin of beef, 192
a rump of beef, 194
Stewing, general directions for, 173
Stewpan, copper, 181
Stock, clear pale, 11
for white soup, 13
mutton, for soups, 14
shin of beef for gravies, 97
pot, 169
Store sauces, 145-155
Strawberries, to preserve, for flavouring creams, &c., 506
Strawberry vinegar, 577
jam, 504
jelly, 505
isinglass jelly, 468
tartlets, 375
vinegar, of delicious flavour, 577
Stufato (a Neapolitan receipt), 615
Stuffing for geese and ducks, No. 9, 160
Cook’s stuffing for geese and ducks, 161
Suédoise, or apple hedgehog, 480
Suédoise of peaches, 488
Suet crust, for pies, superior, 348
common, 348
Sugar glazings, and icings, for fine pastry and cakes, 543
barley, 564
grains, to colour, for cakes, &c., 542
 to boil, from candy to caramel, 563
to clarify, 562
Swan’s egg, to boil, 448
forced, 447
en salade, 448
Sweetbreads, to dress, 227
à la Maître d’Hôtel, 227
cutlets, 227
small entrées of, 232
roasted, 215
Sweet, patties à la minute, 387
Syllabub, a birthday, 581
Syllabubs, superior whipped, 476
Syrup, fine currant, or sirop de groseilles, 579
Tamarinds, acid, in curries, 296
Tapioca soup, 14
Tarragon vinegar, 151
Tart, a good apple, 363
young green apple, 364
barberry, 364
German, 362
the monitor’s, 370
Tartlets, of almond paste, 367
creamed, 375
jelly, or custards, 375
to make, 361
lemon, 372
strawberry, 375
Tarts, to ice, 345
Tench, to fry, 83
Thickening for sauces, French, 106
Tipsy cake, 474
Toasting, directions for, 183
Toffee, Everton, 567
another way, 567
Tomata catsup, 151
sauces, 123, 124
Tomatas, forced, 327
forced (French receipt), 328
purée of, 328
roast, 327
en salade, 327
stewed, 327
Tongue, to boil, 203
to stew, 203
Tongues, to pickle, 197
Tourte, à la châtelaine, 364
the lady’s, 364
meringuée, or with royal icing, 363
Trifle, brandy, or tipsy cake, 474
an excellent, 473
Swiss, very good, 473
Trout, to stew (a good common receipt), 80
in wine, 80
Truffled butter, 139
sausages, 263
Truffles and their uses, 331
à l’Italienne, 332
à la serviette, 232
to prepare for use, 332
Turbot, to boil, 56
au béchamel, 57
cold, with shrimp chatney, 144
 à la crême, 57
Turkey, to boil, 267
boned and forced, 268
to bone, 265
à la Flamande, 270
to roast, 267
poult, to roast, 270
Turkeys’ eggs, to dress, 447
forced (excellent entremets) 447
poached, 449
sauce of, 110
Turnip-radishes, to boil, 318
soup, economical, 33
Turnips, to boil, 333
to mash, 333
stewed in butter, 334
in gravy, 335
in white sauce 334
Vanilla in cream, pudding, &c., 410
Veal, blanquette of, with mushrooms, 229
boiled breast of, 218
roast breast of, 219
breast of, simply stewed, 618 (see note)
breast of, stewed and glazed, 618
cake, Bordyke, 222
cake, small pain de veau, or veal, 222
to choose, 209
Scotch collops of, 226
custard, or Sefton, 362
cutlets, 225
cutlets, or collops, à la Française, 226
cutlets, à l’Indienne, or Indian fashion, 225
cutlets, à la mode de Londres, or London fashion, 226
divisions of, 209
 boiled fillet of, 217
roast fillet of, 216
fillet of, au bechamel, with oysters, 216
fricandeau of, 223
fricasseed, 231
goose (City of London receipt), 220
Norman harrico of, 224
boiled knuckle of, 221
knuckle of, en ragout, 221
knuckle of, with rice or green peas, 221
boiled loin of, 218
roast loin of, 217
stewed loin of, 218
minced, 230
minced, with oysters (or mushrooms), 231
neck of, à la crême, 220
neck of, roast, 220
to bone a shoulder of, 219
stewed shoulder of, 219
spring stew of, 224
Sydney, 231
Vegetable marrow, to boil, fry, mash, 327
vermicelli, 6
Vegetables, to boil green, 309
to clear insects from, 309
remarks on, 308
Venetian cake (super excellent), 547
fritters (very good), 383
Venison, to choose, 281
collops and cutlets, 284
to hash, 284
to roast a haunch of, 282
in pie, 352
sauces for, 295
to stew a loin of mutton like, 239
 to stew a shoulder of, 283
Vermicelli pudding, 439
soup, 12
Viennese pudding, or Salzburger Nockerl, 620
Vinegar, cayenne, 153
celery, 152
cucumber, 152
eschalot, or garlic, 152
horseradish, 153
green mint, 152
raspberry (very fine), 578
strawberry (delicious), 577
tarragon, 151
Vol-au-vent, a, 357
à la crème, 358
of fruit, 358
Vols-au-vents, à la Parisienne, 374
small, to make, 361
Walnut catsup, 149-150
Walnuts, to pickle, 536
salad of, 141
Water Souchy (Greenwich receipt), 78
White bait (Greenwich receipt), 78
Whitings baked, À la Française, 68
baked (Cinderella’s receipt), 70
to boil, 68
to fry, 67
fillets of, 68
Wild ducks, to roast, and their season, 294
salmi, or hash of, 294
Wild fowl, its season, 294
Wine, elderberry (good), 584
eschalot, 153
ginger, 584
to mull (an excellent French receipt), 581
orange, 585
raisin, which resembles foreign, 583
Wine-vase, antique, 577
Wire lining for frying-pan, 177
Woodcocks, or snipes, to roast, 293
Woodruff, in Mai Trank, 620
Yorkshire ploughman’s salad, 315
pudding, common, 441
pudding, good, 440
Regent potatoes, their excellence, 311
[TN: Footnote text is not allowed within the range of the Index.

Footnote 194 is referenced from the entry for “fillets of whitings”.

Footnote 195 is referenced from the entry for “Queen Mab’s summer
pudding”.

Clicking on the footnote numbers below will take you to the index
entries that reference these footnotes.]
194. Though not included in this list, all sweet puddings are served as entremets,
except they replace the roasts of the second course.

195. Fish is not usually served as an entrée in a common English dinner; it is,
however, very admissible, either in fillets, or scallops, in a currie, or in a vol-
au-vent. Various circumstances must determine much of the general
arrangement of a dinner, the same dishes answering at times for different
parts of the service. For example, a fowl may be served as the roast for a
small company, and for a large one as an entrée. For a plain family dinner,
too, many dishes may be served in a different order to that which is set
down.

Woodfall and Kinder, Printers, Milford Lane, Strand, London, W.C.

 APRIL 1885.

GENERAL LISTS OF WORKS

PUBLISHED BY

Messrs. LONGMANS, GREEN, &

CO.
PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

HISTORY, POLITICS, HISTORICAL MEMOIRS, &c.

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—— —— Lives of Greek Statesmen. Fcp. 8vo. 2s. 6d.
Dowell’s A History of Taxation and Taxes in England. 4 vols. 8vo.
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