Arresting Dress: Cross-Dressing, Law, and Fascination in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco

Clare Sears

Published by Duke University Press 2015

Arresting Dress

Cross-Dressing, Law, and Fascination in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco

Clare Sears

In the series Perverse Modernities: A Series Edited by Jack Halberstam and Lisa Lowe

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822376194

Overview
Contents

About this book

In 1863, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors passed a law that criminalized appearing in public in “a dress not belonging to his or her sex.” Adopted as part of a broader anti-indecency campaign, the cross-dressing law became a flexible tool for policing multiple gender transgressions, facilitating over one hundred arrests before the century’s end. Over forty U.S. cities passed similar laws during this time, yet little is known about their emergence, operations, or effects. Grounded in a wealth of archival material, Arresting Dress traces the career of anti-cross-dressing laws from municipal courtrooms and codebooks to newspaper scandals, vaudevillian theater, freak-show performances, and commercial “slumming tours.” It shows that the law did not simply police normative gender but actively produced it by creating new definitions of gender normality and abnormality. It also tells the story of the tenacity of those who defied the law, spoke out when sentenced, and articulated different gender possibilities.

Author / Editor information

Clare Sears is Associate Professor of Sociology and Sexuality Studies at San Francisco State University.

Reviews

“[A] slim yet comprehensive look at how an 1863 law against appearing in public dressed as a different sex invited a regime of surveillance upon “problem bodies.” The book covers a lot of ground.”

-- Peter Kane SF Weekly

“[A]s the first in-depth examination of cross-dressing laws in an American city, the book is a valuable contribution to gender studies. It demonstrates convincingly that societal discomfort with difference in gender-expression was historically tied to societal discomfort with other sorts of difference. Both led to the marginalization of “problem bodies.””

-- Lillian Faderman Women's Review of Books

"Arresting Dress gives one much to think about beyond its well-argued and convincing conclusions. This is what I consider a good book — a scholarly endeavor that causes one to think about how one might look at evidence, arguments, and conceptualizations in different ways.... Arresting Dress is highly recommended, both for the conclusions it draws and for the further thinking and research it encourages."

-- Peter Boag GLQ

"Arresting Dress is an impressive work of history, based in deep archival research, written in engaging prose, woven with smart analysis, and complete with wonderful images from primary sources... that bring the text to life. Never over-theoretical, the work is both approachable for undergraduates as well as useful for specialists. As such, it deserves to be read and assigned widely."

-- Emily Skidmore Journal of American History

"In her compelling historical account of a multiplicity of cross-dressing practices and their incorporation into certain cultural venues and proscription in others, Clare Sears demonstrates the ways in which stabilizing gender and sexuality was central to state-making projects of that time.... [T]he result is a book well worth reading."

-- Tey Meadow American Journal of Sociology

"Sears’s book is important because it historicizes cross-dressing and cross-gender behavior in ways in which it never has been before. Indeed, it is the sort of interdisciplinary study that is often attempted but rarely executed with such interpretive precision.... Despite such scholarly intersections, however, the book is remarkably accessible. A stimulating read for undergraduates, specialists, and general readers."

-- Adam Q. Stauffer Journal of American Studies

"There is much to admire in Sears’ analysis of this topic, especially in her persistent and convincing analysis of how cross-dressing laws interacted with racial politics at the time—two topics that seem unrelated at first glance. Overall Sears gives a nuanced, sensitive and in intelligent reading of a little-known law and its vast consequences for the culture of the city and the nation."

-- Ariel Beaujot Social History

"What is especially admirable about Sears’s text is the depth and breadth of her interdisciplinary archival research that draws together a variety of processes and relations that demonstrate the fascination and outrage with forms of cross-dressing. This is equally well-balanced and supported with an application and articulation of a variety of theoretical perspectives that make this a valuable book about belonging, othering, bodies and dressed appearance, not just historically but with relevance today."

-- Shaun Cole International Journal of Fashion Studies

"Sears deftly uses a variety of well-placed illustrations (newspaper clippings, political cartoons, posters, and photographs) to explain and expand her arguments. She also, in a surprising twist in view of her emphasis on the prevalence of cross-dressing, successfully challenges the popular notion of frontier San Francisco as a ‘wide open' permissive town."

-- Nancy C. Unger Canadian Journal of History

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction: Not Belonging Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Instant and Peculiar Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
2. Against Good Morals Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	41
3. Problem Bodies, Public Space Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	61
4. A Sight Well Worth Gazing Upon Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	78
5. Indecent Exhibitions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	97
6. Problem Bodies, Nation- State Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	121
Conclusion: Against the Law Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	191

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 216
Illustrations
- Other: 17 illustrations

eBook

Published: February 20, 2015
ISBN: 9780822376194