The American West of the nineteenth century was a world of freedom and adventure for men of every stripe—not least also those who admired and desired other men. Among these sojourners was William Drummond Stewart, a flamboyant Scottish nobleman who found in American culture of the 1830s and 1840s a cultural milieu of openness in which men could pursue same-sex relationships. This book traces Stewart’s travels from his arrival in America in 1832 to his return to Murthly Castle in Perthshire, Scotland, with his French Canadian–Cree Indian companion, Antoine Clement, one of the most skilled hunters in the Rockies. Benemann chronicles Stewart’s friendships with such notables as Kit Carson, William Sublette, Marcus Whitman, and Jim Bridger. He describes the wild Renaissance-costume party held by Stewart and Clement upon their return to America—a journey that ended in scandal. Through Stewart’s letters and novels, Benemann shows that Stewart was one of many men drawn to the sexual freedom offered by the West. His book provides a tantalizing new perspective on the Rocky Mountain fur trade and the role of homosexuality in shaping the American West.

Men in Eden: William Drummond Stewart and Same-Sex Desire in the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade

Biographies & Memoirs

Benemann, William

Historical

Bison Books

Genre Terms For Law Materials: A Thesaurus

Reference

William S. Hein & Company

In its voracious hunger to fill its decks and spars with the bodies of strong young sailors, the nineteenth century US Navy and the commercial maritime industry welcomed eccentrics, criminals, outcasts and misfits into a community of the marginalized, one that held very different values and expectations than the towns and villages from which the young men fled, a community that offered a tentative refuge to men who were sexually attracted to other men.Drawing from biographies and autobiographies, diaries, newspapers, government reports, Congressional hearings, religious tracts, pornography, ships' logs, medical treatises, maritime fiction, court-martial reports, personal letters and business correspondence, Benemann provides an in-depth examination of nineteenth century homosexual culture as it developed at sea and in America's port cities.

Unruly Desires: American Sailors and Homosexualities in the Age of Sail

History

Military

Independently published

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Books by Benemann, William