Speculating on scrapbooks, sex and desire: Issues in lesbian history∗

∗ Thanks to Lyn Isaac and Katie Holmes for comments on a draft version of this article and to participants at the Feminist History: Twenty Years On Conference for questions and feedback, which greatly contributed to reworking the paper.

Abstract

’Speculating on Scrapbooks’ explores issues in lesbian history by considering Monte Punshon. Monte constructed her identity within competing meanings of femininity that were being redefined within modernity and within historical forms of women's same‐sex love, such as passionate friendships, rather than from medical and sexological discourses of gender inversion and homosexuality. Although Monte did not appear to adopt the label ‘lesbian’, her lesbian desires are evident in her scrapbooks and adoption of a certain visual style.

Notes

∗ Thanks to Lyn Isaac and Katie Holmes for comments on a draft version of this article and to participants at the Feminist History: Twenty Years On Conference for questions and feedback, which greatly contributed to reworking the paper.