Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy - Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community

Winner of the 1995 American Sociological Association Jesse Bernard Award

Winner of the 1993 Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists of the American Anthropological Association Ruth Benedict Prize

Winner of the 1994 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Studies

[A] groundbreaking book, a fascinating look at the pre-political support systems, of friendship groups extended to include ex-lovers families and children that became one of the foundation blocks for building the gay/lesbian communities of our day.

San Francisco Review of Books

Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold recovers a neglected chapter of lesbian and gay history and reminds us of the enduring importance of outlaw roots.

San Francisco Chronicle-Examiner

[T]he first comprehensive account of aworking-class lesbian community

Ms. Magazine

Conducted over a 13-year period, these interviews contribute a massive amount of original research to the anthology of American culture as well as to lesbian history.

Library Journal

The book soars on the plain, yet eloquent voices of the women A necessary and overdue addition to the archives of lesbian and gay history.

The Boston Globe

Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold honors all of us; Liz Kennedy and Madeline Davis have produced a work that opens up the heart and mind. Their book breaks new ground in womens history, Lesbian history, and the history of desire as a lived force in a community under seige. Most of all, they have put back at the center a group of women, who without money or traditional power, fought for and won a public place where women queers could celebrate their love.

Joan Nestle, co-founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives and editor of The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader

While some of this book is a juicy account of who did what to whom, the heart of Boots of Leather lies in its careful, insightful evaluation of the development of the Buffalo lesbian community through its bars.

Lambda Book Report

This pioneering history of a working-class lesbian community is doubly marked by its scholarly care and its human compassion. Kennedy and Davis have adhered to the most scrupulous standards of serious historical work, yet at the same time have treated the subjects of their scrutiny with profound delicacy and respect. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold is one of the finest works yet to emerge in the burgeoning field of gay and lesbian studies.

Martin Duberman, author of Stonewall

Rarely does a book break entirely new ground, but this is surely one that does. With love, passion, and empathy, Kennedy and Davis bring to life the history of a working-class lesbian community. A complex, fascinating, and evocative world, it has much to tell us about gender, sexuality, class, and urban life. Above all, this is a story about the triumph of the human spirit over horrible adversity. The voices of these women sing on every page.

John DEmilio, author of Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America

Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold incorporates both academic values of sound scholarship and the lesbian communitys need for roots and for affirmation of our identity as woman-loving women.

The Empty Chest

This very first community study of lesbians will radically advance the state of knowledge in gay and lesbian studies. Nuanced, lovingly researched and provocative, both the description and the argument are food for thinking people.

Esther Newton, author of Cherry Grove, Fire Island: Sixty Years in Americas First Gay and Lesbian Town

Drawing on oral history as well as records, the authors have represented a microcosmic study of a fascinating and vital community. The importance of class and race and the techniques of survival in the face of oppression marked the historical experience of these women. Kennedy and Davis have written about the specific local development of a consciousness of a kind that is required for a liberation movement and that they show existed before Stonewall in Buffalo.

The Los Angeles Times

Boots of Leather

Chorus

For she walks in boots of leather

And in slippers made of gold;

She will be a child forever

And forever, shell be old.

Shes the heroine of legends;

Shes the eagle and the dove.

Shes the daughter of the moon;

Shes my sister and my love.

She was born in winters fury,

with the wind about her ears.

She was raised on strife and sadness,

and the city-dwellers fears.

She was nursed on wine and bloodshed

and she cut her teeth on steel;

and she wept alone in darkness

for the pain she was to feel.

Chorus

Many nights can fill a cavern;

many days can dry the seas;

many years will dull the longing

and erode the memories.

Ever more the granite forests

make a place for her to dwell.

And the streets of sleepy dreaming

Make a story she can tell.

Chorus

Madeline D. Davis c. 1974

Boots of Leather,Slippers of gold

The History of a Lesbian Community

20th Anniversary Edition

Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy
Madeline D. Davis

20th anniversary edition published 2014
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2014 Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline D. Davis

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.

First published by Routledge in 1993.