Skip to main content
University of Michigan Press Ebook Collection

University of Michigan Press
Ebook Collection

Browse Books Help
Get access to more books. Log in with your institution.

Your use of this Platform is subject to the Fulcrum Terms of Service.

Share the story of what Open Access means to you

a graphic of a lock that is open, the universal logo for open access

University of Michigan needs your feedback to better understand how readers are using openly available ebooks. You can help by taking a short, privacy-friendly survey.

  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Bulldaggers, Pansies, and Chocolate Babies: Performance, Race, and Sexuality in the Harlem Renaissance

Bulldaggers, Pansies, and Chocolate Babies: Performance, Race, and Sexuality in the Harlem Renaissance

James F. Wilson
Open Access Open Access
Read Book
  • EPUB (8.94 MB)
  • PDF (1.6 MB)
  • Overview

  • Contents

  • Accessibility Claims

  • Funder Information

  • Stats

Bulldaggers, Pansies, and Chocolate Babies shines the spotlight on historically neglected plays and performances that challenged early twentieth-century notions of the stratification of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation. On Broadway stages, in Harlem nightclubs and dance halls, and within private homes sponsoring rent parties, African American performers of the 1920s and early 1930s teased the limits of white middle-class morality. Blues-singing lesbians, popularly known as "bulldaggers," performed bawdy songs; cross-dressing men vied for the top prizes in lavish drag balls; and black and white women flaunted their sexuality in scandalous melodramas and musical revues. Race leaders, preachers, and theater critics spoke out against these performances that threatened to undermine social and political progress, but to no avail: mainstream audiences could not get enough of the riotous entertainment.

James F. Wilson has based his rich cultural history on a wide range of documents from the period, including eyewitness accounts, newspaper reports, songs, and play scripts, combining archival research with an analysis grounded in a cultural studies framework that incorporates both queer theory and critical race theory. Throughout, he argues against the widely held belief that the stereotypical forms of black, lesbian, and gay show business of the 1920s prohibited the emergence of distinctive new voices. Figuring prominently in the book are African American performers including Gladys Bentley, Ethel Waters, and Florence Mills, among others, and prominent writers, artists, and leaders of the era, including Langston Hughes, Wallace Thurman, Zora Neale Hurston, and W. E. B. Du Bois. The study also engages with contemporary literary critics, including Henry Louis Gates and Houston Baker.

"James F. Wilson uncovers fascinating new material on the Harlem Renaissance, shedding light on the oft-forgotten gay and lesbian contributions to the era's creativity and Civil Rights. Extremely well researched, compellingly written, and highly informative."
—David Krasner, author of A Beautiful Pageant: African American Theatre, Drama, and Performance in the Harlem Renaissance, 1910-1927
  • Cover
  • Half Title Page
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • Dedication
  • Acknowledgments
  • Contents
  • INTRODUCTION: “It’s Getting Dark on Old Broadway”
    • “What Is She”
  • CHAPTER 1. “Gimme a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer”: Parties, Performances, and Privacy in the “Other” Harlem Renaissance(s)
    • “Do the Shim Sham Shimmy ’Til the Risin’ Sun”
    • “Up in Harlem Every Saturday Night”
    • “Prove It on Me Blues”
  • CHAPTER 2. “Harlem on My Mind”: New York’s Black Belt on the Great White Way
    • “Ofays, Pimps, Lowdowns An’ Dicties”
    • “So like Van Vechten, Start Inspectin’”
    • “City of Refuge, City of Refuse”
    • “Go, Harlem, Go Harlem, Go”
    • “The Doomed Children of Ham”
    • “Sugar Foot Misters An’ Sun Dodgin’ Sisters”
  • CHAPTER 3. “That’s the Kind of Gal I Am”: Drag Balls, “Sexual Perversion,” and David Belasco’s Lulu Belle
    • “Wilder than a Wild, Wild Rose”
    • “Everyone in Dark-town Knows”
    • “A Mad-cap Baby, Called Lulu Belle”
    • “Fickle as the Wind That Blows”
  • CHAPTER 4. “Hottentot Potentates”: The Potent and Hot Performances of Florence Mills and Ethel Waters
    • “You Can’t Do What the Last Man Did”
    • “Put Your Old Bandanna On”
    • “Shake That Thing”
  • CHAPTER 5. “In My Well of Loneliness”: Gladys Bentley’s Bulldykin’ Blues
    • Sexual Perverts on Parade
    • If This Be Sin
    • How Much Can I Stand?
    • Lord, How I Adored It
    • “In the Twilight Zone of Sex”
  • CONCLUSION: “You’ve Seen Harlem at Its Best”
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index

Screen Reader Friendly: yes

Accessibility Summary: This Publication meets the requirements of the EPUB Accessibility specification with conformance to WCAG 2.0 Level AA. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for images, table of content, page-list, landmark, reading order, and structural navigation. Additionally, blank pages have been removed from the ebook while their page break labels have been left in, for reasons of structural flow.

Accessibility Hazard: none

Accessibility Features: ARIA roles, Alternative text for images, Display transformability of text, Index, Textual descriptions of complex content, Page numbers, Logical reading order, Correct use of heading levels, Table of Contents

Access Modes: textual, visual

Sufficient Access Modes: textual; textual,visual

See the accessibility page for more information about the accessibility of this platform and content.

This open-access version is made available with the support of Big Ten Academic Alliance member libraries.
Citable Link
Published: 2010
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license
ISBN(s)
  • 978-0-472-03489-5 (paper)
  • 978-0-472-90404-4 (open access)
  • 978-0-472-00529-1 (audio download)
Series
  • Triangulations: Lesbian/Gay/Queer Theater/Drama/Performance
Subject
  • Theater and Performance
  • African American Studies
  • Sexuality Studies
  • American Studies
  • African American LGBTQ+ people
  • Gender roles
University of Michigan Press Contact Us

UMP EBC

  • Browse and Search
  • About UMP EBC
  • Impact and Usage

Follow Us

  • UMP EBC Newsletter
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube

Quicklinks

  • Help/FAQ
  • Title List
  • MARC Records
  • KBART Records
  • Usage Stats
© 2025, Regents of the University of Michigan · Accessibility · Preservation · Privacy · Terms of Service
Powered by Fulcrum logo · Log In
x This site requires cookies to function correctly.