When Brooklyn Was Queer: Illustrated Local History with Hugh Ryan
Join us for an evening with writer, historian, and curator Hugh Ryan, author of When Brooklyn Was Queer and The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison.
The LGBTQ history of Brooklyn, including Dumbo, Brooklyn Heights, and the Navy Yards, stretches back to before the word “homosexual” was even coined in 1869. In this lecture, Ryan will illuminate these forgotten stories that examine how the Brooklyn waterfront has nurtured queer lives, from 1850 up to today.
Don’t miss the reveal of fascinating moment in queer history documented in courting letters between Emily Warren Roebling and Washington Roebling!
Hugh Ryan is a writer, historian, and curator in New York City. HIs current project, entitled THE WOMEN’S HOUSE OF DETENTION, is a queer history of the Women’s House of Detention in Greenwich Village. It is the story of one building: the people it caged, the neighborhood it changed, and the resistance it inspired.
His first book, WHEN BROOKLYN WAS QUEER, was called a “boisterous, motley new history” and “an entertaining and insightful chronicle” by the New York Times, who made it an Editor’s Pick in 2019. In 2019, he was honored by the Brooklyn Historical Society, the Committee on LGBT History of the American Historical Association, and the Brooklyn Borough President for my work on the queer history of BK.
He has received the 2016 Martin Duberman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, several New York Foundation for the Arts grants in Nonfiction Literature, the 2019-2020 Allan Berube Prize for outstanding work in public LGBT History from the Committee on LGBT History at the American Historical Association, and the 2019 New York City Book Award. In 2021, he was an artist in residence at Yaddo. In 2017, he was a resident artist at The Watermill Center, and an alumni teaching fellow at the Bennington Writing Seminars, of which he is a very proud graduate. He regularly teach Creative Nonfiction in the MFA Program at SUNY Stonybrook. He is currently on the Board of Advisors for the Archives at the LGBT Center in Manhattan and The Stonewall National Museum and Archives in Ft. Lauderdale.
This program has been made possible through the generous support of neighbors in our community.
Join us for an evening with writer, historian, and curator Hugh Ryan, author of When Brooklyn Was Queer and The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison.
The LGBTQ history of Brooklyn, including Dumbo, Brooklyn Heights, and the Navy Yards, stretches back to before the word “homosexual” was even coined in 1869. In this lecture, Ryan will illuminate these forgotten stories that examine how the Brooklyn waterfront has nurtured queer lives, from 1850 up to today.
Don’t miss the reveal of fascinating moment in queer history documented in courting letters between Emily Warren Roebling and Washington Roebling!
Hugh Ryan is a writer, historian, and curator in New York City. HIs current project, entitled THE WOMEN’S HOUSE OF DETENTION, is a queer history of the Women’s House of Detention in Greenwich Village. It is the story of one building: the people it caged, the neighborhood it changed, and the resistance it inspired.
His first book, WHEN BROOKLYN WAS QUEER, was called a “boisterous, motley new history” and “an entertaining and insightful chronicle” by the New York Times, who made it an Editor’s Pick in 2019. In 2019, he was honored by the Brooklyn Historical Society, the Committee on LGBT History of the American Historical Association, and the Brooklyn Borough President for my work on the queer history of BK.
He has received the 2016 Martin Duberman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, several New York Foundation for the Arts grants in Nonfiction Literature, the 2019-2020 Allan Berube Prize for outstanding work in public LGBT History from the Committee on LGBT History at the American Historical Association, and the 2019 New York City Book Award. In 2021, he was an artist in residence at Yaddo. In 2017, he was a resident artist at The Watermill Center, and an alumni teaching fellow at the Bennington Writing Seminars, of which he is a very proud graduate. He regularly teach Creative Nonfiction in the MFA Program at SUNY Stonybrook. He is currently on the Board of Advisors for the Archives at the LGBT Center in Manhattan and The Stonewall National Museum and Archives in Ft. Lauderdale.
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