One was nicknamed “The Man-Monster,” a frightening 1836 moniker for Peter Sewally, also known as Mary Jones. Ellen and William Craft took it a bit further when Ellen dressed as a man, and her husband as her manservant, in order for both to escape slavery.īlack sex trade workers sometimes dressed as women, often to great mocking and even greater scandal.

Even Harriet Tubman disguised herself as a man to deter arrest. The Library called it a “rare” piece, but Snorton shows that African-American history is rife with examples of transgenderism.ĭuring the Civil War, for example, archives indicate that many slaves, particularly women, dressed in men’s clothing in order to be seen as male and to avoid bondage. When the Cornell University Library recently assembled a display of historical queer and trans performance items, there was a singular piece of paper that caught Snorton’s eye: it was a French postcard depicting two black “transvestite” performers, possibly in a minstrel show or at a cakewalk, which was likewise a popular form of entertainment, circa 1900.

Black on both sides snorton