Sex-crime panic : a journey to the paranoid heart of the 1950s / Neil Miller.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Miller, Neil, 1945-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Murder--Iowa--Sioux City--Case studies.

Murder.

Murder--Investigation--Iowa--Sioux City--Case studies.

Gay people--Iowa--Sioux City.

Gay people.

Moral panics.

Murder--Investigation.

Sioux City (Iowa)--Social conditions.

Sioux City (Iowa).

Social conditions.

Iowa--Sioux City.

Genre:

Case studies.

Physical Description:

xvii, 313 pages ; 21 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Los Angeles : Alyson Books, 2002.

Summary:

A portrait of prejudice begins with the 1955 murder of an eight-year-old boy in Iowa, and the arrest and conviction of a simpleminded salesman for the crime. Within months, public hysteria caused the police to arrest 20 middle-class gay men who were charged with being "sexual psychopaths," although none had anything to do with the murder, and who were incarcerated for prolonged periods of time in a state mental hospital.

Contents:

Two murders

A boy is missing

Enter Ernest Triplett

Truth serum

"A lover of Liberace" on trial

The body in the cornfield

Needed: 25 sexual psychopaths

The roundup

Pinched

Enemies within

Naming names

Morals crusader

The sexual psychopath ward

The arrival

The men in the pink shirts

Dancing with Greta Garbo

Therapy

Matters of the heart

The power and the glory

Christmas in Sioux City

Cured

Closing the books

The second roundup

Fighting back

The reckoning

Crimes of the past 1

Crimes of the past 2

Sex-crime panic: legacy of a troubled past

Sex-crime panic

Sex-crime panic timeline.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Lambda Literary Awards - LGBT Studies, Winner, 2003

Other Format:

Online version: Miller, Neil, 1945- Sex-crime panic.

ISBN:

1555836593

9781555836597

OCLC:

47844729

Publisher Number:

99810116410