Reading about 'inverts,' Steward recognized himself, accepted it and decided to go from there.Īfter high school Steward moved to Columbus where he attended Ohio State University. An avid reader, it was around this time that Steward stole a copy of Havelock Ellis' Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume II: Sexual Inversion from the library. He felt no guilt or shame for his deeds and, in fact, considered it honorable to bring pleasure to so many. In puberty Steward started giving blow jobs to the boys of Woodfield as well as a few tenants at the rooming house. His mother died when he was very young and his father was a drug addicted Sunday school teacher unable to properly care for Steward or his sister. Upon reading Secret Historian, it's clear that even if Steward wasn't the most prolific or consistent of his contemporaries, he may well have been the most book-worthy.īorn in Woodfield, Ohio, in 1909, Steward was raised in a boarding house by his three spinster aunts. However, Spring's new biography may change all that, revealing that Steward's incredible contribution may have been his forthright documentation of gay sexual behavior in an era typically associated with guilt, repression, and silence. Indeed it may have been his proximity to these giants that eclipsed his own fame.

He's been seen as a curio, a character, and a good storyteller who met and befriended a lot of famous people. He never really fulfilled his early literary promise.

Steward has never been given his due in the annals of gay literature and with good reason. It's quite simply the gay history book of the year not only for the fascinating central figure of Steward and Spring's painstaking research, but also for its expert use of Steward's life as a means of revealing the larger reality of gay life in the pre-Stonewall era. Justin Spring's new biography of Samuel Steward, Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade' ( Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2010 ) is a smart, juicy and absolutely riveting read. This article shared 4412 times since Wed Sep 29, 2010īy Justin Spring $32.50 Farrar Straus and Giroux 496 pages

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