Join the Sutro Library for a live author talk on Wendy Rouse's book Public Faces, Secret Lives on Tuesday, June 18th at 4 pm! 

The women’s suffrage movement was very queer. But, the queer history of the campaign for the vote has been largely obscured. Historian Wendy Rouse has attempted to recover some of this lost queer history by piecing together clues from the personal diaries, letters, and the private papers of the suffragists. This investigation has helped reveal the important role of queerness and queer suffragists in the fight for the vote.

Wendy L. Rouse is Professor of History at San Jose State University. Her scholarly research focuses on the history of women, gender, and sexuality during the Progressive Era. Rouse’s most recent work, Public Faces, Secret Lives: The Queer History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement, explores the ways that suffragists challenged norms of gender and sexuality in their era. Rouse is also the author of Children of Chinatown: Growing Up Chinese American in San Francisco, 1880-1920 and Her Own Hero: The Origins of the Women’s Self-Defense Movement. Learn more at wendylrouse.com.