LGBTQ History

Robert Allerton, once called the "richest bachelor in Chicago," lived with a man 26 years younger than him for the last four decades of his life before legally adopting him. His life with John Gregg reveals a sense of the early twentieth century and complicates ideas of couplehood.

Henry Blake Fuller isn't necessarily a well-known name in literature. But his book Bertram Cope's Year is considered by many to be one of the first American novels to feature gay characters. Fuller also played a big role in making social realism the literary style of Chicago.