An Angel in Sodom Henry Gerber and the Birth of the Gay Rights Movement

2023 Lambda Literary Award Finalist in Gay Memoir/Biography

"Makes the case that we should consider Gerber not an asterisk, but a forefather of the gay-rights movement—one who would influence later generations of activists."—The Atlantic 

Born in 1892 in Germany, Henry Gerber was expelled from school as a boy and lost several jobs as a young man because of his homosexual activities. He emigrated to the United States and enlisted in the army for employment. After his release, he explored Chicago’s gay subculture: cruising Bughouse Square, getting arrested for “disorderly conduct,” and falling in love. He was institutionalized for being gay, branded an “enemy alien” at the end of World War I, and given a choice: to rejoin the army or be imprisoned in a federal penitentiary.

Gerber re-enlisted and was sent to Germany in 1920. In Berlin, he discovered a vibrant gay rights movement, which made him vow to advocate for the rights of gay men at home. He founded the Society for Human Rights, the first legally recognized US gay-rights organization, on December 10, 1924.

When police caught wind of it, he and two members were arrested. He lost his job, went to court three times, and went bankrupt. Released, he moved to New York, disheartened.

Later in life, he joined the DC chapter of the Mattachine Society, a gay-rights advocacy group founded by Harry Hay who had heard of Gerber’s group, leading him to found Mattachine. 

An Angel in Sodom is the first and long overdue biography of the founder of the first US gay rights organization.

Jim Elledge, award-winning author of The Boys of Fairy Town, Henry Darger, Throwaway Boy, and over twenty other titles, has won two Lambda Literary Awards. The Boys of Fairy Town was also a finalist for a Lammy, received a starred review in Booklist, and was included in ALA’s Over the Rainbow Book List.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introductory Note
Part I. Chicago
1. I had no idea that I was a homosexual
2. I had always bitterly felt the injustice
3. to promote and protect
4. infecting God’s own country
Part II. New York
5. Which way do YOU take it, and for how much?
6. Escape from the Bughouse of this fairytale kultur!
7. for Christ’s sake, leave me out of it
8. Henry’s epistles to the perverts
9. I nearly fell out of my chair!
Part III. Washington, DC
10. What homosexual in his right mind wants to marry or to be “cured”?
11. notorious as a homosexual paradise
12. this fascist world
13. so much poppycock
14. Everyone is after their scalp
15. As if we did not know!
16. born 1000 years too soon, or 1000 years too late
Notes
Bibliography
Index