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“There was something very peculiar about Doc…”: Deciphering Queer Intimacy in Representations of Doc Holliday
Tankard, Alex
Tankard, Alex
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2014-12-08
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Abstract
This essay discusses representations of male intimacy in life-writing about consumptive gunfighter John Henry “Doc” Holliday (1851-1887). I argue that twentieth-century commentators rarely appreciated the historical specificity of Holliday’s friendships in a frontier culture that not only normalized but actively celebrated same-sex intimacy. Indeed, Holliday lived on the frayed edges of known nineteenth-century socio-sexual norms, and his interactions with other men were further complicated by his vicious reputation and his disability. His short life and eventful afterlife exposes the gaps in available evidence – and the flaws in our ability to interpret it.
Yet something may still be gleaned from the early newspaper accounts of Holliday. Having argued that there is insufficient evidence to justify positioning him within modern categories of hetero/homosexuality, I analyze the language used in pre-1900 descriptions of first-hand encounters with Holliday to illuminate the consumptive gunfighter’s experience of intimacy, if not its meaning.
Citation
Tankard, A. (2014).“There was something very peculiar about Doc…”: Deciphering Queer Intimacy in Representations of Doc Holliday. American Nineteenth-Century History.
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Journal
American Nineteenth-Century History
Research Unit
DOI
10.1080/14664658.2014.971481
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PubMed Central ID
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Article
Language
en
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This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in American Nineteenth-Century History on 8-12-14, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14664658.2014.971481
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ISSN
1466-4658
EISSN
1743-7903