Martin Duberman Biography

American playwright and historian, born in New York City, educated at Yale. He began his career as an actor and playwright; many of his plays were Off-Broadway productions, such as In White America (1963). His other dramatic works include Male Armor: Selected Plays 1968–1974 (1975), Visions of Kerouac (1977), and Mother Earth: An Epic Play on the Life of Emma Goldman (1991). Much of his early scholarly work, notably Charles Francis Adams, 1807–1886 (1960) and The Antislavery Vanguard: New Essays on the Abolitionists (1965), reconsiders the history of the abolitionist movement in America. Black Mountain: An Exploration in Community (1972) is a seminal work on the development of post-modern American culture. More recently he has become known for his work in gay historiography. About Time: Exploring the Gay Past (1986) and Hidden From History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past (1989; co-edited with Martha Vicinius and George Chauncey, Jr) are collections of documents presenting the history of homosexuals and homosexuality in America; Cures: A Gay Man's Odyssey (1991) and Midlife Queer (1996) are autobiographical works; and Stonewall (1993) is an oral history of the liberation movement. Duberman has taught at Princeton, Yale, and the City University of New York, among other universities, and became Executive Director for the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies.