Professor
My research interests focus on the crucial role that gender and sexuality have played in American politics since World War II.
My first book, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government, chronicles how McCarthy era hysteria over national security impacted sexual minority communities and introduced “family values” into American politics. It chronicles how gays and lesbians were considered threats to national security during the cold war and how this targeting by the federal government politicized the community, helping to empower a new civil rights movement for LGBT Americans. Winner of three national book awards, The Lavender Scare became the basis for a documentary film that was broadcast nationwide on PBS. Watch The Lavender Scare film trailer here.
My most recent book, Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement, explores the relationship between commerce and politics in the development of an LGBTQ community in the U.S. It shows how an extensive gay consumer culture network of magazine publishers, mail order businesses, book clubs, and pen pal services developed much earlier than previously believed, well before Stonewall. It highlights how these commercial enterprises played a crucial role in the rise of a national gay consciousness and won important First Amendment victories against the U.S. Post Office, which waged a relentless war to shut them down. Shortlisted for the PROSE Award in U.S. History, the Hagley Prize in Business History, and the Randy Shilts Award in gay studies, Buying Gay won the Smithsonian's award for scholarship on the significance of the postal service in American life.
A nationally recognized authority on LGBT history, I have been interviewed on CNN, PBS, and CBS Sunday Morning and my writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Huffington Post, and Foreign Policy. I’ve served as a consultant to the National Park Service in its survey of LGBTQ sites of historical significance and contributed to legal briefs documenting a history of LGBTQ discrimination in order to expand federal civil rights protections. You can find me on Twitter @GayHistoryProf.
×
About David K. Johnson
My research interests focus on the crucial role that gender and sexuality have played in American politics since World War II.
My first book, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government, chronicles how McCarthy era hysteria over national security impacted sexual minority communities and introduced “family values” into American politics. It chronicles how gays and lesbians were considered threats to national security during the cold war and how this targeting by the federal government politicized the community, helping to empower a new civil rights movement for LGBT Americans. Winner of three national book awards, The Lavender Scare became the basis for a documentary film that was broadcast nationwide on PBS. Watch The Lavender Scare film trailer here.
My most recent book, Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement, explores the relationship between commerce and politics in the development of an LGBTQ community in the U.S. It shows how an extensive gay consumer culture network of magazine publishers, mail order businesses, book clubs, and pen pal services developed much earlier than previously believed, well before Stonewall. It highlights how these commercial enterprises played a crucial role in the rise of a national gay consciousness and won important First Amendment victories against the U.S. Post Office, which waged a relentless war to shut them down. Shortlisted for the PROSE Award in U.S. History, the Hagley Prize in Business History, and the Randy Shilts Award in gay studies, Buying Gay won the Smithsonian's award for scholarship on the significance of the postal service in American life.
A nationally recognized authority on LGBT history, I have been interviewed on CNN, PBS, and CBS Sunday Morning and my writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Huffington Post, and Foreign Policy. I’ve served as a consultant to the National Park Service in its survey of LGBTQ sites of historical significance and contributed to legal briefs documenting a history of LGBTQ discrimination in order to expand federal civil rights protections. You can find me on Twitter @GayHistoryProf.
| Present | Professor, University of South Florida | |
|
|
||
Disciplines
Research Interests
Professional Service and Affiliations
| 2015 - 2017 | Member, Diversity Committee, College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Florida | 2012 - 2014 | Member, Member, Sabbatical Committee, University of South Florida | 2006 - 2013 | Member, President’s Committee on Issues of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, USF | 2011 | Member, Organization of Historians (OAH), LGBT Task Force | 2007 | Member, Advisory Planning Committee for Antioch University’s Sexuality and Identity Institute |
Honors and Awards
- Outstanding Faculty Award, University of South Florida, 2015
- Pride Faculty Award for contributions to the LGBT Community, President’s Advisory Committee on Issues of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, University of South Florida, 2011
- Outstanding Research Achievement Award, University of South Florida, 2006
- Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction, Publishing Triangle, New York, NY, 2005
- Herbert Hoover Book Award (Best book in U.S. history covering the period 1914-1964)Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association, Iowa, 2005
- Myers Outstanding Book Award, Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights, Boston, 2004
Courses
- Gay and Lesbian US History
- Gender and Sexuality in U.S. History
- Cold War America
- Theory of History
- The 1960s in American Memory
- US. Since 1877
- U.S. Since 1945
| 2000 | Ph.D., Northwestern University | |
|
|
||
| 1987 | M.A., University of Chicago | |
|
|
||
| 1983 | B.A., Georgetown University | |
|
|
||
Links
Contact Information
Office: SOC 263
Phone: (813) 974-2807
Email: