Introduction: Identities, values, and inquiries : a personal history -- Separatism as strategy : female institution building and American feminism, 1870-1930 -- Separatism revisited : women's institutions, social reform, and the career of Miriam Van Waters -- Women's networks and women's loyalties : reflections on a tenure case -- Small group pedagogy : consciousness raising in conservative times -- No turning back : the historical resilience of feminism -- The historical construction of homosexuality in the United States -- Uncontrolled desires : the response to the sexual psychopath, 1920-1960 -- The prison lesbian : race, class, and the construction of the aggressive female homosexual, 1915-1965 -- The burning of letters continues : elusive identities and the historical construction of sexuality -- When historical interpretation meets legal advocacy : abortion, sodomy, and same-sex marriage.