Books like Love for Sale — picked by fans

When I finished my second book, which followed the life course of women in the U.S. in the early 20th century, I was left with questions and some confusion about women’s sexuality in the period. Books and magazine articles at the time obsessively discussed young women and their sexual freedom. But young women’s journals, and the psychological literature showed that publicly, young women performed a heterosexual script, but privately, and emotionally, they often remained far more comfortable with other girls and young women. Slowly it became clear that the real sexual revolution of the 20th century was the triumph of heterosexual relations and norms during the 1920s until the 1940s. 

When I finished my second book, which followed the life course of women in the U.S. in the early 20th century, I was left with questions and some confusion about women’s sexuality in the period. Books and magazine articles at the time obsessively discussed young women and their sexual freedom. But young women’s journals, and the psychological literature showed that publicly, young women performed a heterosexual script, but privately, and emotionally, they often remained far more comfortable with other girls and young women. Slowly it became clear that the real sexual revolution of the 20th century was the triumph of heterosexual relations and norms during the 1920s until the 1940s. 

When I finished my second book, which followed the life course of women in the U.S. in the early 20th century, I was left with questions and some confusion about women’s sexuality in the period. Books and magazine articles at the time obsessively discussed young women and their sexual freedom. But young women’s journals, and the psychological literature showed that publicly, young women performed a heterosexual script, but privately, and emotionally, they often remained far more comfortable with other girls and young women. Slowly it became clear that the real sexual revolution of the 20th century was the triumph of heterosexual relations and norms during the 1920s until the 1940s. 

In 2011, I was a newly minted college professor who was trying to support my students’ interests (Greek life) in hopes that they would return the favor and support mine (medieval literature). Never in a million years would I have guessed that accepting an invitation to attend a Greek event on campus would snowball into receiving a bid to join a National Panhellenic Conference sorority and serve as its faculty advisor. Somewhere along the way, I realized that my perspective uniquely positioned me to shed new light on the longstanding controversies plaguing these organizations and provide a new lens through which to view their impact not only on campus culture but society at large. 

People sometimes say that the purpose of anthropology is to make the familiar strange and the strange familiar. I think the same about history. As these books demonstrate, apparently normal early Americans have complex and unique inner lives, while those who seem bizarre, remote, or august, in fact, have wholly relatable human experiences. I usually write about complicated systems, like insurance and law. But I cherish these books about outcasts, oddballs, and one-of-a-kinds. They remind me that our society comprises individuals whose life experiences, worldviews, and decisions are unique—and ultimately unpredictable. Whenever I write, I try to remember that.

I’ve always been fascinated by how we remember the past and why some things get written into histories and other things don’t. I realized that Nothing happens all the time but no one has thought to ask how we remember it. Once I started looking for how Nothing was being remembered, I found it all around me. Books I read as a kid, movies I’d seen, songs I’d heard – these were my sources. So when I started working, Nothing got done (yes, I love puns!).

Over my twenty years as a historian, the common thread in my work is the gap between how people are supposed to behave and how they actually do behave. From interracial sexual relationships in the segregated South, to rum smuggling from Cuba during Prohibition, to abortion on college campuses before Roe, I'm interested in how people work around rules they don’t like. And rules about sex are some of the most ignored rules of all. Reading about strange beliefs and common desires connect us to our ancestors. Being a professor of history at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama allows me to research bad behavior in the past to my heart’s content.

I have long been drawn to how people of the past think about their sexual identities, attractions, and behaviors. I conducted my PhD research at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, where I spent many happy hours reading letters and books voicing people’s unfiltered desires for sexual arousal, connection, and expression. I found the punched-card machines that Alfred Kinsey used to organize data from his personal interviews oddly compelling, and that interest developed into a long-term engagement with the intersection of gender and sexuality with science and technology. I share my fascination with readers through my books on Kinsey, machines used in sex research, contraception, and fertility technology.

I’m Allison Lange, and I’m a historian who writes, gives talks, teaches, and curates exhibitions. For the 19th Amendment centennial, I served as Historian for the United States Congress’s Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission. I am also creating the first filmed series on American women’s history for Wondrium (formerly The Great Courses). My first book, Picturing Political Power: Images in the Women’s Suffrage Movement focuses on the ways that women’s voting rights activists and their opponents used images to define gender and power. My next book situates current iconic pictures within the context of historical ones to demonstrate that today’s visual debates about gender and politics are shaped by those of the past.

I’m interested in everything – which is a problem, because there’s not time for everything. So how do you find the best of the world and your own place in it? Understanding your motivations is a good place to start, hence The Molecule of More. The rest comes from exploring as much as you can, and that begins with understanding the scope of what’s out there: ideas, attitudes, and cultures. The greatest joy in my life comes from the jaw-dropping realization that the world is so full of potential and wonder. These books are a guide to some of the best of it, and some of the breadth of it.