Understanding Homosexuality in Postwar Kansas

Abstract

In U.S A. Confidential, a sensationalist book of immoral criminal activities published in 1952, the authors stated that "when Kansas does anything, it means the rest of the country did it years ago."¹ This statement seems to apply to the way authorities and the general population viewed homosexuality in postwar Kansas, which was similar to the way homosexuality was viewed in the bigger cities of the United States at an earlier time of the century, and at odds with some of the changes that were occurring in other parts of the country.