by Liz Granger
Standing in front of the counter, Jeanette Howard Foster paid for the lesbian pulp fiction she just purchased. When the bookstore employee asked her if she would like a bag, she said, 'No, I am a librarian! I am not embarrassed to be seen carrying any book.'
In February 1957, Foster published Sex Variant Women in Literature: a Historical and Quantitative Study, a book about lesbian references in literature. An interesting, avant-garde woman, Foster herself is now the subject of a biography by Joanne Passet—Sex Variant Woman: The Life of Jeannette Howard Foster.
Passet read from her biography of Foster Aug. 8 at Women and Children First Bookstore, 5233 N. Clark. Among those in the audience was Marie J. Kuda, a historian who wrote an article about Passet's book in this newspaper that was published in Windy City Times July 23. Kuda came bearing gifts: a posthumous award marking Foster's induction into Chicago's Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 1998; and a large piece of butcher paper from 1974 that bears marker-scrawled congratulations from many well-known individuals after Foster was published in a book of poetry.
In a lovely work that includes samples of Foster's hard-to-find poetry, Passet tells the life story of a lesbian who was ahead of her time. Foster was Alfred Kinsey's first librarian in the 1930s, before he was a household name. An aside: Passet says that Kinsey micromanaged and pursued Foster, believing that 'a sympathetic laying-on of hands might cure her of her lesbianism.' Foster said she fell in love for the first time at four years old, with a female Sunday School teacher.
Although many were uncomfortable with Foster's love of women, nobody explicitly told her that lesbianism was an abomination of Christian values. Additionally, Foster's mother encouraged her daughters to attend college. Foster grew up to earn multiple college degrees. Foster became a voracious reader who lived in 17 states. Passet says that Foster 'would go to whatever state she needed for the books.' Photo of Passet by Tracy Baim