Only in the Big City: Isolation, Rurality, and Leisure in Lesbian Chicago, 1971-1996

This article explores lesbians’ perspective on urban living in Chicago from 1971 to 1996. Throughout the pages of local, feminist periodicals, Chicago lesbians expressed feelings of invisibility and isolation distinctly tied to city life. As women navigated these hardships, they imagined alternative lifestyles in rural space as solutions. In the 1990s, a Chicago-based organization known as GALS, or the Great Angling Lesbian Society, facilitated queer women’s relationship to rural space beyond imagined boundaries, taking women into natural spaces beyond the city, to fish, camp, and interact with the natural world. Whether in utopian imaginations or leisure activities like GALS, queer women within city limits utilized rural space as an escape from the pressures and isolation of urban living. Through an emphasis on the Midwest, lesbian experience, and the vitality of queer recreation, this study bridges a long-standing academic divide between urban and rural space, reconceptualizing the connections between the two.