Queer History 123: Natalie Clifford Barney

How one American heiress defied convention to build the 20th century's most influential women's salon

In an era when women were expected to shut the hell up and find a husband, Natalie Clifford Barney decided instead to create a literary revolution from her garden in Paris. For over 60 years, this American-born heiress hosted a salon that became the epicenter of feminist and lesbian culture—a place where brilliant women could showcase their work without men's permission or approval. Barney didn't just live openly as a lesbian in the early 1900s; she fucking celebrated it, declaring "I am a lesbian. One need not hide it, nor boast of it, though I see no reason for being ashamed of it.

While male-dominated literary histories often reduce her to a footnote or a scandalous anecdote, the truth is that Barney influenced modern literature as profoundly as any of her famous male contemporaries. Her salon at 20 rue Jacob welcomed everyone from T.S. Eliot and F. Scott Fitzgerald to Gertrude Stein and Djuna Barnes, but it was most revolutionary for creating a space where women's genius could flou…