James T. Sears collection

James Thomas Sears was born on August 12, 1951 in Tipton, Indiana. He graduated from Southern Illinois University in 1974 with a B.S. in history, government, and social psychology, and Indiana University with an M.S. in secondary education. In 1976, he got his M.A. in political science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 1984, he received his Ph.D. in curriculum studies and sociology from Indiana University, Bloomington. Sears became a professor at the University of South Carolina (USC), Columbia in 1984, and continued working at USC until 2004. During his time at USC, Sears began his research on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) issues. Several of his books focused specifically on LGBTQ life in the South, including Growing Up Gay in the South: Race, Gender, and Journeys of Spirit (1991), Lonely Hunters: An Oral History of Lesbian and Gay Southern Life, 1948-1968 (1997), and Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones: Queering Space in the Stonewall South (2001). From 2005-2008 Sears worked as a professor at Pennsylvania State University, where he wrote Behind the Mask of the Mattachine: The Hal Call Chronicles and the Early Movement for Homosexual Emancipation (2006). Sears started a real estate consulting and property management firm Sears & Partners in 2005. After leaving Penn State, Sears worked full-time at Sears & Partners as a real estate broker in the Charleston, S.C. area. During this time, Sears published Edwin and John: A Personal History of the American South (2009). This book described the lives of Edwin Peacock (1910-1989) and John Zeigler (1912-2015), a gay couple who owned the independent bookstore, the Book Basement, in Charleston, S.C. The building that housed the Book Basement is now the offices of the College of Charleston Department of Communication.