On the last day of LGBT History Month 2011, OutHistory.org is publishing a biography and original research about a woman who, on her U.S. naturalization application, called herself “Ruth Peter Worth”.
Worth’s inclusion of the male name “Peter” on her U.S. “Certificate of Naturalization” was an act of resistance that asserted the naturalness and goodness of her lesbian desire and identity. Historian Jonathan Ned Katz makes that point in Worth’s biography on OutHistory.
This biography of Worth includes a large copy of her “Certificate of Naturalization” and a late photograph of Worth, born in Germany, in a Jewish family, who was a survivor of the Holocaust, a U.S. immigrant, a home owner in Cherry Grove, Fire Island, and a lesbian who went public with her story at age 81.
The OutHistory.org biography is titled: Ruth Peter Worth (April 10, 1915 – February 7, 1997) and may be accessed at:
www.outhistory.org/wiki/Ruth_Peter_Worth_(April_10,_1915_-_February_7,_1997)