UNERASING LGBTQ HISTORY AND IDENTITIES PODCAST SEASON 4 EPISODE 3

Published March 27, 2024

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TRANSCRIPT

Deb Fowler: Hello, and welcome to UnErasing LGBTQ History and Identities — A Podcast. I’m Deb Fowler, co-founder of History UnErased. 

For this Deep Dive and Backstory episode, we have an important note on language: In our attempt to find a common language that is conceptual and applicable across the historical narrative, before the well-recognized acronym of today's world, we are using the word 'queer' for the people whose lives began - and ended - before the 21st Century. 

Now, about this episode: You are about to meet a few people who lived in the White House as members of a First Family… they also happened to be queer. Our host, Kathleen Barker, will prompt you to consider today's language as you are listening.

Take it away, Kathleen! 

Kathleen Barker: In the 21st century, the United States finally saw an out gay candidate run for President. He is an engaging, well-spoken man, and his campaign slogan played on the fact that he wasn't a particularly well-known politician, at least not yet. Although he didn't win his party's nomination, his presidential run marked an important moment in history. Are you picturing Democrat Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana? Because the candidate I'm talking about is actually Fred Karger, a political consultant, gay rights activist, and former actor from California. Karger announced his candidacy for President of the United States on March 23, 2011, and he ran on the Republican ticket. Although Karger did not participate in any debates during his campaigning, he did appear on the primary or caucus ballot in six states: Michigan, Iowa, New Hampshire, Maryland, California, Utah, and in Puerto Rico. During Buttigieg’s run for President in 2020, news media outlets often touted him as the first gay candidate, completely erasing Karger from the narrative. If we take a look at First Families throughout history, however, we can find several examples whose relationships have been erased or misrepresented in history.

Let’s begin with an individual who many scholars suspect might actually be the United States’ first queer president: James Buchanan. Buchanan had a long career as a lawyer and public servant before he ascended to the Presidency. After growing up in Pennsylvania and graduating from Dickinson College, Buchanan studied law. By 1814, he had been elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, winning election to the US House of Representatives in 1820. He would go on to serve in the U.S. Congress, as minister to Russia and later to Great Britain, and as Secretary of State under his presidential predecessor James K. Polk. Buchanan himself was elected President in 1856. 

It was during his time in Washington that Buchanan developed a relationship with William Rufus Devane King, a politician and diplomat who served as a US Representative from North Carolina and later as a US Senator from Alabama. Like Buchanan, he had a long and distinguished political career. Between the House and the Senate, King served in Congress for 28 years before his appointment as Minister to France in 1844. King was elected 13th Vice President of the United States in 1852, a position he held until he unfortunately died of tuberculosis in 1853, just about 6 weeks after he was sworn in. 

While serving in Washington, Buchanan and King lived together in a boarding house–or mess--for 10 years, from 1834 until King’s departure for France in 1844. Boarding houses were common accommodations for politicians in the nineteenth-century. They served as temporary homes for congressmen and senators who only worked in Washington a few months of the year. They functioned as a home-away-from home, but also as spaces where politics could be negotiated and political alliances forged. At first, King and Buchanan lived with two other bachelors in a shared mess, but over time, as their messmates left Congress or got married, the mess was eventually reduced to just two members: Buchanan and King. 

King called their relationship a "communion," and the pair often attended social events together. Others within their political and social circles noticed how close the men had become.  By 1844, the more conservative Whig press was noting their connection, often in coded language meant to imply an intimate relationship. The Philadelphia North American, for example, referred to King as Buchanan's ”alter ego.” The National Intelligencer called them the “Orestes and Pylades of the Senate,” a reference to intimate male friends and lovers from Greek mythology. President Andrew Jackson even jokingly called them "Miss Nancy" and "Aunt Fancy," using terms from the 19th century that suggested effeminate behavior. Historians have pointed out that Buchanan seemed to pick up on some of King's mannerisms and shared his romanticized view of southern culture. Both men also shared the belief that the future success of the Democratic party was tied to the continuance of a slave-driven economy in the South. While King derided talk of secession in the 1850s, Buchanan, in the guise of “upholding up the Constitution,” was unwilling to stop Southern states from seceding from the Union while he was President in the winter of 1860-1861. 

Unfortunately, only about 60 personal letters between the two still survive, all of them from King to Buchanan. There is, however, one letter from Buchannan, written to a mutual friend, Cornelia van Ness Roosevelt, on May 13, 1884: 

Danny Roberts as James Buchanan: “I am now ‘solitary and alone,’ having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection.”

KB: So … what do you think about Buchanan and King? Was theirs an intimate friendship, a political alliance, or a romance? Why can’t it be all three? How does your understanding of the past – and the history of the presidency – change by framing James Buchanan as our nation’s first (and… insert the word you are thinking!) president?

A few decades later, another bachelor President, Grover Cleveland brought his unmarried sister, Rose Cleveland, to the White House when he was elected for his first term in 1885. Rose, also known as Libby, served as the first lady for the first 15 months of her brother’s term (until he married Frances Folsom in 1886). Thus Rose became the first (insert the word you are thinking!) first lady in U.S. history!

Libby Cleveland actually had quite an accomplished resume outside of her duties as First Lady. She was well-educated, and was allegedly so bored by tedious White House receptions and public functions that she conjugated Greek and Latin verbs in her head to pass the time. She published several books during–and after–her time in the White House, including literary studies, novels, short stories, and non-fiction. She often used her writing to promote progressive causes, such as in her essay concerning women’s suffrage called "Woman in the Home," published in The Chautauquan magazine in 1886. The following year, Cleveland published a short romance story in the widely circulated Godey’s Lady’s Book that criticized the “hideous deformities” experienced by women forced to endure corsets and other fashion trends of the late nineteenth century. 

In 1890, Cleveland published an essay called “My Florida,” a piece intended to entice visitors to the state. She herself had vacationed in Florida in 1889-1890, during which time she met a young widow who would become very dear to her: Evalngeline Simspon. Simpson and Cleveland enjoyed an instant connection, which would last for decades. Their correspondence began after Cleveland left Florida, and early letters indicate a passionate and loving relationship. Unfortunately, Evangeline’s letters to Rose no longer survive, but we do have Rose’s letters, which are filled with wonderful, loving language, such as this early letter dated April 23, 1890. Rose was writing to Evangeline from Luray, Virginia:

Triana Wilson as Rose Libby Cleveland: my eve! ah how I love you! It paralyzes me. I've been going over and over your written words until the full message of some of them has made me weary with emotion this I must try and Escape for your sake but let me cry and Shout it. oh eve, eve, surely you cannot realize what you are to me. what you must be. yes, I dare it, now, I will not longer fear to claim you  You're Mine by every sign in Earth and heaven, by every sign and Soul and Spirit and body and you cannot Escape me. you must bear me all the way, eve class me in my despair of any other and give me every joy and all hope this is yours to do.…Oh eve, I tremble at the thought of you you were ever before me, ever, ever, and my whole being leans out to you.

KB: The relationship continued until 1896, when Evangeline unexpectedly married her second husband, Henry Benjamin Whipple, after meeting him while vacationing in Florida. Whipple was the first Episcopal bishop of Minnesota, and Evangline took Whipple’s last name and moved with him to Faribault, Minnesota, where she embarked on a number of humanitarian projects, including the construction of the St. Mary's School for Girls. The two continued to exchange letters, although notes had lost their tone of intimate affection. Cleveland was unhappy with Whipple’s decision, but was resigned to it, as she explained in this letter written before Evalgeline’s marriage on October 22, 1896.

TW: I have been trying to find just the right thing to say but nothing comes. the right word will not be spoken. a frightful storm may just come and in the greatest hurry I have got to the station an hour before the time less if I waited I could not come at all…..what is yet to come for us I cannot see. but I think you will need me yet in a future perhaps I do not think you need me now but I plead that you will consider what I said this morning. I will give up all to you if you will try once more to be satisfied with me. could you not take 6 months for that experiment? we would go away from everyone.

I wish for your happiness and good. think what I said this morning, and did not decide hastily that there is only this one way. remember our Florida - if after all there is but this one way for you if you will do this thing then I will not stand in the way. this means that I will study only for your comfort and pleasure and happiness this will mean to take myself out of your way for a while at least and to reappear only when I can act gracefully and well in my new role.

KB: Three weeks after the Whipple wedding, Rose sailed to Europe with a female friend, Evelyn Ames Hall. The two spent three years visiting sites from Florence and Naples to Turkey and Egypt before returning to the United States in 1899.  Despite the sadness of losing Evangeline to Bishop Whipple, Cleveland’s letters were careful to always wish Evangeline and her family well, for example when she wrote on January 22, 1897, from Vienna,

TW: “when you receive this you will be plunging into those ecclesiastical vortices which await you, as You Follow the bishop in his appointment. May every day be fair and also for your good and happiness! always always with love, rose” 

KB: In 1901 Bishop Whipple passed away, paving the way for Evangeline and Rose to come together again. The pair lived separately for the next nine years, visiting each other for extended periods of time but maintaining homes in separate states. In 1910, they moved to Italy to take care of Evangeline's brother. Upon his death in 1912, Cleveland and Whipple settled down together in the Tuscan village of Bagni di Lucca. Both women volunteered for the Red Cross during WWI, and Rose died on November 22, 1918, after contracting the flu. In 1928, Whipple published A Famous Corner of Tuscany, a history of their adopted home in Italy, and dedicated the book to Cleveland. Whipple lived until 1930, and she and Cleveland are buried next to each other in Bagni di Lucca’s graveyard under identical gravestones: Cleveland’s notes that she was “Author and Philanthropist,” and Whipple’s gravestone notes that she was “Devoted to All Good Works, Beloved by All Her Friends.” 

That brings us to another first family of the 20th century, and a First Lady who likely would have been hosting her own podcast were she alive today. I’m talking, of course, about Eleanor Roosevelt. Anna Eleanor Roosevelt hailed from a prominent political family, though her upbringing was not without adversity. Orphaned and raised by a critical grandmother, Eleanor would suffer from low self-esteem throughout much of her young life. In 1905, she wed her distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt (or FDR), escorted down the aisle by another famous Roosevelt: President Theodore Roosevelt, who was her uncle. Despite discovering her husband's affair with his secretary in 1918, Eleanor continued her marriage, pursuing an independent life at Val-Kill, a cooperative she co-founded in Hyde Park, New York, just a few miles from the Roosevelt summer retreat. 

It was actually her husband who suggested that Eleanor and her friends build a cottage that they could visit year-round. FDR gave them lifetime use of several acres of the Hyde Park estate, and Elearnor used the space to create what would become a sanctuary not just for herself, but for other queer women as well. Eleanor fostered relationships with many women who were active in progressive politics, among them were Nancy Cook and Marion Dickerman, as well as Molly Dewson and Polly Porter, and Esther Lape and Elizabeth Read. These women contributed to the vitality of Val-Kill, and played a crucial role in Eleanor’s political growth and activism. 

Although Eleanor wasn’t all that excited about her husband's 1928 bid for the governorship of New York, it was during the gubernatorial campaign that Eleanor would meet her lifelong friend and companion, Lorena Hickok, in 1928. Then a journalist with the Associated Press, Hickok, or “Hick” as she was affectionately called by Roosevelt, was assigned to cover FDR’s campaign. Over time, the professional relationship between Eleanor and Hick evolved into something much more. Hickok was a pioneering journalist, and the first woman to have a byline in the New York Times. By 1932, she was probably the best-known female journalist in the United States, praised for her incisive reporting style and commitment to social justice issues. She used her platform as a journalist to advocate for civil rights, women's rights, and labor rights, just as Eleanor Roosevelt would do through her speeches and her newspaper column, My Day, which ran from 1936-1962. It’s no wonder these two amazing women were attracted to one another!

Eleanor actually gave her very first interview as First Lady of the United States to Hick, on March 4, 1933 - the day FDR was inaugurated as President. Unfortunately, the couple were soon separated as Lorena returned to her job in New York. The first lady would go on to write Hick more than 2,300 letters beginning in 1933 and ending with Roosevelt's death in 1962. The letters reveal a passionate relationship in the early years of their friendship and the deep connection that lasted Eleanor Roosevelt's lifetime. Eleanor made the special nature of their relationship clear early on, in this letter to Hick, dated March 10, 1933:

Leslie Anne Frye-Thomas as Eleanor Roosevelt: Hey darling, the air mail, special delivery letter has never come, but the next one came this morning and my dear I was glad. remember one thing always, no one is just what you are to me. I'd rather be writing this minute than anything else, and yet I love many other people, and some often can do things for me probably better than you could, but I've never enjoyed being with anyone the way I enjoy being with you. 

KB: Their relationship eventually made it difficult for Lorena to remain objective, however, so Lorena resigned from the Associated Press. She became the Chief Investigator for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, a program that sent money to individual states in order to alleviate unemployment by creating new unskilled jobs in local and state government. Lorena traveled the country writing reports and providing first-hand accounts of which relief programs were working, and which were not. Her poignant portraits of suffering were so compelling, that FDR read them out loud at Cabinet meetings. One of Lorena’s most interesting – and still relevant –  findings? That the Great Depression wasn’t the sole cause of poverty across America. She reported that prior to 1929, there were 40 million Americans who suffered from chronic poverty, and the Depression only made things worse. You can likely imagine the populations who might fit into this category in the 1930s (and perhaps even today): rural inhabitants, older Americans, and virtually all non-white Americans. 

Of course, this job kept Eleanor and Hick separated for weeks at a time. In this letter from Minnesota, dated December 5, 1933, Hick cannot hide her excitement at her upcoming reunion with Eleanor. 

Dinah Mack as Hick: Tonight it's bemidji, a way up in the timber country, not a bad hotel, and one day nearer to you only eight more days. 24 hours from now it will be only seven more just a week! I've been trying today to bring back your face to remember just how you look funny how even in the dearest face will fade away in time most clearly I remember your eyes with a kind of teasing smile in them and the feeling of that soft spot just Northeast of the corner of your mouth against my lips. I wonder what we'll do when we meet what we'll say. well I'm rather proud of us aren't you I think we've done rather well. 

Darling, I've been thinking about you so much today what a swell person you are to back me up the way you do on this job! we do do things together, don't we? and it's fun, even though the fact that we both have work to do Keeps Us apart. good night dear one. I want to put my arms around you and kiss you at the corner of your mouth. and in a little more than a week now I shall. 

KB: Eleanor returned these sentiments in her letters to Hick, as in this one, dated February 12, 1934. 

LFT: I love you dear one deeply and Tenderly and it is going to be a joy to be together again, just a week now. I can't tell you how precious every minute with you seems both in retrospect and in prospect. I look at you long as I write the photograph has an expression I love soft and a little Whimsical but then I adore every expression. bless you darling. and will you be my valentine? 

KB: By the late 1930s, the most intense period of their relationship seems to have ended. The First Lady was busy with writing, speaking, press conferences, and radio broadcasts. After resigning from FERA due to health reasons, Lorena struggled to find a satisfying occupation while facing health and financial worries. The two women were always there for one another, especially in times of crisis, such as FDR’s death in 1945. Here is Eleanor writing to Hick from Warm Springs, Georgia, on April 16, 1945, just 4 days after FDR’s passing: 

LFT: hick dearest, I love hearing your voice at Warm Springs and I felt you near and thought everyday. when he's busy weeks are over, the business settled and the children all busy with their own lives again you will come and be with me a while, won't you? Be sure to go to the apartment When You Wish as I'll be there this Saturday and Sunday and there is room anyway. I'm too weary to do more than say I love you. 

These are just three examples of queer members of the First Family in history. Were there others? Probably! But history has, sadly, effectively erased - until now! -  individuals who were queer – in all senses of the word. As historians, archivists, and activists recover these stories, we add more evidence to the exciting and truly diverse history of the United States. As Eleanor wrote in a letter to Lorena (Hick) on February 4, 1934,  “Love is a queer thing, it hurts but it gives one so much more in return.”

From US Presidents, First Ladies, and candidates for president, we can advance the ideals of American democracy by unerasing our shared, queer-inclusive history. 

DF: Kathleen Barker is History UnErased’s program director and is a library and information specialist and public historian with more than 20 years of experience as a museum and library educator. 

This podcast is funded by the New York City Council. It was developed by History UnErased and produced and edited by Dinah Mack, our youth equity program director and podcaster - and also, in this episode, the voice of Hick! And special thanks to our colleagues Danny Roberts (the voice of James Buchanan), Triana Wilson (the voice of Rose Libby Cleveland), and Leslie Anne Frye-Thomas (the voice of Eleanor Roosevelt).

Our theme music is “1986” by BrothaD via Tribe of Noise.

Please rate this podcast and share!  

I’m Deb Fowler. Thanks for listening. 

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