A Gay White House?
by David Bianco, author of Gay Essentials (Alyson
Publications), a collection of his history columns.
Blanche Wiesen Cook's multi-volume biography of Eleanor Roosevelt and
Rodger
Streitmatter's collection of her passionate correspondence with reporter
Lorena Hickok suggest that at least one former first lady of the United
States had a lesbian relationship. But several 19th-century inhabitants
of
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue may have had queer leanings, too.
One of James Buchanan's (1791-1868) claims to fame is that he was
the United
States' first "bachelor" president. When he was in his 20s, Buchanan
worked
as a lawyer in Lancaster, Pa., where he met and became engaged to a
woman
named Ann Coleman. But Buchanan's fiancee broke off the engagement
suddenly
and died soon after. Buchanan remained unmarried for the rest of his
life.
Buchanan, however, enjoyed a 20-year intimate friendship with another
bachelor, William Rufus de Vane King. The two men met as U.S. senators
in
1834, when King was 57 and Buchanan, 43. They shared quarters in
Washington,
D.C., for many years, and Buchanan called their relationship a
"communion."
King, a cotton planter from Alabama, was the object of derision by some
of
his peers, like Andrew Jackson, who dubbed him "Miss Nancy." Aaron
Brown, a
leading Democrat, called King "Aunt Fancy" and Buchanan's "better half."
In a
private letter, Brown used the feminine pronoun for King. Despite King's
perceived effeminacy, he was elected as Franklin Pierce's vice president
in 1852, on the pro-slavery ticket. But after only six weeks in office,
King died
of tuberculosis.
Buchanan went on to hold several higher offices, including secretary of
state, and became president in 1857. His single term was fraught with
upheaval: the Panic of 1857, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, and
the
secession of seven Southern states from the Union. He is now mainly
remembered for his failure to take a strong stand against slavery.
Buchanan was followed into the White House by another possibly queer
figure, one who
took a historic stand against slavery -- Abraham Lincoln
(1809-1865).
As a young man, Lincoln had a romantic friendship with Joshua Speed, a
Springfield, Ill., shopkeeper. In 1837, a penniless Lincoln arrived in
town
to start his legal career. He rode in on a borrowed horse with all his
possessions loaded into two saddlebags. In need of a place to stay, he
inquired at Speed's general store. "I have a very large room and a very
large
double bed in it," offered Speed, who was reportedly quite handsome.
Lincoln
immediately accepted and shared Speed's bed for the next four years.
Two bachelors sharing a bed in the mid-19th century was not uncommon.
Lincoln
and Speed, however, also shared their deepest confidences, including a
fear
of women and marriage. As one woman whom Lincoln briefly courted saw it,
"Mr.
Lincoln was deficient in those little links which make up the chain of a
woman's happiness." Lincoln told Speed that "our forebodings, for which
you
and I are rather peculiar, are all the worst sort of nonsense."
Was their relationship sexual? As early as 1926, Lincoln biographer Carl
Sandburg intimated that it was; it had "a streak of lavender and soft
spots
as May violets," he wrote -- code words in Sandburg's day for
homosexuality.
Most recently, writer Larry Kramer claims to have turned up a diary
belonging
to Speed and letters between the two men that were hidden under the
floorboards of the old general store. "Our Abe is like a school girl,
always
demanding physical affection," Speed reportedly wrote. "He often kisses
me
when I tease him." Speed's language suggests that, even if the men's
relationship wasn't sexually consummated, there was a strong homoerotic
current running through it.
In 1885, 20 years after Lincoln's death, another unmarried president
took
office. Unlike bachelor Buchanan, though, Grover Cleveland had a
reputation
as a rake. He asked his sister Rose, a "spinster" with a successful
career as
a teacher, novelist, and literary critic, to move to Washington to be
his
first lady and bring a note of respectability to the White House. She
acted
as first lady until her brother married in 1886.
In 1889, when she was 44, Rose Cleveland began a romantic
friendship with
Evangeline Simpson, a wealthy 30-year-old widow, whom she met while on
vacation in Florida. After returning to their respective homes, the two
women
exchanged a flurry of increasingly erotic letters. "I tremble at the
thought
of you," Cleveland wrote. "I dare not think of your arms." Simpson, in
return, addressed Cleveland as "my Clevy, my Viking, my Everything."
When
Simpson enclosed a photo of herself in a letter, Cleveland replied that
"the
look of it [is] all making me wild."
After a few years, however, Simpson chose to follow a more conventional
path.
In 1892, she became engaged to an Episcopal bishop twice her age. The
decision, Cleveland wrote, hurt her deeply. Nevertheless, she wished the
couple well -- on White House stationery.
When Simpson's husband died a few years later, she returned to
corresponding
with Cleveland. Reunited, the women moved to Italy in 1910, where they
lived
together until Cleveland died eight years later. Remaining in Italy,
Simpson
survived her partner by 12 years, and the two were buried there side by
side.
Barzman, Sol. Madmen and Geniuses: The Vice Presidents of the United
States (Follett, 1974).
Katz, Jonathan Ned. "The President's Sister and the Bishop's Wife,"
Advocate (Jan. 31, 1989).
Lloyd, Carol. "Was Lincoln Gay?" Salon (May 3, 1999).
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