Full citation:Rouse, Wendy L. 2022. Public Faces, Secret Lives: A Queer History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement. New York: NYU Press. ISBN 9781479813940
For anyone who wishes to write sapphic fiction set in the American suffragist era—whether your characters are participating in that community or not—this book is absolutely essential. It provides many varied and concrete examples of women’s lives that can in some way be classified as “queer” which will expand your understanding of the possibilities and their reception.
From a structural point of view, the book’s arguments feel very repetitive, but its strength is in “bringing the receipts” with multiple specific biographical examples for each topic. Usually, for a work like this, I’d add blog tags for each specific individual mentioned, but that would rapidly become unmanageable in this case (in addition to the problem of categorizing each individual as to where they fall on the queer map).
Part of the overarching theme of this study is the tension between “respectability politics” and the essential reliance the suffrage movement had on women willing to disrupt social norms, specifically including norms of sexuality and gender presentation. The resonances with the “lavender menace” confrontations of the 1970s are inevitable (and noted specifically in the conclusion).
As the author points out, the suffrage movement was very queer, as well as more diverse than popular mythologizing often admits. The author notes that she will use “queer” as an umbrella term to avoid getting bogged down in details of identity definitions. [Note: Though I think she does occasionally get overly expansive in what gets classified as “queer.”]
The early embrace of dress reform movements by leaders of the suffrage movement, such as Stanton, Stone, and Anthony was abandoned to avoid associating the public mockery of “bloomers” and similar reform styles with suffrage. At the other end of the scale, some prominent suffragists such as Dr. Mary Edwards Walker adopted masculine dress as part of their rejection of strictures on women’s lives, and were persecuted for it, both within and outside the movement. Walker’s social privilege and personal history as a Civil War surgeon who had been awarded the Medal of Honor only slightly mitigated the attacks on her, and she recorded the toll it took to remain true to her principles, especially the attacks and snubs from fellow suffragists. Early histories of the suffrage movement were written to exclude Walker and other queer figures, as well as erasing the participation of non-white and non-elite women.
Queer suffragists adopted a variety of strategies, from Walker’s outright defiance, to a careful separation of public and private lives, to deliberately cultivating a conservative, conventional femininity.
Many prominent suffragists were in same-sex couples, varying from social partnership to friendship to romance to sexual relationships. But despite the documentary evidence of their personal correspondence, these relationships were usually flattened into “friend” or “secretary” in the public record. The book lists many same-sex romantic couples, but will focus primarily on the lesser known ones.
Despite the silence of the public record, these relationships were common knowledge at the time and could be used to disparage the movement as a whole. Black queer suffragists experienced a triple threat which made them especially concerned about outward “respectability”, such as Alice Dunbar Nelson, who emphasized her status as the widow of a notable poet, while engaging in romantic relationships with both men and women during the period of her suffrage activities.
Advocates of “free love” such as Victoria Woodhull argued against sexual double-standards that penalized women, but hit a wall when criticizing the hypocritical sexual behavior of supposedly “moral” leaders such as Henry Ward Beecher. The backlash then associated the suffrage movement in general with free love. Leaders and historians of the movement openly recorded ejecting those they felt were too radical.
The introduction closes with the plan of the book, describing what each chapter will cover.
Opposition to suffrage was largely fueled by fears that if women engaged with the male-coded world of politics, it would be to the detriment of female-coded concerns and activities. Home life would suffer. This ideal of “separate spheres” was never more than a stereotype, especially among the working classes. But all manner of social woes were pinned on the upending of the “natural order” in which women were excluded from public life.
The extreme version of this disruption was the specter of mannish women and feminine men. Suffragists were not the only women targeted by this view, and not all women who were breaking gendered rules did it as a political statement. But the conjunction came to be viewed as a weak point in the movement’s message.
Pop culture push-back against women who adopted male-coded dress or behavior included warnings that they made themselves unmarriageable, and even direct accusations of lesbianism. This last had roots in the imagery promoted by sexologists of the “mannish” lesbian. Much of the supposed identification and criticism of such women focused on physical appearance, but a desire for independence, education, and social freedom were also identified as symptoms of “degeneracy.” Such views were especially pernicious when applied to Black women, who were already subject to racialized stereotypes of hypersexuality and criminality.
At the other extreme, suffragist leaders were sometimes labeled as sexless, using epithets like “Amazon,” “hermaphrodite,” or “third sex” for supposedly rejecting a traditional domestic role. A more neutral term for women exploring freedom and independence (and eschewing marriage) was “new women.”
Mainstream suffragist leaders, rather than dismissing these images, tried to highlight those members of the movement who embodied traditional roles, citing children and husbands, and emphasizing the value of suffrage to middle-class married women.
The mirror concern was that if women invaded masculine spheres, men would automatically become feminized. Men who directly supported suffrage were mocked.
Suffragist messaging turned gendered insults back on their opponents, arguing that it was anti-suffrage women who were the real “manly” women. Conformity to normative feminine ideals was clung to as a protection against anti-feminist sentiment.
[Note: The chapter reiterates these points with a great deal of supporting data from media and correspondence of the time. I’m not going to summarize that level of detail.]
This strategic promotion of the image of the affluent, white, femininely-beautiful, married, maternal suffragist also sidelined the presence of non-white activists, who were sometimes entirely excluded from parades and imagery. Black suffrage organizations launched separate campaigns, focusing not only on gaining Black women the vote, but protesting Jim Crow efforts to deny it to Black men.
This chapter looks at the personal lives of some prominent suffragists. It was not uncommon for such women to have been married to men at some point, and they might leverage their status as a widow to deflect concern about domestic partnerships with women. These arrangements disrupted heterosexual norms regardless of whether the women involved considered them to represent a specific “identity.”
Carrie Chapman Catt was twice married, and her second husband agreed to let her do suffrage work. During that marriage, she traveled with and sometimes lived with Mary Garrett Hay, with whom she lived permanently after her husband’s death.
“Queer domesticity” among suffragists also encompassed singlehood and sharing living space without romantic partnership. But this chapter focuses on women in “Boston marriages.” The nature of the partnerships within Boston marriages could be varied—professional, creative, romantic, platonic, sexual, or combinations thereof. The common factor is a long-term committed pairing who shared a home and were viewed by their community as a couple. At the same time, such women might strategize how to present themselves as normative, in order to act more effectively in the political realm.
Simply choosing not to marry was a queer act, especially when motivated by feminist principles, but was available only to those with economic independence. The “new woman” who was identified as a type starting around the 1890s was college-educated, oriented toward a career, and—necessarily at that time—not married. This made them vulnerable to accusations of being anti-family, and were targets not only of anti-suffrage forces but also of eugenicists. This could be countered by framing singlehood as a personal sacrifice (for the sake of the movement). But some embraced a positive rejection of marriage as being an inherently unjust institution, claiming the title “Mrs” without a husband, and advocating against double-standards for married and unmarried women. Such views put them at risk of being marginalized by their fellow suffragists. Others chose singlehood after an unsuccessful marriage.
Alternatives to the nuclear family were common in Black communities, relying on networks and extended family relationships. Angelina Grimké provides an illustrative example. With her father working abroad, she lived with various relatives while attending school and developed a romantic friendship with fellow student May Burrill, with whom she exchanged passionate correspondence, although they later separated. She had several other crushes on both women and men while boarding with a family while continuing schooling. Grimké’s poetry illustrates her passions for women, which may have motivated her decision not to marry. But these passions were generally kept out of her correspondence and published work. Grimké’s political activism was a family affair, working on racial equality with Black relatives and on suffrage inspired by her (white) Grimké aunts. She generally lodged with relatives and never found a permanent partner.
Alma Benecke Sass and Hazel Hunkins may or may not have been lovers at Vassar and when their itinerant lives intersected later (both were traveling activists), but Hunkins felt the need to defend their habit of sleeping in the same bed, and their later correspondence is filled with longing for their time together. Neither married and they lived in all-woman environments when traveling. Their heyday in the 1910s and later was an era when advice literature for girls and young women was beginning to warn against co-sleeping, physical affection, and causal touching—warning of unspecified dangers. Their friendship and support continued despite differences over Hunkins’ more radical activities.
Non-normative domestic lives among suffragists also included overlap with free love advocates, and some of these, such as Margaret Foley, had relationships with both women and men.
Some women, such as Black suffragist and racial activist Alice Dunbar Nelson, used marriage strategically to create the image of heteronormative domesticity, which she used rhetorically to frame suffrage activism as a type of “housekeeping.” But her marriage lasted only 4 years and she had sexual relationships with both men and women, including a long-term, if sometimes stormy, partnership with fellow educator Edwina B. Kruse. Her diaries detail multiple affairs with women through 2 further marriages.
The “Boston marriage” was the most classically queer arrangement among suffragists. On the one side a radical rejection of patriarchy, these relationships were sometimes also strongly conforming to traditional images of domestic femininity, and a denial of sexual aspects to their relationship. Such women took a wide range of openness with respect to their private lives, even while presenting publicly as a committed couple.
This tension between desiring an intense, exclusive relationship while presenting it as a type of friendship could fracture some couples. The image of asexuality was a defense against criticism when they were—to all appearances—married.
For women not in heterosexual marriages, framing their public service as a type of maternal care was another defense. The privilege enjoyed by wealthy white activists could also take the form of policing the movement of radical elements, and discouraging the participation of Black women in order to seek the support of racist whites. One couple who took the opposite tack—actively supporting the inclusion of Black suffragists—was Nora Houston and Adele Goodman Clark, who also leveraged their image as “eccentric artists” to defuse scrutiny of their domestic partnership.
This chapter expands on the previous. While chapter 2 focused on individual romantic/domestic relationships, this one looks at larger non-traditional households that might include couples (or not) as well as un-coupled women. The focus is on mutually supportive arrangements, not simply people sharing an address. These chosen families (to use a modern term) provided emotional, financial, and medical support for each other, as well as mentorship for younger suffragists. They might include biological or adopted children of the members. The author points out that such arrangements both challenged and assimilated to traditional social structures, providing the image of domestic respectability while adapting the model to their own situations.
Such chosen families were especially valuable for those who had separated from their birth families due to their political activism or life choices, such as resisting marriage, pursuing a profession, or wearing not-traditionally-feminine clothing. As usual for this book, many specific illustrative examples are given.
One factor that made it socially acceptable for unmarried women to adopt children was the formation of Children’s Aid Societies, created to place abandoned or orphaned children. This willingness did decrease later, as public suspicion of female couples became more widespread. Such adoptions did meet some resistance from those who charged that they didn’t represent a “proper family.” [Note: And for another view of the dynamics of such adoptions—although depicting Canada rather than the USA—see the facts underpinning the Anne of Green Gables story, where children might be adopted out into situations where they were treated as servants.]
These chosen and blended families sometimes demonstrated their close connections by re-naming the adoptees following familial practices: naming a child after one of the parents or combining the names of both parents.
Young suffragists that had broken with their birth families might “adopt” an older parent/mentor figure, thus establishing family in the other direction. One example of this dynamic also features the biography of trans man Albert Eugene De Forrest, who was supported in his transition by mentor Dr. Alida Cornelia Avery, as well as by his partner in a platonic marriage of convenience. Quotations from 1890s newspapers regarding him show a willingness to accept and use his chosen name and pronouns, with some exceptions. De Forrest’s mentor Dr. Avery initially framed her support in terms of dress reform, and it isn’t clear whether she fully embraced his transition, though supporting De Forrest personally. De Forrest and Avery worked together in a variety of reform movements, including suffrage and temperance. De Forrest briefly married a woman, but a second engagement resulted in arrest and estrangement from his fiancée. Through all this, he was supported emotionally and professionally by a chosen family of activists. (The author points out that his successful outcome to the arrest owed much to white professional-class privilege.)
The discussion moves on to the situation and supportive community experiences of non-white suffragists, such as Dr. Margaret Chung. Chinese-American women faced dual barriers to voting. Dr. Chung also adopted “mannish” clothing for her profession, and the social acceptance of her is seen in how this factor is downplayed in the media of the day, instead emphasizing her support for her extended family—an image she cultivated as well by “mothering” many of her male military patients in the 1930s and 1940s.
These “queer households” also existed in a context of larger queer communities and enclaves. Such communities might be geographically anchored, as in Greenwich Village, or networks centered around specific couples or educational institutions. But moving into the 1930s, single-sex colleges and faculty consisting of unmarried women began to be considered suspect, as medical theories of homosexuality became more prevalent. This shift also affected informal communities built up among faculty members and their students.
The chapter now moves on to how “free love” philosophy could shape ideas of family and community among feminist and suffragist circles. Such communities walked a tightrope between suffrage activism and being viewed as giving the movement a bad image. The communities themselves might manage their public image to avoid undermining the political movement.
US and British suffrage movements existed at roughly the same time, but different approaches created a context for sharing tactics and experiences. This chapter looks at how US suffragists learned techniques and created alliances with their British counterparts in the early 20th century. These alliances also included transatlantic romantic relationships. The British movement included a wing focusing on more militant techniques (the “suffragettes”) and some US women hoped to spread these tactics back home, including public speeches and demonstrations that appealed to the public rather than only addressing politicians.
At the same time, the US suffrage elements that wanted to erase visible queer elements in the movement—feeling that “respectability” would have more success—also argued against these more militant approaches. The chapter argues that defying traditionally feminine stereotypes by speaking up in public and risking arrest fall into the definition of “queer” behavior.
The techniques, however, grew successful. British suffragists, like their US counterparts, had a pervasive element of female partnerships and gender-bending presentation.
As usual, this chapter has a large number of micro-biographies of women who relate to the theme. There is a particular emphasis on personal connections and inspirations involving the British Pankhurst family. While these connections included close friendships and hero worship, the blanket labeling of such connections as “queer” strains the definition somewhat. However the chapter provides essential details on the parallel connections between suffrage movements in the two countries.
This chapter looks at a variety of ways that women associated with the suffrage movement “performed queerness” in public. Obviously, not all suffragists took part in the following, but those who did helped create the image of the transgressive “unfeminine” suffragist. The following is something of a catalog of these transgressive activities, which the book describes in connection with specific women who embodied them:
The chapter moves to a discussion of racial issues that breaks the flow somewhat. Many white suffrage organizations and spaces excluded Black women. Black suffragists formed their own organizations, which were typically closely entwined with racial equality activism and general voting rights issues. Black women who crossed boundaries around gender expression and domestic relationships could face double-pushback, accused not only of damaging the public face of suffrage but also that of racial equality. Despite this, lesbian relationships and transgressive gender presentation were as common among Black suffragists as white ones.
Both live theater and the new movie industry were sites used by suffragists to promote and celebrate their views and values. Pro-suffrage speeches were incorporated into performances. Semi-comical songs and skits depicted traditional marriage as drudgery. Gender “impersonation” performances by both sexes sometimes deliberately pointed up “gender as performance” in support of women’s rights. (Anti-suffrage performances were also popular, of course.)
Two specific pro-suffrage plays (British in origin) are discussed: Before Sunrise and How the Vote was Won. The film 80 Million Women Want--? Documented the suffrage movement. In addition to suffrage propaganda, the plays featured “new women” who preferred career to marriage and had close same-sex relationships, although these themes did not always prevail at the conclusion of the scripts.
We return to the catalog of activities categorized as “queering space.” Parades were a powerful visual symbol of claiming public space, sometimes done in the face of official prohibition. But parade organizers sometimes issued “dress codes” to soften their image to the traditionally feminine. Those who defied these restrictions included a “suffrage cavalry” organized and led by Annie Tinker (who habitually wore male-coded clothing).
Returning to racialized examples, we get a mini-biography of Chinese-American suffragist Mabel Ping-Hua Lee and Chippewa attorney Marie Bottineau Baldwin. Historically-Black women’s college Howard University gets a lot of references in this book in connection with both faculty and students, and as a locus of connections and organizing.
Targeted protests and activism in Washington DC, especially by more militant forces associated with the National Women’s Party (NWP) kept the cause at the forefront of government attention, and could be met by forceful and violent police suppression, with methods reminiscent of the British hunger strike/force-feeding episodes that captured public attention.
This chapter looks at how female suffragist couples commemorated their shared lives (or had them commemorated by friends) after death. Loves that women might not have felt safe expressing during their lifetimes might find an acceptable expression in the context of mourning rituals, such as memorial poetry, shared graves, or the erection of funerary monuments with dedications mentioning both parties. Fellow suffragists might support such mourning in a context where society did not recognize that there was a relationship to mourn.
Rituals around death, funerals, and mourning offered a space in which female couples could co-opt practices that typically were associated with heterosexual marriage, and thus both make their relationship legible and claim the right to be understood as widows.
As usual, the chapter is illustrated with many specific biographical examples.
Conversely, death sometimes was a context in which a romantic/sexual relationship was re-written into “friendship” or “companionship,” either by the media, by surviving friends or family who worried about the deceased’s reputation, or by the surviving partner.
Relationships were also commemorated in wills that ensured the right of the surviving partner to their common goods and household. This could become a point of contention with birth families, from whom the deceased might have been estranged, or who were simply given a lower priority than the surviving partner.
There is a summary of the themes of the book and a discussion of the variety of ways in which queer suffragists engaged with the rising sexological theories regarding same-sex love, in parallel with the various attitudes toward “respectability politics.” Some came to identify as homosexual, others distanced themselves from what they considered “unhealthy” desires. Some defiantly displayed their queerness within the movement, others felt that it was important not to distract attention from common goals.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, most queer women could avoid close scrutiny as there was broad latitude for women’s friendships, but in the post-WWI era, there was an increasing awareness of, and hostility towards, relationships perceived as homosexual.
After the passage of the 19th amendment in 1920, and especially in the context of queer-baiting of the 1940s and 1950s, some surviving suffragists turned on former comrades, or worked to purge evidence of queer elements in the movement, or even purge evidence of their own past same-sex relationships. This has meant that reconstructing the truth of queer elements in the suffrage movement can require triangulation from the more candid records of friends and associates, or from tangential public records. The question of who is reconstructing those lives affects what is reconstructed, as biographers bring their own agendas and prejudices.
The author emphasizes the importance of queer persons and practices to the success of the suffrage movement, while also acknowledging the enormous variation in those lives, practices, and attitudes. The cyclicity and persistence of the themes of “respectability politics” and the “lavender menace” is noted.