https://www.economist.com/culture/2024/10/01/was-abraham-lincoln-gay [Paywalled, use archive]
Was Abraham Lincoln gay?
A controversial documentary re-examines the president’s relationships with men
Oct 1st 2024
During America’s civil war, in 1862, Abraham Lincoln reportedly began sharing a bed with his bodyguard, a soldier named David Derickson. The tittle-tattle was recorded in the diary of Virginia Woodbury Fox, the wife of Lincoln’s naval aide, who wrote about “a soldier here devoted to the president, drives with him, and when Mrs. L. is not home, sleeps with him.” She added: “What stuff!”
Mere gossip, you might argue—or simply a sensible idea, given the target on Lincoln’s back. But a new film, “Lover of Men”, examines four of Lincoln’s relationships, conducted from his 20s to his 50s, to argue that he had sex with men. A popular comedy play, “Oh, Mary!”, presents Lincoln’s wife as his beard; its run on Broadway was recently extended until January.
In the early 1830s, while working at a general store in Illinois, Lincoln shared a cot with William Greene, his co-worker, for 18 months. The bed was cosy: in a suggestive letter, Greene remarked that Lincoln’s “thighs were as perfect as a human being could be”. In 1837 Lincoln moved to Springfield to practise law and met Joshua Speed. They shared a bed for four years. “No two men were ever more intimate,” is how Speed summarised their relationship.
Just how intimate is a touchy subject among scholars. “Such sleeping arrangements were not uncommon on the Illinois frontier,” argues Michael Burlingame, a historian at the University of Illinois, who does not see any “proof of a homosexual relationship” in Lincoln’s bedsharing. Mattresses, after all, were expensive at the time. But once he was a lawyer Lincoln “could have afforded not only a bed but a house”, Thomas Balcerski of Eastern Connecticut State University says in the film; Lincoln was offered housing elsewhere but chose to stay with Speed.
When Speed returned to Kentucky in 1841, Lincoln became depressed. He wrote: “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth.” The two men continued to exchange letters sharing their fears of marriage and women.
Lincoln’s aversion to women was remarked on. He “never took much interest in the girls,” Sarah Bush Lincoln, his stepmother, said. Marriage was helpful for public office, though, and Lincoln married Mary Todd in 1842. Lincoln had often signed his letters to Speed “yours forever”, but never missives to his wife.
To some, speculation about Lincoln’s sexuality is inevitable in an era obsessed with identity politics. But such surmising is not new. In a biography from 1926, Carl Sandburg, a Pulitzer-prizewinning biographer, wrote that the president had “a streak of lavender, and spots soft as May violets” (a euphemism for homosexuality). The passage was later removed.
It is only as same-sex relationships have gained legal and social acceptance that historians have reopened this line of inquiry. “Lover of Men” is part of a larger trend in revisionist history—the challenging of orthodox views and narratives. “Revisionism” can carry a pejorative connotation, and histories that dissent from conventional interpretation can be deemed heretical. Yet historians often update their understanding of the past. New methods of analysis and perspectives introduced by fresh generations of scholars alter received wisdom. For years scholars denied that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by his slave, Sally Hemings, as it was a proposition too unsavoury to stomach. Today most historians accept that he did.
Interpretations of Lincoln’s relationships have “shifted considerably”, says John Stauffer, a historian at Harvard University. Still, many scholars maintain that Lincoln’s relationships with men were platonic. One reason, according to Mr Stauffer, is that they treat Lincoln “as an almost godlike figure” and do not want to contemplate hidden sexual tastes. “Lover of Men” is unlikely to precipitate a wholesale re-evaluation of Lincoln’s legacy. Some Americans will continue to see the great patriot in much the same light as before; others will lambast the documentary’s findings as woke nonsense. In the 21st century, America remains a house divided.
Was Abraham Lincoln gay?
A controversial documentary re-examines the president’s relationships with men
Oct 1st 2024
During America’s civil war, in 1862, Abraham Lincoln reportedly began sharing a bed with his bodyguard, a soldier named David Derickson. The tittle-tattle was recorded in the diary of Virginia Woodbury Fox, the wife of Lincoln’s naval aide, who wrote about “a soldier here devoted to the president, drives with him, and when Mrs. L. is not home, sleeps with him.” She added: “What stuff!”
Mere gossip, you might argue—or simply a sensible idea, given the target on Lincoln’s back. But a new film, “Lover of Men”, examines four of Lincoln’s relationships, conducted from his 20s to his 50s, to argue that he had sex with men. A popular comedy play, “Oh, Mary!”, presents Lincoln’s wife as his beard; its run on Broadway was recently extended until January.
In the early 1830s, while working at a general store in Illinois, Lincoln shared a cot with William Greene, his co-worker, for 18 months. The bed was cosy: in a suggestive letter, Greene remarked that Lincoln’s “thighs were as perfect as a human being could be”. In 1837 Lincoln moved to Springfield to practise law and met Joshua Speed. They shared a bed for four years. “No two men were ever more intimate,” is how Speed summarised their relationship.
Just how intimate is a touchy subject among scholars. “Such sleeping arrangements were not uncommon on the Illinois frontier,” argues Michael Burlingame, a historian at the University of Illinois, who does not see any “proof of a homosexual relationship” in Lincoln’s bedsharing. Mattresses, after all, were expensive at the time. But once he was a lawyer Lincoln “could have afforded not only a bed but a house”, Thomas Balcerski of Eastern Connecticut State University says in the film; Lincoln was offered housing elsewhere but chose to stay with Speed.
When Speed returned to Kentucky in 1841, Lincoln became depressed. He wrote: “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth.” The two men continued to exchange letters sharing their fears of marriage and women.
Lincoln’s aversion to women was remarked on. He “never took much interest in the girls,” Sarah Bush Lincoln, his stepmother, said. Marriage was helpful for public office, though, and Lincoln married Mary Todd in 1842. Lincoln had often signed his letters to Speed “yours forever”, but never missives to his wife.
To some, speculation about Lincoln’s sexuality is inevitable in an era obsessed with identity politics. But such surmising is not new. In a biography from 1926, Carl Sandburg, a Pulitzer-prizewinning biographer, wrote that the president had “a streak of lavender, and spots soft as May violets” (a euphemism for homosexuality). The passage was later removed.
It is only as same-sex relationships have gained legal and social acceptance that historians have reopened this line of inquiry. “Lover of Men” is part of a larger trend in revisionist history—the challenging of orthodox views and narratives. “Revisionism” can carry a pejorative connotation, and histories that dissent from conventional interpretation can be deemed heretical. Yet historians often update their understanding of the past. New methods of analysis and perspectives introduced by fresh generations of scholars alter received wisdom. For years scholars denied that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by his slave, Sally Hemings, as it was a proposition too unsavoury to stomach. Today most historians accept that he did.
Interpretations of Lincoln’s relationships have “shifted considerably”, says John Stauffer, a historian at Harvard University. Still, many scholars maintain that Lincoln’s relationships with men were platonic. One reason, according to Mr Stauffer, is that they treat Lincoln “as an almost godlike figure” and do not want to contemplate hidden sexual tastes. “Lover of Men” is unlikely to precipitate a wholesale re-evaluation of Lincoln’s legacy. Some Americans will continue to see the great patriot in much the same light as before; others will lambast the documentary’s findings as woke nonsense. In the 21st century, America remains a house divided.
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