#3: Juicy Historical Mail - The love letters of Lorena Hickok and Eleanor Roosevelt
sapphic icons and secret affairs
Eleanor Roosevelt - queer icon?
Right now I’m reading Queer History of the United States. It is fantastic. Sometimes (and I say this as someone with a dang master’s in creative nonfiction), I think nonfiction books spit facts without worrying about compelling readers. Not this one. As I read it, I’m gasping, laughing out loud, and swearing under my breath as the author Michael Bronski delivers yet another twist in history.
One thing Bronski said in the forward stuck with me: we often separate history from queer history, as if they’re two distinct histories with no overlap: US and queer. But the truth is, we’ve always been around, and queer people have played active roles in the shaping of the United States (for better or worse) since its founding.
Eleanor Roosevelt is a prime - and badass - example. Critical to US history, from her role in drafting The Universal Declaration of Human Rights to her protests against segregation laws as far back as 1938, Eleanor Roosevelt arguably defined the role of First Lady for generations to come.
She also happened to be in love with a woman.
Back then, folks weren’t talking about bisexuality, so there’s no flag patch to slap on her shoulder, but it is known that Eleanor Roosevelt had lovers of different genders. When she found out that her husband (FDR, obvi) was cheating on her with a secretary before he became president, she essentially told him, “Okay, rude, but I agree it’ll ruin your career if we divorce, so this is a loveless and sexless marriage for legit the rest of our lives. Cool?”
He said cool1, and they proceeded to have private relationships. Over the years, Eleanor had affairs with men and women, but none were quite like Lorene Hickok. She was a great love of Eleanor Roosevelt’s life. That passion is woven throughout their letters, with passages as authentic and drenched in longing as any one of us may write to a lover today.
<3 the letters <3
Like all messy queer couples, these two wrote romantically to each other for decades, even after breaking up. By the end of Hickok’s life, she was living entirely on funding Roosevelt gave her. Their physical relationship may not have sprung eternal, but the love did.
Their relationship was perhaps at its best in the 1930s. Here are two pages from love letters penned by Eleanor Roosevelt.
Here are a few more excerpts that I particularly love from other letters Eleanor Roosevelt wrote to Lorene Hickok during in 1933:
March 6th, 1933: “Hick darling, Oh! how good it was to hear your voice, it was so inadequate to try & tell you what it meant, Jimmy was near & I couldn’t say ‘je t’aime et je t’adore’ as I longed to do but always remember I am saying it & that I go to sleep thinking of you & repeating our little saying.”
November 27th, 1933: “Dear one, & so you think they gossip about us. Well they must at least think we stand separation rather well! I am always so much more optimistic than you are. I suppose because I care so little what ‘they’ say!”
Y’all, they were in love. The fire kept going in 1935…
There are very few from Lorene to Eleanor (apparently she burnt them like any good secretive first lady might), but here’s this gem of queer yearning from Lorene:
December 5, 1933: “Only eight more days. Twenty-four 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 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.”
Finally, I found someone on Soundcloud who recorded audio of these letters aloud. It’s an imaginative treat:
Queer folks have always been here
Queer people have been here since time immemorial. We have drafted treaties on human rights and founded universities and won Oscars and fought in the Civil War. We’ve been on the right and wrong side of US history (just ask some soldiers who fought for the Confederates). Queer people were royalty and farmers and boring-ass, regular people around the world since the dawn of time! And we’ll keep being all those things up until night falls on humankind (which I sincerely hope is a very long time from now).
My own writing news
I may not have the thousands of letters Lorena Hickok and Eleanor Roosevelt passed (a girl can dream of that kinda epistolary passion), but here are a few cool things in my writing world:
My latest short story, “Shorn,” just got released on NiftyLit! I first wrote a version of it when I was SIXTEEN, shelved it for 15 years, and am happy to say it’s finally found a home. Read it here.
I'm halfway through my first feature-length screenplay, a murder-happy magic realism thriller set in 1990s Moscow.
There are a few days left to vote for our first postcard-sized fiction event! I’ll close the votes Wednesday. Next week, you’ll all get a postcard-sized piece of fiction in your inbox. The voting is open to any paid subscriber here or on my Patreon, where I’m offering a free 1-week trial of the lowest tier ($2). That tier gives you voting power plus monthly tutorials and templates :). Feel free to give the trial a go, vote for funsies, and bounce without payin’ a dime! I won’t judge.
References
A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski - it is a fantastic read that spans from 1492 to the 1990s. I can’t recommend it enough!
Eleanor Roosevelt: First Lady of the World by Barbara A. Somervill.
If you wanna read all the letters (I know I do), there’s a whole book of them: Empty Without You, edited by Roger Streitmatter.2
This article from Autostraddle.
This article from Mental Floss.
This article from NPR.
<3
I leave you with this margarine commercial. Roosevelt used the money she received from this ad to send 6000 care packages around the world to folks in need.
Thanks for being part of this cool journey’s inception. If you had a good ride, the most powerful thing you can do is share this with a friend-o (or two).
All my <3,
Nikita, Snail Mail Sweethearts
I may have paraphrased this conversation.
Streitmatter - “straight matter?” I think not in this case, sir.