head is better today Last night it pain me very hard O My Dear dear Rebecca when you press me to your Dear Bosom . . . happy I was, last night I gave anything if I could only layed my poor aching head on your bosom O Dear how soon will it be I will be able to do it I suppose you think me very foolish if you do tis all the same to me. Dear Rebecca when I am away from you I feel so unhappy it seems to me the hours and days are like weeks and months. 14
Even women who did leave a detailed record of their lives, such as Louisa May Alcott, were often not forthcoming about their erotic desires, or may have foregone romantic relationships to pursue their work. Alcott, who published twenty-nine books and story collections in forty-four years, told poet Louise Chandler Moulton in 1873 that she had remained a spinster “because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man.” A bold statement that gives few details. Like most of the reform-minded women in her circle, Alcott was an ardent feminist and questioned how women’s relationships with men affected their place in society. In the 1870s she and friends, including Julia Ward Howe, recommended that women not use “Mrs.” or “Miss” to avoid discrimination. 15
Many women found, along with their affectional and sexual desires, that female partners were more conducive to their lives as educators and reformers. Boston marriages were prominent at women’s colleges, where professors and administrators such as Jeannette Marks and Mary Woolley at Mount Holyoke, and M. Cary Thomas and Mary Garrett at Bryn Mawr, were famously coupled. These arrangements were instrumental in promoting women’s higher education and mentoring female students. Other noted Boston marriages included upper-middle-class couples such as Annie Fields and writer Sarah Orne Jewett, Alice James (the sister of Henry and William James) and Katherine Loring, sculptor Anne Whitney and painter Abby Adelaide Manning, poet Amy Lowell (of the Boston Lowells) and actor Ada Dwyer Russell. These couples, all based in or around Boston, were only the most public in their time. Their visibility in a society that primarily values opposite-sex relationships is important. These women had, through social position, inherited wealth and access to powerful male figures, giving them substantial political and social clout in shaping discussions and public opinions. People with economic advantages were often social and cultural leaders, but never before were women, unattached to men, able to be this independent or so prominently involved with other women. 16
It is impossible to ascertain whether women in Boston marriages, or any romantic friendships, engaged in sexual activity with one another. No direct documentation exists to prove that they did, just as such no documentation, except for the birth of children, exists for heterosexual relationships. There is no reason to presume that these women did not engage in any number of forms of sexual play, from caressing and fondling to genital orgasm. Some of their letters and journals certainly indicate that their passions were physical as well as emotional. It is clear that the tenderness and love these women had for one another was publicly accepted, even valorized, and that these relationships were integral to many social institutions.
New Bodies for the Body Politic
In the years after the Civil War, American artists, in direct response to so many war deaths, began representing the male body in new ways. The need to promote a single national identity after the war led to a plethora of patriotic artwork, much of which glorified politicians and soldiers and valorized the male body as heroic. Many of these works were sculpted by women—such as Harriet Hosmer, Edmonia Lewis, and Anne Whitney—who made their lives with other women. (Some other sculptors, such as Vinnie Ream Hoxie and Adelaide Johnston, were married, outspoken feminists.)
Even women who did leave a detailed record of their lives, such as Louisa May Alcott, were often not forthcoming about their erotic desires, or may have foregone romantic relationships to pursue their work. Alcott, who published twenty-nine books and story collections in forty-four years, told poet Louise Chandler Moulton in 1873 that she had remained a spinster “because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man.” A bold statement that gives few details. Like most of the reform-minded women in her circle, Alcott was an ardent feminist and questioned how women’s relationships with men affected their place in society. In the 1870s she and friends, including Julia Ward Howe, recommended that women not use “Mrs.” or “Miss” to avoid discrimination. 15
Many women found, along with their affectional and sexual desires, that female partners were more conducive to their lives as educators and reformers. Boston marriages were prominent at women’s colleges, where professors and administrators such as Jeannette Marks and Mary Woolley at Mount Holyoke, and M. Cary Thomas and Mary Garrett at Bryn Mawr, were famously coupled. These arrangements were instrumental in promoting women’s higher education and mentoring female students. Other noted Boston marriages included upper-middle-class couples such as Annie Fields and writer Sarah Orne Jewett, Alice James (the sister of Henry and William James) and Katherine Loring, sculptor Anne Whitney and painter Abby Adelaide Manning, poet Amy Lowell (of the Boston Lowells) and actor Ada Dwyer Russell. These couples, all based in or around Boston, were only the most public in their time. Their visibility in a society that primarily values opposite-sex relationships is important. These women had, through social position, inherited wealth and access to powerful male figures, giving them substantial political and social clout in shaping discussions and public opinions. People with economic advantages were often social and cultural leaders, but never before were women, unattached to men, able to be this independent or so prominently involved with other women. 16
It is impossible to ascertain whether women in Boston marriages, or any romantic friendships, engaged in sexual activity with one another. No direct documentation exists to prove that they did, just as such no documentation, except for the birth of children, exists for heterosexual relationships. There is no reason to presume that these women did not engage in any number of forms of sexual play, from caressing and fondling to genital orgasm. Some of their letters and journals certainly indicate that their passions were physical as well as emotional. It is clear that the tenderness and love these women had for one another was publicly accepted, even valorized, and that these relationships were integral to many social institutions.
New Bodies for the Body Politic
In the years after the Civil War, American artists, in direct response to so many war deaths, began representing the male body in new ways. The need to promote a single national identity after the war led to a plethora of patriotic artwork, much of which glorified politicians and soldiers and valorized the male body as heroic. Many of these works were sculpted by women—such as Harriet Hosmer, Edmonia Lewis, and Anne Whitney—who made their lives with other women. (Some other sculptors, such as Vinnie Ream Hoxie and Adelaide Johnston, were married, outspoken feminists.)
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