Fincher's Trades' Review: "A Curious Married Couple," 1863
"Thirty-four years of pretended matrimony"
by Jonathan Ned Katz. Copyright (c) by Jonathan Ned Katz. All rights protected.
In 1863, Fincher's Trades' Review (subtitled An Advocate of the Rights of the Producing Crosses and published in Philadelphia) carries the first of several reports of transvestite women, some of whom are clearly indicated to have had close, meaningful relations with other females. Fincher's appealed especially to those white, Protestant, semiskilled workers of British origin then emigrating to America and becoming active in this country's growing trade-union movement. The English settings of two of these stories were, no doubt, of special interest to Fincher's readers. Reports of these English women are included here for their indications of American attitudes of the 1860s toward female intimacy and female cross-dressing.
The seeming innocence of these reports, there authors' apparent failure to recognize, even unconsciously, any sexual "irregularities " in these stories of, for instance, two women living together for thirty-four years as “man and wife,” suggests a consciousness very different from the sexualized awareness so prevalent in present day America. Lack of sexual innuendo in these old reports does not, of course, rule out the existence of overt sexual relations between the women described.
On July 25, 1863, Fincher's carries a feature story about Englishwoman Mary East and her "wife" of 34 years, a classic couple in the literature of female transvestism.
A Curious Married Couple
In 1731, a girl named Mary East was engaged to be married to a young man for whom she entertained the strongest affection; but upon his taking to evil courses, or, to tell the whole truth, being hanged for highway robbery, she determined to run no risk of any such disappointment from the opposite sex in future. A female friend of hers having suffered in some similar manner, and being of the like mind with herself, they agreed to pass for the rest of their days as man and wife, in some place where they were not known, The question of which should be the husband was decided by lot in favor of Mary East, who accordingly assumed the masculine habit, and under the name of James How, took a small public house at Epping for himself and consort. Here, and subsequently at other inns, they lived together in good repute with their neighbors for eighteen years-a-during which neither experienced the least pang of marital jealousy-and realized a considerable sum of money. The supposed James How served all the parish offices without discovery, and was several times a foreman of juries: While occupying the White Horse at Poplar, however, his secret was discovered by a woman who had known him in his youth; and from that time the happy couple became the victims of her extortion. First five, then ten, then one hundred pounds were demanded as the price of her silence. and even these bribes were found to be insufficient. At last, however, the persecutor pushed matters too far, and killed the goose that laid such golden eggs. James brought the whole matter before a magistrate, and attired, awkwardly enough, in the proper garments of her sex, herself witnessed against the offender, who was imprisoned for a considerable term. Exposure, however, of course followed upon the trial, and the White Horse had to be disposed of, and the landlord and landlady to retire from public life into retirement. After thirty-four years of pretended matrimony, Mrs. How died; the disconsolate widower survived long afterwards, but never again took to himself another spouse. Neither husband nor wife had ever been seen to dress a joint of meat; nor did they give entertainment to their friends like other couples; neither, although in excellent circumstances, (having acquired between three and four thousand pounds), did they keep man-servant or maid-servant, but Mary East served the customers and went on errands, while her wife attended solely to the affairs of the house.30
In the next few months, Fincher's carries four features about American females who, dressed as men, had served as soldiers in the Civil War; the stories, however, mention nothing suggesting particularly close relations with other women.31
Bibliography:=
Primary Sources:
Secondary Sources
Katz, Jonathan Ned.
References
30. "A Curious Married Couple," Fincher's Trades' Review (Phila.), vol. I, no. 8
(July 25, 1863), p. 29, col. 6. Fincher's is on microfilm; copy consulted: N.Y. University
Tamiment Library. I wish to thank Carole Turbin Miller for informing me of these
references.
31, "Another Female Soldier," Fincher's, vol. I, no. 12 (Aug. 22, 1863), p. 46, col. 5; "Eventful History of a Soldier Woman," Fincher's, vol. I, no. 19 (Oct. 10, 1863), p. 74, col. 6; "A Female Warrior," Fincher's, vol. I, no. 25 (Nov. 21,1863), p- 100, col. 3. The last two stories concern a married woman who accompanied her soldier-husband. See also "A Gallant Female Soldier-Romantic History," Fincher's, vol. 2, no. 17 (March 26, 1864), p. 67, col. 5 (about Frances Hook/Frank Miller, a "new protégé" of Dr. Mary Walker). Two other stories of interest: "A Woman Marries A Woman," Fincher's, vol. 2 (April 9, 1864), p. 75, col. 6 (this story, whose source is the Green Bay, Wis., Advocate [n.d.], reports the arrest "in this city last week," on complaint from Manitowoc, of a woman who "had married a woman in that place, taken her money and decamped"); "A Woman-Husband," Fincher's, vol. 2, no. 25 (May 21, 1864), p. 100, col. 2 (includes a brief report of an eighteenth-century English case of female transvestism, involving an attempted love affair and embezzlement; it also includes a condensed version of the Mary East story, indicating that its source is an article in the Gentleman's Magazine [1776]).
According to the biography, She Rode with the Generals (N.Y.: Nelson, 1960), by Sylvia G. L. Dannett, the life of Sarah Emma Evelyn Edmonds involves transvestism and several "Lesbian" relationships (p. 34,43-44,48,230). Edmonds's cross-working and cross-dressing began as a child (p. 21-26). A novel by M. M. Ballou, Fanny Camp- bell, or The Female Pirate Captain…encouraged Edmonds to embark on an adventurous life (p. 24-25). At age fifteen she began to pass as Franklin Thompson, became a successful Bible salesman, and says she took her "lady friends out riding occasionally" (p. 34; quote from Edmonds). Edmonds says she was sent to Nova Scotia by Hurlbut and Company as a book salesman, and "came near marrying a pretty little girl ..."
(p. 43; quote from Edmonds). She moved to Flint, Mich., where, Dannett says, Edmonds "became quite a .lady's man" (p. 48). In May 1861, when she was almost twenty and had passed as a man for nearly five years, she joined the army as a male nurse. She is said to have had a dose friendship with "Kate B.," and, possibly, a Lesbian relationship with a nurse, Alice M. (or "Nellie," p. 175). Her military career involved activity as a spy, "posing" as a female. Edmonds became the only female war hero allowed to belong to the Grand Army of the Republic. She married late in life and had several children. Edmonds always continued to wear men's boots. See Lennox Strong, "To be a Man; The Story of 'Franklin Thompson'," The Ladder, vol. 8, no. I (Oct. I963), p. 7-9. See also Edmonds's autobiography: Nurse and Spy in the Union Army; Comprising the Adventures and Experience of a Woman in Hospitals, Camps and Battlefields (Hartford, Conn.: W. S. Williams, 1865). Edmonds is also, mentioned in Hirschfeld's Die Transvestiten (1910). Dannett cites other American female transvestites: Mary Hollingsworth, a Southerner, who traveled to the old West where "she became engaged to a girl" whom she jilted at the altar, and who, in turn, sued Hollingsworth, and won (p. 43); Barbara Ann Malpass, a contemporary transvestite (p. 44-45); 400 women who are said to have fought, dressed as men, in the Civil War (p. 5I; the source is George Washington Adams, Doctors in Blue; The Medical History oj the Union Army
... [N.Y., 1952]; a suicide reported in the Louisville, Ky. Daily Democrat, April 16, 1863 (p. 230). An unidentified clipping (reproduced p. 160) cites female transvestites in the Civil War; the source is William F. Fox, Regimental Losses in the American Civil War (Albany, 1889). I wish to thank Stephen W. Foster and James Foshee for assistance with this research.
