NPR: 'Female Husbands' In The 19th Century - cool article

[FLPanhandle]

Questions of gender identity are nothing new. Way before Transparent and Chaz Bono and countless other popular culture stepping stones to where we are now regarding gender identity, there were accounts of "female husbands."

Stories of women dressing and posing as men dot the journalistic landscape of 19th century America — and Great Britain — according to Sarah Nicolazzo, who teaches literary history at the University of California, San Diego.

Nicolazzo points to the late 18th century tale of Deborah Sampson, who called herself Robert Shurtlieff and fought in the American Revolution. There was a novel written about Sampson's life, The Female Review by Herman Mann.

Sure enough there are common threads — such as abandonment and bravery — running through many of the narratives. Here are several of the tales:

* The remarkable case of James Walker, "a female who was found intoxicated in the street ... dressed in man's clothes," appeared as a Journal of Commerce item in the Aug. 26, 1836, issue of the Maine Farmer and Journal of the Useful Arts.

James was arrested on a Friday night. The next morning, a "decently dressed woman called at the police office and asked to see James Walker, who she said was her husband." The decently dressed woman was "informed of the discovery which had been made." Though the decently dressed woman was permitted to see James Walker, she did not speak to James.

snip

* The picaresque tale of Lucy Ann Lobdell — "hermit, hunter, music teacher, female husband" — and her life up and down the Delaware River made the obituary page of the National Police Gazette on Oct. 25, 1879.

Born circa 1829 to a poor New York lumberman, Lucy Ann married a raftsman when she was 17. They had a child. A year later, the man disappeared. Lucy Ann sent her child to live with her parents and she started dressing as a man and for the next eight years "adopted the life of a hunter" — living in crude forest shelters and trading skins and game for supplies.

When the hardships of the hunter's life became too much, Lucy Ann re-entered society, began dressing as a woman and wrote a book "detailing her adventures in the woods," noting that she had killed 100 or so deer, 77 bears, one panther and a bunch of wildcats and foxes.



http://www.npr.org/blogs/npr-history-dept/2015/01/29/382230187/-female-husbands-in-the-19th-century

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