Education

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THIS DAY IN LGBTQ HISTORY – FEBRUARY

FEBRUARY 1

1900

Marion Barbara ‘Joe’ Carstairs (1 February 1900 – 18 December 1993) was a wealthy British power boat racer known for her speed, her eccentric lifestyle and gender nonconformity. In the 1920s she was known as the ‘fastest woman on water’. She was also given a Steiff doll by a girlfriend, Ruth Baldwin (1905 – August, 1937), naming it Lord Tod Wadley. She became exceptionally attached to this doll, keeping it with her until her death, although she didn’t take it into her speedboats for fear of losing it. She had clothes made for it in Savile Row and had its name placed with her own on the name plaque on the door of her London apartment. Carstairs died in Naples, Florida in 1993 at the age of 93. The doll Lord Tod Wadley was cremated with her. Her ashes and those of Ruth Baldwin were buried in Oakland Cemetery in Sag Harbor, New York.

1902

James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) is born. He was an African American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called poetry and best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance in New York City. During his time in England in the early 1920s, Hughes became part of the Black expatriate community. Some academics and biographers believe that Hughes was homosexual and included homosexual codes in many of his poems, as did Whitman whom Hughes said influenced his poetry. Hughes’s story “Blessed Assurance” deals with a father’s anger over his son’s effeminacy and “queerness.” Unlike the generation of Black poets who came after him, Hughes approach to American racism was more wry than angry, but he helped set the mood for today’s Black movement. With his friend Countee Cullen who was also gay, he was the center of Harlem’s literary renaissance in the 1920s. On May 22, 1967, Hughes died in New York City at the age of 65 from complications after abdominal surgery related to prostate cancer. His ashes are interred beneath a floor medallion in the middle of the foyer in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem.

1942, Germany

A legal amendment formally extends the death penalty to men found guilty of having sex with other men.

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THIS DAY IN LGBTQ HISTORY – JANUARY

JANUARY 1

1849

We’wha (1849–1896) was a Zuni Native American from New Mexico, a notable fiber artist, weaver and potter. As the most famous lhamana on record, We’wha served as a cultural ambassador for Native Americans in general, and the Zuni in particular, serving as a contact point and educator for many European-American settlers, teachers, soldiers, missionaries, and anthropologists. In 1886, We’wha was part of the Zuni delegation to Washington, D.C.; during that visit, We’wha met President Grover Cleveland.

1879, UK

M. Forster (1879 – 1970) is born in London. After his brilliant novel A Passage to India in 1924, he produced no new works. His gay novel Maurice was written in 1914, but not published until after his death. For 50 years his lover was a married London police officer named Bob Buckingham.

1886, UK

English Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 takes effect. “Indecencies” between adult males in private become crimes punishable by up to two years imprisonment.