#lorena hickock

[inthemarginalized]

Given courage and ability and a favorable set of circumstances, there is no greater way to [acquire] influence than to be free of personal ambition. - Lorena Hickok

She was the first woman to have her byline featured on the front page of the New York Times. She was a journalist, writing about sports and news and covering some of the country’s top political stories for the Associated Press in the late 20s and early 1930s. By 1932, she was the most successful female reporter in the nation. She was rumored to be the long time lover of Eleanor Roosevelt.

[oxytoxicjo]

[mxdwn]

via mxdwn TELEVISION: Lily Rabe Cast as Lorena Hickock in ‘The First Lady’

https://television.mxdwn.com/news/lily-rabe-cast-as-lorena-hickock-in-first-lady/

[caffeinewlw]

It kind of amuses me when people say Lorena “Hick” Hickock’s Eleanor Roosevelt’s relationship wasn’t romantic because I mean, look at these letters/excerpts:

“All day I’ve thought of you & another birthday I will be with you, & yet tonite you sounded so far away & formal. Oh! I want to put my arms around you, I ache to hold you close. Your ring is a great comfort. I look at it & think “she does love me, or I wouldn’t be wearing it!”

“My pictures are nearly all up & I have you in my sitting room where I can look at you most of my waking hours! I can’t kiss you so I kiss your picture good night & good morning!”

“I’ve been trying 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 north-east of the corner of your mouth against my lips.”

“Darling, I feel very happy because every day brings you nearer. I love you deeply & tenderly & oh! I want you to have a happy life. To be sure I’m selfish enough to want it to be near me but then we wouldn’t either of us be happy otherwise, would we?”

So platonic, am I right?

[we-jazz-june]

I'm reading this book that has a section on Eleanor Roosevelt and her "close female companion" Lorena Hickock. The book discusses whether or not their relationship was romantic, you know, because intimate relationships between women (sharing beds, never marrying, living together for decades, romantic language) was normal before Freud came along and fucked all that up. Anyway, in one of the letters that Hickock wrote to Eleanor she says that she "remembers most clearly the feeling of that soft spot just north-east of the corner of your mouth against my lips." Just normal gal pal stuff. I bet k-stew says that junk all the time. The reason I'm saying all of this is because at the end of the section about these two there's a quote that I love. "Sigmund Freud notwithstanding: A cigar may not always be a cigar, but the 'north-east corner of your mouth against my lips' is always the northeast corner." That's all. Have a nice day.