#marion dickerman

[yourdailyqueer]

Marion Dickerman (deceased)

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Lesbian

DOB: 11 April 1890  

RIP: 16 May 1983

Ethnicity: White - American

Occupation: Suffragette, teacher

Note: Life partner of Nancy Cook

[fdrlibrary]

Cool off while watching this fun video of Eleanor Roosevelt and close friend Marion Dickerman ice skating. This film was donated to the FDR Library by the family of Marguerite LeHand.

#NationalBestFriendsDay #RooseveltsOnFilm

[365daysoflesbians]

APRIL 11: Marion Dickerman (1890-1983)

A close friend (and by this we mean most likely a gal pal) of Eleanor Roosevelt, Marion Dickerman was a suffragist and educator in the US.

Born in Westfield, New York, Dickerman studied at Wellesley College and then Syracuse University, where she earned both her BA and a grad degree in education. One of her classmates at Syracuse was Nancy Cook, with whom Marion spent most of her adult life, but they didn’t actually start their relationship until they met “again” while teaching in Fulton, NY.

Marion Dickerman. From the Patterson library, Westfield, NY

Dickerman was also involved with other women throughout her life, most notably, it seems, none other than First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, whom Dickerman and Cook had met while traveling to Hyde Park, NY. You get three wlw together who are all interested in progressive politics and education, and, well, you get the kind of ménage à trois that purchases schools and shares properties.

Trouble had to be brewing in paradise, though: Lorena Hickok (Eleanor’s bae, we’ve already mentioned her on the blog) didn’t like Marion, and boy did she make no mystery of this. Eventually this drove a wedge in the ménage à trois friendship of the three women.

In their later years, Dickerman and Cook moved to Connecticut, where Dickerman served as the Director of Education for the Marine Historical Association, from 1946 until 1962.

-AK

[gayeleanorroosevelt]

Eleanor Roosevelt, Marion Dickerman, Mrs. Al Smith, Caroline O'Day, Anna Roosevelt in Hyde Park

Marion Dickerman was born April 11, 1890, in Westfield, New York. She studied for two years at Wellesley College before transferring to Syracuse University, where she was an avid supporter of woman's suffrage and campaigned for protective labor legislation for women, the abolishment of child labor, and world peace. A strong, committed student, Dickerman received her bachelor of arts in 1911 and a graduate degree in education in 1912. After a brief teaching assignment in Canisteo, New York, in 1913 Dickerman moved to Fulton, New York, where she taught American history and became reacquainted with Syracuse classmate Nancy Cook, who taught arts and handicrafts at Fulton High School. The two women would become lifelong partners, living together almost their entire adult lives, sharing a life dedicated to politics, education, and progressive reform.