The Library › Reel VI · The Roommate
Was it normal for two men to share a bed in the 1830s?
VERDICTTRUE
Yes. Beds were scarce and expensive, and men routinely shared them in inns, boarding houses and on the court circuit. The Lincoln biographer David Herbert Donald made exactly this point: on the frontier space was tight and men shared beds, so the arrangement alone proves nothing. It was ordinary enough that Lincoln never hid it.
The receipts
- NYT: Was Lincoln Gay? New Controversy (Dinitia Smith, December 16, 2004), History News Network
The comedy version
The untold story of Abraham Lincoln and the man who lent him half a bed.
Play The Roommate ☞More from this shelf
- Did Lincoln really move into Joshua Speed’s bed because he could not afford seventeen dollars of bedding?True
- What happened on Lincoln’s “fatal first of January” 1841?Disputed
- Did Lincoln really call himself “the most miserable man living”?True
- Did Lincoln visit Joshua Speed’s family plantation in Kentucky?True
- Did Lincoln write that he was jealous when Speed got married?True
- Did Lincoln ask Speed whether marriage was worth it, a month before his own wedding?True