The Library › Reel VI · The Roommate
Were Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed lovers?
VERDICTDISPUTED
C. A. Tripp’s The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln (2005), introduced by the historian Jean Baker, argues the relationship was sexual. David Herbert Donald answered that nobody at the time suggested it and that men commonly shared beds. Charles Strozier calls the friendship homoerotic but finds no evidence it was homosexual. The letters are warm, the bed is documented, and the rest is argument.
The receipts
- The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, Simon & Schuster (Free Press)
- NYT: Was Lincoln Gay? New Controversy (Dinitia Smith, December 16, 2004), History News Network
- Gay Abe? (Charles B. Strozier, February 10, 2005), Illinois Times
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
- Was it normal for two men to share a bed in the 1830s?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