Eastern history professor featured in major documentary about Abraham Lincoln

'Lover of Men' explores evidence of Lincoln's sexuality

by Elisabeth Craig

Willimantic, CT (09/20/2024) — Thomas Balcerski, associate professor of history at Eastern Connecticut State University, is a featured historian in a new documentary uncovering the truths of President Abraham Lincoln's love life. "Lover of Men: The Untold History of Abraham Lincoln" explores the historical speculation and evidence pointing to Lincoln having intimate relationships with four different men over the course of his life. Directed by Shaun Peterson, the film was released this September and is showing in select theatres nationwide.

"As a historian, I'm just excited to have participated in it since I do teach about Abraham Lincoln. This concept of Lincoln (being a gay man) has been part of my teaching now for several years," said Balcerski. "What hadn't yet been done was to bring this thesis to the mainstream media for the public to see."

As a presidential historian, Balcerski was privy to some research that had already been conducted on Lincoln's sexuality, saying that he "didn't have to reach that far" to capitalize on the initial hypothesis of Lincoln being queer. He cited Jonathan Ned Katz as the first historian to ever conduct research on Lincoln's sexuality and clinical psychologist Alfred Kinsey as the first to analyze Lincoln's sexuality on a scale.

"The very first chapter of Katz's book paints the relationship between Lincoln and a man named Joshua Speed as a love story, and he read the same sources as all the other historians at the time," said Balcerski. "And then Kinsey would take sexual histories, write down every episode, weigh it all and at the end he would give you a number."

Balcerski continued, "Later on, one of Kinsey's disciples named Clarence Tripp read the evidence of Lincoln's life and in his book, 'The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln' ... he assigned Lincoln a (rating of) five," essentially qualifying him as homosexual, Balcerski said.

According to Balcerski, the film spends most of its time unpacking the approximately four-and-a-half-year relationship between Lincoln and Speed. Balcerski and his peers also found examples of three different men whom Lincoln was intimate with over the course of his life.

"The first partner before Speed was named Billy Greene. The third was Elmer Elsworth, and the fourth was David Derrickson. The film goes through this chronologically nicely," said Balcerski.

Balcerski addressed some questions revolving around Lincoln's rumored affections toward women, which had been perpetuated by William Herndon, Lincoln's law partner and biographer. Balcerski said that Herndon was privy to every rumor and potential romance at the time but believes that there were times when Herndon "invents and fabricates," stating that there exists correspondence and interviews from the time that survive in Herndon's notes that were blatantly left out of his books.

"It was only when historians published an encyclopedia of Herndon's works called 'Herndon's Informants' that we finally saw all of it and saw that he's making claims that aren't in his evidence," said Balcerski.

"There's no evidence of any romantic or sexual passion between Lincoln and his wife," he said. "It's merely assumed based purely on the family planning. I think what Lincoln historians try to do is bend over backward to suggest Lincoln was interested in women even before Mary Todd. There have been made-up stories and rumors, such as an infamous tale between him and a prostitute."

Balcerski said another possible reason for theories on Lincoln's sexuality not being popularized is because of historical views that see sexuality on a binary, rather than fluid, scale.

"The people who say those things about sexual norms from years ago, such as amongst the Greeks and Romans, are actually resting on a set of new assumptions about sexuality," he said. "There's a set of new binaries and categories, that frankly, a set of very educated people with doctoral degrees decided was the best way to evaluate sexuality."

Speaking to the past, more conservative culture of academia, Balcerski continued: "It wasn't possible to be an 'out' historian or student at Harvard University (for instance). There were these social policing boundaries, so of course the scholarship reflects that. Scholarship is not neutral, it's a product of its time.

"This documentary, this interpretation, is a product of our time," he said. "This is a time to make this argument unabashedly and to put it out there, and hopefully engender conversation."

Balcerski did the filming and research over the 2022-23 academic year in Los Angeles, CA. In addition to the documentary itself, Balcerski has recently been featured in a seven-minute complementary Q&A segment of the film with Harvard professor of English and literary scholar John Stauffer and Lisa Diamond, a social psychologist at the University of Utah.

"Once the film came together, we were picked among the 20 scholars to talk about it a bit, and to address some of these initial concerns and questions that have emerged," said Balcerski.

"My hope is that eventually the film will have a wider distribution. It's wonderful to see it in theaters now. I also hope to be able to screen it on campus."

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