Queer Subtexts

I. Margaret Jones, Mary Grew, and Cyrus Burleigh

II. Abby Kimber and Sarah Pugh

1840 in London

1835 forward Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society

erased relationship

"Sarah's friend, Abby Kimber, died in Third month, 1871. The severing of this tie was keen sorrow. From early life they had been closely associated; the diversity of their dispositions, with similarity of tastes and interests, strengthened the bond." 

1840 - what difference might it make if we understood that there was a lesbian couple among the women denied seating? At the very meeting where Mott and Stanton met each other, thus starting the motion to Seneca Falls?

1866 tour of the education of the Freedmen in the District of Columbia and the South - p. 110f

Abby Kimber accepted as an Aunt in the Burleigh family. Who knew what when, or suspected? And if they did, were they indifferent? Approving? Admiring? Silent for fear of scandal? We will never know. But it is the case that Gertrude and Charles's youngest, their daughter Theresa, never marries...

References:

[Her Cousins]. Memorial of Sarah Pugh: A Tribute of Respect. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1888. p. 120.