Teach Me Dreams by Mechal Sobel

Author:Mechal Sobel [Sobel, Mechal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Americas, United States, Revolutionary Period (1775-1800)
ISBN: 9780691228327
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2021-04-13T04:00:00+00:00

TRANSVESTING, 1775-1840

All of the women who succeeded in taking on authority—Ashbridge, Payton, Paisley, Osborn, Lee, and Jackson—played roles that had been defined as male, yet they claimed to be acting as women and marked themselves as such by wearing clothing that defined them as females. Nevertheless, they each found their own voice by speaking as a Joseph, a Jacob, a Daniel, or a Christ. Jemima Wilkinson’s persona was more anomalous than all the others; she apparently claimed to encompass both the male and the female aspects of God and chose clothing that signified her change but did not actually violate accepted gendering: she did not wear trousers, but her robe was much like a minister’s and her hat and hair style suggested those of a male. She did drop her gendered Christian name and chose to be called “The Universal Friend.” Other women who wanted to play the roles that men were allowed or expected to play adopted the guise of men or transvested themselves. While we cannot be certain, it would appear likely that this practice grew in the greater Revolutionary era. Certainly awareness of the practice grew.71

Marjorie Garber maintains that concern with cross-dressing indicates the existence of “a category crisis elsewhere” in the society, with the “resulting discomfort” displaced onto the marginal figures of cross-dressers. Garber thus sees concern with “cross-dressing as an index ... of many different kinds of ’category crisis ...,’” which she defines as situations in which borderlines, such as those between male and female, black and white, or rich and poor, “become permeable.”72 The Revolutionary period certainly was one in which all these categories were being shaken up.

The most important figure among the transvesting or passing women of the Revolutionary period was Deborah Samson (born 1760), whose name so strangely combines those of two biblical figures, a female and a male, both emblematic of strength.73 Samson had to abandon these powerful names in order to pass as a man, which she did when on May 20, 1782, she enlisted in the Continental army under the colorless name of Robert Shurtleff. There she passed as a “blooming boy,” one who had not yet begun to grow a beard, until her sex was revealed during an illness in October of 1783.74

Samson’s story comes down to us in a volume written by Herman Mann, who talked at length with Samson but wrote his own version of her narrative, although he stated that part was in her own words. This makes it extremely difficult to use this document, but the extensive historical research done by Alfred Young has provided a broad basis of facts to rely on. We now know that Deborah’s father had abandoned her; her mother had put her out at age five and later indentured her until she was eighteen; and her master had burdened her life and belittled her abilities. He may also have attacked her sexually, or failed to protect her from attack. While Deborah is likely to have harbored great anger at

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