Coded Letters, Concealed Love; The Larger Lives of Harriet Freeman and Edward Everett Hale
Washington DC: New Academia Publishing, 2013. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. xvii, [1], 495, [3] pages. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Related advertising postcard laid in. Inscribed on the half-title page by the author. Inscription reads To Stuart and Pam I hope you enjoy this expose! Sara. Sara Day has an M.A. with distinction in Art History from American University, and is a member of BIO (Biographers International). Ms. Day's work has resulted in eleven books, six exhibitions, and other projects. These include: Being sole initial researcher for Philadelphia’s massive bicentennial exhibition, A Rising People, in 1973 with unlimited access to the extraordinary collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the American Philosophical Society; eleven years of full-time employment with the Library of Congress, beginning in the late 1980s, during which she curated or wrote the text for two major exhibitions, The American Journalist (1990), and 1492: An Ongoing Voyage (1992). Moving to the Library’s Publishing Office, she edited and co-authored books, exhibition catalogs, and resource guides, including works on American Indian and American women’s history and culture (Many Nations, 1996, and American Women, 2001) and edited James Hutson’s Religion and the Founding of the American Republic (1998); and as a freelance writer-researcher and independent scholar since the early 2000s, she was chief researcher, managing editor, and collaborator for historian Robert Remini’s The House: The History of the House of Representatives (2006) and researched and wrote Women for Change (2007) about American women reformers. Coded Letters, Concealed Love: The Larger Lives of Harriet Freeman and Edward Everett Hale is based on the thousands of surviving love letters between those two Unitarians, archived at the Library of Congress since 1969. The Rev. Edward Everett Hale of Boston was previously celebrated in three biographies, none of which revealed his 25-year extramarital relationship with his wealthy, 25-year-younger amanuensis, and unattributed co-author. This dual biography required breaking the code used to conceal the reality of their relationship and extensive research to reveal the extraordinarily brave woman, a serious amateur scientist and early conservationist, who agreed to protect her famous and ambitious lover’s interests and reputation and disguise her own contributions, particularly once he became chaplain to the U.S. Senate. Charismatic leaders have a way of flying too close to the fire. This is the chronicle of the secret romance between Hale and Freeman revealed for the first time through 3,000 of their love letters (1884–1909), written partly in code. The Reverend Edward Everett Hale (1822–1909) was one of the most revered moral and thought leaders of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, and yet, during twenty of his last twenty-five years, he lived a double life. Ironically, the theme of double lives, or alter egos, was one of his favorite literary devices. Frederick Ingham was the harassed minister of Hale’s first popular story “My Double and How He Undid Me” and reappeared in his most famous story, “The Man without a Country,” and several others. At one point, Hale even used the name Frederick Ingham as an apt concealer of his own double life. From the first celebratory biography of Hale by his namesake son, however, through two later biographies, Hale’s long marriage to the former Emily Baldwin Perkins (a member of the famed Beecher family) was described as successful, even cloudless. Edward Everett Hale Jr., who was aware of the reality, described his father’s much younger, unmarried longtime soul mate and lover, Harriet E. Freeman (1847–1930), as his literary amanuensis, assistant in his charitable works, and old friend. Jean Holloway, the second and most insightful of Hale’s biographers, lacking evidence to the contrary, reiterated Freeman’s supportive role, while his last, literary biographer John Adams, mentioned her not at all, despite the fact that love letters between Hale and Freeman had been made available three years before his book’s 1977 publication. And so Hale’s impeccable reputation endured, with no hint of the human weaknesses that seemed to accompany the qualities of religious faith, creative intellect, tolerance, empathy, charm, humor, and energy that were so admired by his contemporaries. In 1969, the Library of Congress acquired from a Freeman family descendant 3,000 of the Hale-Freeman love letters (1884–1909), written partly in code. Because interest in Hale had waned and potential researchers were probably daunted by the code, these letters remained unexamined for thirty-five years. Their significance became apparent only when Sara Day began studying the letters in 2006 and succeeded in breaking the code they used to express their love for each other. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Edward Everett Hale, Harriet Freeman, Chaplain, Senate, Charlotte Stetson, Charlotte Gilman, Helen Keller, Mary Cobb, Emma Cummings, Forestry, Theodore Roosevelt, Immigration, Conservation, Women's Rights
ISBN: 9780989916967
[Book #85550]
Price: $150.00