Arthur Kingsley Porter (1883–1933) was an American archaeologist, art historian, and medievalist. He was chair of Harvard University's Art History Department among other major achievements.

As of February 15, 2024, his Wikipedia entry does NOT report or cite the following published information about his death from a reliable informant.

Death

Psychiatrist Joseph Wortis reported in an interview:

"Porter was a homosexual, in the closet, who in the 1930s could not afford to come out with his homosexuality. He fell in love with a young man, whom I knew, Alan Campbell, and the young man spurned him and [Porter] went into a deep depression. He had a summer home in Ireland and threw himself off the cliffs; his body was never recovered. The bereaved widow, Mrs. Porter went to Havelock Ellis, who was a friend of Kingsley Porter, saying she wanted to use her wealth to do something for the cause of homosexuality. Ellis, with whom I was in touch at this time, suggested that the best investment would be in a person, not an institution. In turn, he proposed me and I received the fellowship."[1]

Jonathan Ned Katz comments:

The important report about Porter's homosexuality and the reason for his suicide has been published since 2007. The fact that no reference appears in his Wikipedia entry in 2024 is sad testimony to the long history of the suppression of LGBTQ history on that major international encyclopedia. That history and the LGBTQ resistance against it is worth preserving on OutHistory.

I once met Joseph Wortis on Shelter Island and he seemed a most reliable witness, a psychiatrist who was deeply concerned with social justice issues.

I hope that in the future OutHistory can record the date on which a full reference is made on Wikipedia to the testimony about Porter's suicide.[2]

NOTE

1  See Chapter 1, “'The Man Who Was Analyzed by Freud': Joseph Wortis on Freud, Freudians, and Social Justice, Interviewed by Todd Dufresne," in Defresne, ed., Against Freud: Critics Talk Back (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2007), 14-15. See also Lucy Costigan, Glenveagh Mystery: The Life, Work and Disappearance of Arthur Kingsley Porter (Merrion Press, 2013).

2  OutHistory earlier mistakenly claimed that "Alan Campbell" was the Alan K. Campbell married to the writer Dorothy Parker. An OutHistory user corrected that claim.