June/Lind/Werther Research: ALPHABETICAL LIST
Last edit May 29, 2022, 8:17 AM ET
ALPHABETICAL RESEARCH LIST (see also Chronological Research List)
Page references to Werther's Autiobiography in its original edition, which is reproduced in the Rutgers University Press "facsimile" edition of 2008. See list of Werther titles below.
Werther usually writes as a male subject with, as he says, the "soul" or psyche of a woman. Therefore, for the sake of simplicity, Werther is referred to here as "he," "him," and "his." But Werther's subjectivity and identity needs to be carefully analyzed and specified as it changes over a lifetime.
For the evidence suggesting that Werther was William Hawken see:
http://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/katz-writing-work/hawkenresearch
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advertisements for Autobiography of an Androgyne:
Medico-Legal Journal. <CITATIONS?>
aliases:
Werther discusses the origin of five aliases (Female Impersonators 93-94):
"Necessity of Aliases : I have used five: Raphael Werther, Ralph Werther, Earl Lind, Jennie June, and Pussie. When I began my double life, I told the Underworld my legal name was Raphael Werther. I named myself after "the Prince of Painters," because he was the greatest ultra-androgyne who ever lived. He was my idol—my ideal. I wished him to pass through the earthly life all over again in my body. I further named myself after "the Prince of Amatory Melancholiacs" since I was myself such during my teens. Werther was Goethe himself, the most brilliant and most versatile man, "the Prince of Men," born subsequently to the Shakespeare-Author (Francis Bacon). As for the genesis of my first feminine name, I chose "Jennie" at four. I have always considered it the most feminine of names. When I began my double life, I
appended "June." I adopted that surname because of its beautiful associations, as well as because of the repetition of the j and n. I have always considered "Jennie June" as the most exquisite of names: the poetic name; the magic name; the "divine" name (in the sense that we speak of the "divine" or "godlike" human form) . I later substituted the feminine "Pussie" because so nicknamed, much to my delight, by the tremendously virile. I later adopted "Earl" primarily because it rhymes with "girl", the creature of enchantment that I longed to be, and secondarily because it arouses noble ideas. I adopted "Lind" after Jennie Lind, one of my models."
arrest, "first" (c. summer 1894?):
In Autobiography, Werther describes his "FIRST ARREST". While living at his family home in Connecticut, Werther hears that a "light artillery" attachment would be camping in a "neighboring town." He reaches the camp by "sunset" and propositions a soldier who demands money; Werther flees and is pursued by four soldiers and a constable, and is locked up for the night, and the next day sentenced to "three days in the lockup." The village where the jail is located is four miles from Werther's parents' home, and Werther's father hears of the jailing and thereafter treats Werther as if "he wished I had never been born." (Auto 97-98) In Autobiography this appears to have been in the in the "summer of 1894" (Auto. 91 -- JNK bolded words)
arrest, a "few years out of college" (1897?):
In "The Fairie Boy"Werther describes what appears to be a different arrest, trial, and jailing. If he graduated from college in 1894 and grad school around 1896 this would probably have been not a couple of years but three or more years later.
"A few years out of college, Ralph Werther is seen, pale and hollow-eyed, climbing into a prison wagon with other culprits recently sentenced by the judge, and on their way to take the train to serve their various terms in state's prison. The slums were combed in order to obtain witnesses against our nut-brown boy. "To think of those people coming into the box one after the other to testify against me !" Note that he says "state's prison." (Werther, "The Fairie Boy" 436, parts bolded by JNK to point to possible arrest documents.)
Does "a few years out of college" refer to the time he was getting his B.A., or to his later graduate school career?
See "college" below for further discussion of when and where he went to college.
See also "court-martial" below. See also "hiding birth name" below. See also "prison" and "Sing Sing".
arrest (1916? or 1917?):
Werther describes this as his only arrest for cross-dressing. Says that 5 years before Female Impersonators was either revised (in 1921) or published in 1922, he/she meets two "artillery men" on the "Rialto" who ask Werther to dress as a woman and visit their barracks. (Female Impersonators, 210; date is suggested by dated note on page 209.) Werther dresses as a woman and goes to the barracks (Female Impersonators 211); then goes to a “beer-garden in a neighboring village" (Female Impersonators 212); soldier friends get drunk and start a fight around 11 pm and Werther is arrested with soldiers and confesses to being a man in women's clothes; all are locked up for night; next day a Justice-of-the-Peace frees the soldiers but says Werther has to pay $100 fine for female impersonation or go to jail for 30 days; is taken by constable to "White Plains jail." Werther spends another night in jail, and then Werther's NY lawyer bails Werther out. (Female Impersonators 213)
Bell, Clark:
Co-editor of the Medico-Legal Journal. Werther, Ralph. Autobiography of an Androgyne. NY: Medico-Legal Press, 1918. The contract that Randall Sell found stated that Clark Bell employed Earl Lind. (See Sell's entry on Werther on OutHistory.) See "profession"
birth date:
Werther says he was born in 1874. (Auto, 35; FIs 53)
birth place:
Werther says he was born in Connecticut, and that his hometown was "famous for its wooded [wooden] nutmegs (see below] and other freak products." (Female Imp. 53, cited in Auto. xii.) He describes family home as located in "the outskirts of a large New England mill town." ("Fairie Boy," 433). He says the town was an hour from New York via express train in the 19th century.
Possible places:
Stamford, CT is now 1 hour from New York (but was it a mill town?)
Bridgeport is now 1 hr 15 minutes NYC.
New London is now 1 hr and 10 minutes from NYC (Google is source of time info).
Wikipedia lists Connecticut 19th century mill towns as: Bridgeport, Danbury, East Windsor, Enfield,Hartford, Killingly, Manchester, Middletown,Naugatuck, New Haven, New London, Norwich,Putnam, Seymour, Shelton, Torrington, Vernon,Waterbury, Willimantic, Winchester, Windham, Windsor Locks But how accurate is this list?
Re nutmegs, wooded (wooden). Werther says his Connecicut town of birth was famous for its "wooded nutmegs and other freaks." According to one source (below) New London was the town reputed to be associated with the wood nutmeg story.
"How did Connecticut come to be called "The Nutmeg State"? It's possible that it got this name from the famous speculation in wooden nutmegs immortalized by 19th Century humorist, Sam Slick. It was a Connecticut Yankee named Capt. John Allspice, according to his yarn, who took to Charleston 50 barrels of "wooden nutmegs, so like the real thing no soul could tell the difference until he bit one with his teeth." When his trick was discovered it became a standing joke with the Southerners . . . that Yankees were so sharp they'd sell wooden nutmegs. It should be noted that Mr. Slick's obvious fabrications did not enjoy a large sale in Connecticut. Or, as has elsewhere been related, the joke might have started with a whittling storekeeper in New London. Short of nutmegs, he carved one absent-mindedly, wishing he bad some to sell. A bride spied his pine replica and begged to take it with her, thinking this was the very thing she needed to flavor a dish she was preparing for her husband. Other housewives heard of the "new supply" and the storekeeper began carving "nutmegs" on the sly to keep his customers happy. A very unlikely story, declare the realists who maintain that no Connecticut Yankee retaining his senses of smell and taste would mistake the aroma of plain sawdust for the sweet, warm, spicy fragrance of grated nutmeg! Publication:The Gettysburg Times iLocation:Gettysburg, PennsylvaniaIssue Date:Friday, December 14, 1962Page:Page 9 Accessed Feb 25 2017 from https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/46323597/
Research by OutHistory user Dani, suggests that Stamford, Connecticut, may have been Ralph Werther/Jennie June's birth place. Published November 24, 2020. Hi there! I started reading your (wonderful) selections from Riddle of the Underworld. And of course, I got interested in whether we can figure out any more about the author. Clair Kronk in "Who was Jennie June?" notes that "Ralph Werther/Jennie June was supposedly born in a mill town in Connecticut. At least one researcher has suggested that it may have been the town of Bridgeport," and later, "claims to be a freshman at a university in New York City which was an hour by train from Werther/June’s home in Connecticut."
It looks to me like Bridgeport would have been too far away. Stamford was also a prominent mill town, at least according to its historical society, and was within the right range. The short reason is, "I couldn't find anyone on Ancestry who had been born in 1874 Bridgeport and at some point been recorded to be in NYC, so I started wondering what else was an hour's train ride away. I was looking at train speeds for the time, and found this piece from the NYPL, which inspired me to look further into train lines from that time." (Yeah, that's the short version.)
"Boston clergyman . . . sentenced to prison on the testimony of a young ex-soldier." From Part 1, pp. 41-42, of The Female Impersonators: "While they no longer burn them at the stake or bury them alive (as provided in old European law) they are permitted by twentieth century statutes to imprison inoffensive androgynes for twenty years. And these archaic statutes are still frequently enforced. Only a few months ago I read of a Boston clergyman who was sentenced to prison on the testimony of a young ex-soldier."
Researcher Kyle Phalen writes: "I'm pretty certain this is the case of George W. Solley, a Boston clergyman convicted of "immorality" on the word of a (Canadian) ex-soldier. See “CONVICTED OF IMMORALITY; Former Boston Clergyman Found Guilty on Ex-Soldier's Charge.” The New York Times, May 26, 1921 https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1921/05/26/98695759.html?pageNumber=10
Phalen adds: "Immorality" is obviously a bit vague, but sounds appropriately euphemistic for the era, and I found another article from the Boston Globe saying that another man testified to meeting Solley in YMCA shower baths. See “O'HARE IS WITNESS IN SOLLEY TRIAL,” Boston Globe, May 17, 1921, pp. 8–8.: https://www.newspapers.com/image/430208792/
college, university, 1890-1891:
Werther says he went to college, a "university," in 1891, in New York City, one hour from his family home by express train. (Auto. 49). If he began college in 1891 he would have turned 17, if he was born in 1874.
In a second memoir, Female Impersonators, Wether says: “At sixteen, I entered a college in New York City.” (FIs 82) If he was born in 1874 he would have turned sixteen in 1890.
Werther refers to "December (1894) of my senior year."(FIs 103) which suggests he entered a four-year college in 1890.
Werther says: "I was now in my third year of leading a double life. Outside my one evening per week in the Rialto, I led a most industrius student life, even winning prizes. I had already been awarded the bachelor's degree cum laude and was in my first year of graduate study. (Female Impersonators 118 -- JNK bolded) (So how many people got cum loude degrees from Columbia, NYU, the University of the City of New York in Decenber 1894? Or did he go to Union Theological Seminary? Which was "uptown" in the 1890s and what was "uptown"?
His major? Werther says he "turned out to be perhaps the best linguist in my college class, and that "languages and philology [interested him] most of all."(Auto 27).
Werther says: "I read Greek six years in "prep" and university. My observation is that androgyne scholars have a penchant for that language and drift into teaching it."(Female Impersonators 27)
"I had received my baccalaureat degree with honors...." (Auto. 116)
Werther says his "cerebral lobes have nevertheless progressed to a high development enabling me to graduate from a university almost at the head of my class."(Female Impersonators 83)
Werther says: "If my physical health had been as good as that of the three men who outstripped me, I might have led my university class." (Female Impersonators 85) The latter quote seems to be about his college in NYC.
Re "uptown" college: Werther refers to his university (in NYC) being "uptown": "While my male soul was a leader in scholarship at the university uptown, my female soul, one evening a week, flaunted itself as a French doll-baby in the shadowy haunts of night life downtown.
What colleges are likely? Columbia, NYU, University of the City of NY; Union Theological Seminary? Where were these schools in the 1890s? The University of the City of NY opened uptown in October 1894. And what was "uptown"?
For Columbia and the UCNY in October 2, 1894 see NYT: http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1894/10/02/106875866.html?pageNumber=9
Columbia University's Department of French and Romance Philology is one of the oldest and was founded in 1890. (Accessed on February 25, 2016 from http://www.columbia.edu/cu/french/department/history.htm ) See also: preparatory school.
See Chronology below. See "Columbia" and New York University in "Archives" list below.
Re graduate school: Werther says: "I was now in my third year of leading a double life. Outside my one evening per week in the Rialto, I led a most industrious student lie, evening winning prizes. I had already been awarded the bachelors degree cum laude and was in my irst year of graduate study." (Female Impersonators 118 -- JNK bolded)
Re graduate school, 1896-1897, Werther says:
"MY TWENT Y-THIRD YEAR This autobiography has now reached my twenty-third year. I had received my baccalaureate degree with honors, and was in my second year of graduate study. I had not really degenerated morally or religiously. For the entire year ending at the date at which I had now arrived, the aggregate time devoted to female impersonation and coquetry was approximately one hundred hours, as compared with about twenty-one hundred devoted to my studies and two hundred and fifty to the worship of my Creator and religious culture. (Auto. 116) [See "dating convention" entry.]
If Werther was born in 1874 he was 23 in 1897. Randy Sell points out that by "MY TWENTY-THIRD YEAR" Werther means from age 22 to 23, 1896-1897. For example, your first year of life is from birth to one year. Your second year is from age 1 to 2. Werther frequently talks about being in his ** year rather than saying that he was a particular age.
Werther adds:
"EXPELLED FROM UNIVERSITY The wreck of my happy and highly successful student career was now brought about by a physician whom I had consulted in hope of a cure for my inversion, but not one of the two gentlemen already named. He happened to number the president of the university among his friends, and whispered to him that I ought not to be continued as a student. I was immediately expelled. I earned my living in a minor capacity in the university, and expulsion also meant that my income was cut off. The shock of expulsion rendered me a mental wreck. But I did not have the courage to return to my village home. Nor could I even apply to my father for money. Since soon after my arrest two years prior to the present date, he had, as already described, displayed a pronounced antipathy for me, rendering my visits home almost intolerable. In addition, because of the double life my nature forced me to lead, I decided I must remain in New York. (Auto. 117)
Elswhere, Werther says: "I was expelled from the ...[university]as soon as the faculty learned that I lived according to Nature's behests."(Female Impersonators 72)
Werther says: "One physician brought about my expulsion from the university and made me a Bowery outcast and fairie." (Female Impersonators 95)
Werther researcher Randy Sell says:
And concerning graduate school dates in Autobiography on page 116 and 117 he talks of his 23 year (which would have been 1896 to 1897 but I think it was 1896 given that he doesn’t discuss 1897 until page 128 see my calendar below) saying he “was in my second year of graduate study.” Which would have therefore began in 1894 if you take my assumption of 1896. So college would have ended in 1894 or earlier. Further supporting my belief that he was expelled in 1896, on page 119, when he’s highly likely discussing 1896 he credits touching bottom with his “expulsion form college.”
Comstock, Anthony:
Anti-vice crusader. Werther says: "But in 1900, as soon as I had this autobiography ready, I submitted to Mr. [Anthony] Comstock in order to ascertain wether it could be circulated. He was then a Post-Office Department inspector, with power to prosecute for shipping 'obscene' matter by common carried. He read considerable of the manuscript of this book, and stated . . . that hewould have 'destroyed' it but for the fact that I impressed him 'as a person not having any evil intent." (Autobiography, page 33.)
Is there a Comstock archive? Is there a U.S. Post Office archive? A NYC U.S. Post Office Archive? Comstock founded the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and got his start as an anti-vice crusader there. The papers of the Society are at the Library of Congress: http://rs5.loc.gov/service/mss/eadxmlmss/eadpdfmss/2012/ms012088.pdf
Re U.S. Post Office archives: There are a number of archival collections for the US Postal Service (at the National Archives and Records Administration, at LC, at the US Postal Service itself, which has a historian, at the Postal Museum). Here’s a basic list of resources: https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/research-sources.htm
There may be someone connected to the archives (or the historian for the Postal Service) who can help you there.
"court-martial" (1905):
Werther says (FIs 94): "As a result of my 1905 court-martial making the names 'Ralph Werther' and 'Jennie June' known to some army heads, I found it advisable, when in 1907 renewing my kind of army life for seven years, to choose new masculine and feminine names. I feared it might become known to army heads that the fairie 'Jennie June' had transferred 'her' stage for female-impersonation to a distant military post. Hence the substitutions of 'Earl Lind' and 'Pussie.'" The 1905 date is also mentioned Auto 182)
Werther recounts: "I AM HALF-MURDERED" (Auto 183)
In Autobiography, 184, Werther says:
I AM COURTMARTIALLED For a month, until my face became presentable, I had to remain away from my ordinary circle. A full description of my injuries was written out by my regular physician to accompany the charges presented several days after the assault to the general commanding the military Department of the East, Governor's Island, New York Harbor. [JNK bolded.] I had to go so high because the temporary commandant at Ft. X was among those accused, that is, for not giving me a hearing when I sought to bring charges against earlier assailants. I immediately visited the United States district attorney also, thinking my case lay in his province. But he dismissed me after merely remarking that according to law, he could only be on the side of the soldiers and against me. I next went to the police station in whose precinct the fort was situated. I was here received with warm sympathy, notwithstanding that at the outset I declared myself an invert. But I was informed that since all the offences had been committed on the military reservation, the police and civil courts had no jurisdiction. News of the assault had got into the papers, and a police detective had made an investigation. Both the detective and the police sergeant told me that the commandant of the fort had informed them that I had been assaulted because I had indecently accosted my assailants. The military secretary at Governor's Island appointed Col. G. to investigate my charges. [JNK bolded.] In the course of the hearing, which lasted about three hours, I appeared to be the one under charges, and was repeatedly insulted by the captain adjutant and the temporary commandant. At its close the latter cried out: "The police are waiting to arrest you as soon as you step off the reservation!" [This was false.]
Werther adds: "My mourning lasted for months, because notwithstanding my repeated importuning in person and by letter, they refused to courtmartial or punish those who had half-murdered me. The reason was that I had the reputation of being addicted to fellatio." (Auto 184-185)
No other reference to Werther's "court-martial" in Female Impersonators. But on 257 Werther says common soldiers should not be treated to such hard jail terms via court-martial. See also "arrest". See also: "arrest" above, several entries.
dating convention:
Sell to JNK, March 21, 2016: Yes, he uses a convention that I’ve been meaning to check its history/origin. When he says he’s in his 23 year, he means from age 22 to 23. For example, your first year of life is from birth to one year. You’re second year is from age 1 to 2. He frequently talks about his ** year rather than saying when I was **. I had been wondering if this was how everyone did it back then, or if it was regional (or perhaps even a thing in England where Hawken might have spent some time)
doctors, medical:
Werther says "age of nineteen, when I went successively to two medical college professors and implored them to make me a complete male".(Female Impersonators 85) Did any of the medical doctors that Werther encountered leave any memoir of him/her? See: (1) Bell; (2) Herzog; (3) Lichtenstein, (4) Morrow; (5) Newton; (6) Robinson, V.; (7) Robinson, W; (8) Schufeldt. Two others are unnamed, Werther says (source?)
diary:
Werther refers to and quotes from her/his "diary." Would he have disposed of it? Not likely. Could he have figured out a way to leave it to an archive and hide his name? What archive? NY Acad of Medicine, which he visits and reads material at. U.S. Medical Library? NYPL?
employment:
see "profession"
Europe:
"FAIRIE ADVENTURES IN EUROPE I now spent five months in Europe with my employer. I was generally free evenings, and during our stay in the large cities, spent two or three a week with beaux that I came across. I had considerable conversational ability in four foreign languages. In Paris I generally spent my evenings with the adolescent porters of the Gare St. Lazaire, and in Berlin with soldiers whom I met in the Tiergarten. Because of indiscretions, I came near being arrested in Berlin and in Naples." (Auto 151) W. also says he spent two years in Europe before major arrest when he is sent to Sing Sing. (?)
famiy:
"The fourth child of my mother's eleven children, I was born and passed my first sixteen years [up to 1890] in the most refined section of a large village within fifty miles of New York City. At the time of my birth, each parent was about thirty years of age. My mother appears to have married for money rather than love. My parents. . . were eminently respectable religious people." Says father was "successful at making money".(Auto 35). Says he has eight brothers and sisters (probably means living siblings).(Auto 41) "A female first cousin is a psychical hermaphrodite, and while married to a man, has always retained a woman sweetheart...."(Auto 36)
Fourteenth Street Rialto:
(Female Impersonators 104; photograph105)
Frank White/Eunice:
Provides life story to Werther in Female Impersonators. Sent to "Sing Sing" prison (Female Impersonators 196, 197, 202). Werther speaks of this "incarceration" (Female Impersonators 192, 193, 194).
Werther Quotes Frank-Eunice as saying:
The immediate reason for my incarceration was merely an indiscretion. I had resided two years on the continent of Europe, [Paris, apparently-jnk] where every individual comprehends bisexuality and nobody oppresses those so unfortunate as to be afflicted therewith. That tolerance unfitted me for residence in the United States, where the words "sex" and "sin" are synonyms. I erroneously opined I could be as overt in New York as in Paris. [jnk bolded words in this text]
Therefore, while continuing to reside with my aged parents, I, soon after adopting Tony (not legally of course) leased for him a furnished apartment at a high-class residential hotel. Two successive hostelries finally refused to rent further to Tony and me. In the third year, we were in our third caravansary. [hotel or inn--jnk] But its personnel proved of unexampled bigotry because the manager was a narrowminded Methodist. He opined that simply expelling Tony and myself ignominiously was not sufficient. He was busybody to the extent of praying for my incarceration. Therefore he engaged an unusually handsome youthful detective to enmesh me. Attired as a Beau Brummel, the sneak first scraped acquaintance and then insinuated himself into my confidence. Soon he succeeded in seducing me where it was possible for a confederate to employ a camera without my suspecting anything. It was on the basis of that photograph that I was sentenced. My accomplice, who had been the sole occasion of the so-called felony, and who alone had proceeded deliberately and wilfully, received merely the thanks of the court and of society.
You inquire about the element of suffering during my incarceration. The first week in the Tombs jail, I lay awake half of every night in mental anguish, for I realized I was a martyr. Every one was accusing me of deepdyed depravity when my life was actually on a high ethical plane. All the journals announced in big headlines that I had been surprised in a double life—intimating wilful immorality. "Immorality"!" (FIs 193-194 JNK bolded sections)
friends, confidants:
Werther says: "Confidants: Throughout the three decades of my double life, I have, outside several physicians, disclosed it only to nine confidants of my every-day circle. One expressed his amazement that I should disclose it at all, affirming that even my best friend would be likely to get me thrown out of my economic and social position. All my lay [non-medical] confidants, however, proved helpful and compassionate excepting one, who, while never disclosing my secret, dropped me from his friendship, although we had been the very closest of Platonic friends." (Female Impersonators 95)
Werther says: "One of my three confidants achieved the highest success in life of any student in college with me;—one of the highest political offices in the United States. [JNK bolded.] Down to forty, I confided my homosexual adventures, although after we graduated, our personal relations were never closer than shaking hands. Within two years of his honorable name's appearing in absolutely every newspaper of the Union, he permitted me to receive mail addressed to one of my aliases (used only by those who knew I was an androgyne) in his care. At the time I did not realize the favor I was asking—the risk to his reputation that he unselfishly took. Ungrounded scandals sometimes arise when a full-fledged man does favors for an androgyne." (Female Impersonators 85 note 1)
Herzog, Alfred Waldemar.
Co-editor of the Medico-Legal Journal. Published Werther, Ralph. Autobiography of an Androgyne. NY: Medico-Legal Press, 1918. Published book: Medical Jurisprudence. See if it refers to Werther/June.
hiding birth name, identity:
Werther says: "On my sprees I have always been careful to avoid a clue to my identity. No one would have ever learned who I really am even if I had been sent to Sing Sing. [Elsewhere in same volume he says he was sent to Sing Sing: 196, 197, 202.] Since the world thinks female-impersonator utterly disgraceful, I had to spare my family all risk." (Female Impersonators, 202)
Hotel Comfort.
Werther indicates this is a pseudonym (Female Impersonators 109)
Howard, William Lee, M.D. "TWO SOULS IN ONE BODY: A REALISTIC BUT SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNT OF A TRUE PSYCHOLOGICAL, The Arena; November 1905; VOL. XXXIV., No. 192, pp. 476-479. See the account of Jennie/Karl, pp. 477-479. In the context of the chronology of Jennie June's life on OutHistory Jonathan Ned Katz believes this Jennie/Karl is certainly Jennie June (November 19, 2021). OutHistory is grateful to Benjamin A. Kahan for discovering this document and permitting OutHistory to list it.
interests:
"I like psychology, sociology, economics, and history least of all, and languages and philology most of all. Metaphysics and theology also stand high in my regard, while the natural science occupy a middle position." Werther "best linguist of my college class." Speaks several languages. (Auto. 27)
Lange, Johann Peter:
Werther-June refers to a theologian Lange. (Autobiography). Johann Peter Lange (1802-1884) was a professor in Zürich, a professor of evangelical theology in the University of Bonn, and a prolific author. Werther-June suggests elsewhere that he was influenced by evangelical "Puritan", Protestant religion. (Autobiography ??)
Lichtenstein, Perry M.
“A ‘Fairy’ and the ‘Lady Lover’.” Medical Review of Reviews, v. 27 (August 1921), 369-74. Accessed February 28, 2016 from: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015076621658;view=1up;seq=397 Lictenstein was a doctor at The Tombs. Ralph Werther (Jennie June), responded with "Ralph Werther (Jennie June)." “A Fairie’s Reply to Dr. Lichtenstein,” Medical Review of Reviews, v. 27, n. 11 (November 1921): 539-42. See below under Werther.
Morrow, Prince Albert.
Medical doctor who Werther says he/she consulted (perhaps around 1893?), (Werther, Autobiography, page 68.) See also Newton, Robert S. Arlene Shaner reports via email: Prince Albert Morrow was a bit of a strange figure. I’ve not found any archival collections of his papers, although we do have some of his printed works here at the Academy: http://catalog.nyam.org/cgi-bin/koha/opac-search.pl?idx=kw&q=prince+albert+morrow
You can find a pretty good biography of Morrow in Howard Kelly’s Cyclopedia of American Medical Biography, available through the HathiTrust:
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433010718355?urlappend=%3Bseq=849
murder of two androgynes: The Female-Impersonators (1922), Part 6, pages 222-236. Research in Newspapers.com indicates that two murder victims referenced were Winfield Scott Philhower and George H. Robee. See “Police Shut Central Park At Midnight” New York Tribune, December 25, 1920, pp. 2–2, and “MYSTERY IN PARK MURDER.; Victim of Hold-Up Men Had Five Fractures of the Skull.” The New York Times, November 25, 1920, p. 15. Timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1920/11/25/103503065.html?pageNumber=15. Thanks to Kyle Phalen for discovering the news reports.
names, naming:
Ralph Werther on: ?
New York Academy of Medicine.
RW read Psychpathia Sexualis and other sexology there in 1896, and later, Havelock Ellis. RS asked Arlene Shaner <AShaner@nyam.org> if they had Werther’s books, and if so, how they acquired them. Any book plates?
New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Anthony Comstock and got his start as an anti-vice crusader there. The papers of the Society are at the Library of Congress:
http://rs5.loc.gov/service/mss/eadxmlmss/eadpdfmss/2012/ms012088.pdf See also Comstock entry
Newton, Robert Safford (1857-1903): Medical doctor who Werther says he consulted (perhaps around 1893?; Werther, Autobiography, page 68). See also other doctors: Hertzog; Morrow; Robinson, V; Robinson, W.; Schufelt.
Werther says: "The alienist Dr. Robert S. Newton was the third physician whom I consulted but the first who had any inkling of the true nature of my malady. His frankness put an end to my chronic melancholia. I thenceforth merely suffered from it at rare intervals. I ceased the worse than useless longing and praying for a different nature than it had seemed good to the All Wise to predestinate. The alienist opened my eyes. He taught me that the androgyne’s proclivities are not the depth of depravity that every one, even the two preceding medical advisers, had previously given me to understand." (II: “The Boy” Riddle mss. on OutHistory)
Newton was a neurologist and alienist who was well known in New York for providing expert testimony at trials. He was the son of an earlier Robert Safford Newton. See Medical Record accessed March 18, 2016 from https://books.google.com/books?id=CBVYAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA544&ots=ZHz2lVKjJH&dq=dr.%20robert%20safford%20newton%20died%201903&pg=PA544#v=onepage&q=dr.%20robert%20safford%20newton%20died%201903&f=false
Obit: New-York tribune., March 26, 1903, Page 4, Image 4 Accessed March 18, 2016 from: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1903-03-26/ed-1/seq-4/#
ANY ARCHIVE OF THIS NEWTON'S DOCTOR'S PAPERS ?
Paresis Hall:
(Female Impersonators, 150-) See also "'Hotel' Comfort" (same, 150; Werther puts single quote marks around 'Hotel".)
patronage of fairy bars:
On the "respectable" nature of the patronage (late 19th century), see Ralph Werther-Jennie June ("Earl Lind"), The Female-lmpersonators (New York, 1922), 182- 85, 193. Source: Timothy Gifoyle City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex 1790-1920 (NY: W.W. Norton, March 17, 1994), 397. Accessed on February 26, 2016 from https://books.google.com/books?id=ccEP_1Lox-cC&pg=PA397&lpg=PA397&dq=Arrest+%22Ralph+Werther%22+%22%22Jennie+June%22%22&source=bl&ots=TAHzt0_aTY&sig=_-ZAJE0yl-1RmtvKONAuim8iNT8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwigruPpoJbLAhXJrD4KHWWpAl0Q6AEINTAE#v=onepage&q=Arrest%20%22Ralph%20Werther%22%20%22%22Jennie%20June%22%22&f=false
photographs of Werther-June:
mug shots? passport photos? Shufelt's photos; others' photos?
preparatory school:
Werther-June sent to prep school for seven years. "From the age of nine to sixteen my parents sent me to a fairly large boys’ prep school several miles from my hometown. But in only my senior (sixteenth) I boarded there. The students were almost exclusively high-strung, wealthy boys of the type that parents cannot manage at home and so send away to boarding school having a reputation for strict discipline." Werther describes sexual relations between "virile" boys; says: "in all tests without exception during the last four years of my course, the highest marks and a general average for my entire seven years’ course: the highest ever achieved in that school. My teachers told me that I was an intellectual prodigy as well as a religious prodigy. The principal, in a speech before the ninety boys of the school, named me, in my presence, as an example of a youthful scholar for their emulation (!!!). Source: http://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/earl-lind/manuscript/two
profession:
"In my middle twenties, I lived under three names and personalities. [If he was born in 1874 he was 25 in 1899.] I worked seven hours a day for a legal journal as "Earl Lind." Because under that name I had called on its editor to persuade him to publish my Autobiography of an Androgyne, representing myself as merely its author's agent. The editor was in his sixties, and happening just then to need an assistant, immediately hired me, never questioning the truthfulness of my representations as to who I was. He was at the time also one of the leading criminal lawyers in New York City. He employed me in all sorts of confidential capacities and let me into many of the secrets of his clients. Of course I would never have proved false to his trust, even though he never knew who I really was and where I lived. I attended court with him as his clerk. I learned all the intricacies of establishing a false alibi for a wealthy androgyne whom he represented in a case originating in blackmail by an adolescent. [JNK bolded.] I was his assistant while he was defending a client from prosecution by Anthony Comstock, [JNK bolded] when the latter gentleman was personally acquainted with me under the name of "Earl Lind," and knew I was trying to get the Autobiography of an Androgyne published, which he had already interdicted." (FIs 92-93). Werther says: "after an unusualy checkered career--largely incognito--his middle forties find him a highly specialized clerk in a large New York office." ("Boy - But Never Man," p. 99)
Rawson, Frederick L.
William Raplh Vyvyan Hawken is found guilty in London, on Feb. 8, 1892, of stealing from this executive of the International Okenite Company. SOURCE: Summary of arrest, warrant, and trial of Hawken, above. (An English newspaper report identifies Rawson as the person from whom Hawken stole. Source: “Central Criminal Court, Morning Post (London, England). Feb. 10, 1892. Accessed from GenesReunited.com.)
Negative research: Werther says that for two years: "it was my luck to serve as private secretary to a millionaire septuagenarian living in the suburbs of the metropolis" (Auto 142). Werther says he was in his mid-20s when he served for two years as a private secretary (Auto 152). If he was born in 1874, as he claimed, he was 25 in 1899.
Rawson was born in 1859 so he was 70 in 1929. So Rawson was not the millionaire referenced. Does Rawson comment any place on Hawken or stealing? Accessed biography of Rawson on March 7, 2017 from: http://flrawson.wwwhubs.com/
Autobiography of an Androgyne: https://books.google.com/books?id=KXxTbGocCvQC&q=private+secretary#v=snippet&q=private%20secretary&f=false
Red Mike: Howard's article "Two Souls" (see) has a reference to Red Mike in it. Red Mike is also mentioned in Autobiography of an Androgyne (page 67, 71 of Scott Herring's edition).
religion:
Werther clearly states that he becomes a religious prodigy in 1889. (Auto 48).
Werther says: "At fifteen [1889 if he was born in 1874] I developed into a religious prodigy. Until my debut as a quasi-public female-impersonator at nineteen, I, though the most melancholy person of my community, was active in church work. During these four years, I attended seven religious services a week (exclusive of college chapel every morning during two of these years) and from fifteen to seventeen, spent two hours a day in private devotions in addition. As early as fifteen, I was the leader of prayer meetings. I preached from the pulpit a dozen times at nineteen [1893 if he was born in 1874]—a few months before I relinquished all Church work because instinct drove me to female-impersonation." (FIs 76)
Werther discusses the year 1891: “I preached about twelve times from the pulpit, besides being the leader of about a hundred secondary church services.” (Auto 29)
Werther discusses his “thinking of becoming a minister of the Gospel.” (Auto 57)
Werther says: “I had been appointed a delegate to a student’s missionary convention in another city….” (Auto 69) and gives much detail about the convention (Auto through page 70)
Werther says: “But this was probably on account of his Methodist bringing up, like my own.” (FIs 127)
reviews of Autobiography of an Androgyne
Anonymous. American Journal of Surgery 34, no. 4 (April 1920): 116. Accessed March 21, 2016 from: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hc42ni;view=1up;seq=130
Anonymous? New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, June 1919: 527.
Accessed March 21, 2016 from: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b339639;view=1up;seq=541
[Hobson, Sarah M., Editor] S. M. H. Journal of The American Institute of Homeopathy, March 1919: 1972-1073.
Accessed March 21, 2016 from: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015010159088;view=1up;seq=1108
[Rommel, J. C., M.D., Co-Editor] J. C. R.The Medical World, July 1919: 258.
Accessed March 21, 2016 from: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112114872226;view=1up;seq=314
Smith,
Rialto.
See Fourteenth Street Rialto.
Robinson, Victor. Editor Medical Review of Reviews. Published Werther’s "The Biological Sport of Fairie-ism." Written 1920 for Victor Robinson. Medical Review of Reviews (Anthropos2) 40 2) (1934) 40: 185-96.1934). Had contract with Werther-June to publish Riddle of the Underworld. Victor Robinson’s papers are at the National Library of Medicine (although it’s not a very extensive collection):
https://oculus.nlm.nih.gov/cgi/f/findaid/findaid-idx?c=nlmfindaid;idno=robinson028 There is also a very small Victor Robinson collection at Duke: http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/trent-robinsonvictorpapers/
(SOURCE: email from Arlene Shaner February 19, 2016 1:15:43 PM EST) Randy Sell email: I’ve got a request in to the NLM to search the correspondence of Victor Robinson. Since Werther was corresponding with Robinson about publishing Riddle, I think there might be something there. Robinson was a historian and kept everything. (Source: Am 03.04.2015 um 02:02 schrieb Sell, Randall)
Robinson, William J. (M.D.) Editor, American Journal of Urology and Sexology. Father of Victor Robinson. The American Journal of Urology and Sexology published multiple essays by Ralph Werther-Jennie June. See below. JNK checked volumes for 1917, 1918, 1920 searching for Ralph Werther. For example, the Journal published Werther, Ralph-Jennie June. "The Fairie Boy. An Autobiographical Sketch." American Journal of Urology and Sexology (1918) v. 14, n. 10: 433-37. Two photos of author between pages 434 and 435.
Shufeldt, Robert Wilson. Listed in photo credits for photos of Ralph Werther in The Female Impersonators. (See: Wikipedia entry on Shufeldt: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wilson_Shufeldt).
*Randall Sell checked out Studies of the Human Form for Artists, Sculptors and Scientists (1908) which includes many nude photographs. Figure 347 is shot in the same room, S's studio, as one or more of the Werther photos in Autoiography.
*Schufeldt was an open, extreme racist: He published two books on race. The Negro: A Menace to American Civilization (Boston: Richard Badjer, Gorham Press, 1907).
*The 1907 book includes one comment on homosex: "Homosexuality is common in mankind, and far more so than it is among other animals. It is met with in both sexes. As a matter of fact, whether induced by disease, or indulged in by the normal man or woman, there is no animal or group of animals on earth, outside of man that practices a wider range of sexual perversions, psychopathia sexualis, and the most fiendish and inconceivable departures from normal coition to a natural end than does the genus Homo. He actually out-animals,— yes, out-beasts the bestiality of the very beasts themselves." (21) Accessed February 26, 2016 from https://archive.org/stream/negromenacetoame00shuf/negromenacetoame00shuf_djvu.txt
*Shufeldt also published America's Greatest Problem: The Negro (Philadelphia: FA Davis, 1915). The racist 1915 book can be accessed at: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=America's+Greatest+Problem%3A+The+Negro
*Shufelt wrote more on sexual perversion: See:
*R. W. Shufeldt, "Dr. William Lee Howard on 'The Perverts,' Pacific Medical Journal, v. 45 (1902): 143-50.
*R.W. Shufeldt, “The Medico-Legal Consideration of Perverts and Inverts,” Pacific Medical Journal, 48. (1905): 385-393. S talks here about knowing Werther-June, who S says died before age 30. On p. 393 of this essay Shufeldt refers to "the day of self-destruction , which occurred before 30 years of age." But in Werther-June's Autobiography he/she speaks of him/herself numbers of times as being in her/his mid-forties, around 1919. (Auto. 26, 27, 45) Question: Is it significant of something important that Shufeldt describes Werther/June as dead at an early age? RS suggests that "Werther" introduced himself as "Earl Lind", and said he was the agent for the manuscript left by Werther-June, who had committed suicide before the age of 30. If so, S. would have learned that "Lind" was "Werther" when Werther later posed naked for S.
*R.W. Shufeldt, “Judicial Ignorance of Sexual Crimes,” Pacific Medical Journal, 50 (1907): 79-82.
*Shufeldt hailed by Werther as “one of America’s Foremost Medical Writers,” and quoted Shufeldt at length in The Female-Impersonators (266-268).
*Shufeldt and Werther discussed by Melissa Norelle Stein: Embodying Race: Gender, Sex, and the Sciences of Difference, Ph.D. Diss. Rutgers, May 2008. Accessed February 26, 2016 from: https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/24488/pdf/1/
Taylor, Bayard.
Werther recalls that Taylor and other travel writers discuss eunuchs in the "east." (Auto 66)
Werther, Ralph-Jennie June: ALIASES
Discusses aliases: Jennie June, Ralph Werther, Raphael Werther. (Auto. 34) See also entry on Wilde, Oscar, re his aliases.
Werther, Ralph- Jennie June: Authored Works:
Werther, Ralph. Autobiography of an Androgyne. NY: Medico-Legal Press, 1918. Reprinted with an Introduction by Scott Nearing. Rutger's University Press, February 2008. <Is there an on line edition? Not apparently.-JNK>
Publisher's description of reprint: First printed in 1918, Ralph Werther's Autobiography of an Androgyne charts his emerging self-understanding as a member of the "third sex" and documents his explorations of queer underworlds in turn-of-the-century New York City. Werther presents a sensational life narrative that begins with a privileged upper-class birth and a youthful realization of his difference from other boys. He concludes with a decision to undergo castration. Along the way, he recounts intimate stories of adolescent sexual encounters with adult men and women, escapades as a reckless "fairie" who trolled Brooklyn and the Bowery in search of working-class Irish and Italian immigrants, and an immersion into the subculture of male "inverts." This new edition also includes a critical introduction by Scott Herring that situates the text within the scientific, historical, literary, and social contexts of urban American life in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Tracing how this pioneering autobiography engages with conversations on immigration, gender, economics, metropolitan working-class culture, and the invention of homosexuality across class lines, this edition is ideal for courses on topics ranging from Victorian literature to modern American sexuality.
Werther, Ralph-Jennie June. "Boy - But Never Man."American Journal of Urology and Sexology, v. 15, n. 3 (March 1919): 97-101.
Accessed March 23, 2016 frOM https://ia802505.us.archive.org/26/items/americanjournalo1519unse/americanjournalo1519unse.pdf
Accessed February 28, 216 from: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ien.35558002395693;view=1up;seq=113
Werther, Ralph-Jennie June. "The Fairie Boy. (An Autobiographical Sketch.)" American Journal of Urology and Sexology (October 1918) v. 14, n. 10: 433-37. Two photos of author between pages 434 and 435. The American Journal was edited by William J. Robinson, M.D. Accessed February 18, 2016 from https://archive.org/stream/americanjournalo1419unse#page/432/mode/2up/search/Fairie See "The Girl-Boy's Suicide" in the next issue of this publication.
Werther, Ralph-Jennie June. “A Fairie’s Reply to Dr. Lichtenstein,” Medical Review of Reviews, v. 27, n. 11 (November 1921): 539-42. Accessed February 28, 2016 from http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015076621658;view=1up;seq=573 See Lichtenstein, above.
Werther, Ralph-Jennie June. "The Female Impersonator." American Journal of Urology and Sexology, v. 15, n. 3 (June 1919): 241-45. Accessed February 28, 2016 from: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ien.35558002395693;view=1up;seq=257 (NOTE: this is an essay with a similar title to Werther's second autobiography.)
Werther, Ralph-Jennie June ("Earl Lind").The Female-Impersonators; a Sequel to the Autobiography of an Androgyne and an Account of Some of the Author's Experiences During his Six Years' Career as Instinctive Female-impersonator in New York's Underworld. Introduction and Edited by Alfred Waldemar Herzog (1866-1933), NY: Medico-Legal Journal, 1922. Photographic reprint: NY: Arno Press, 1975. Original accessed February 17, 2016 from https://archive.org/details/femaleimpersonat00wert. Can download whole searchable book from this site. Original also accessed February 28, 2016 from: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112029111231;view=1up;seq=10 SEARCHED THIS BOOK: college; university; arrest; incarceration; court-martial
Werther, Ralph-Jennie June. "The Girl-Boy's Suicide." American Journal of Urology and Sexology , v. 14, n. 11 (November 1918): 495-99. Accessed February 28, 2016 from: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nnc2.ark:/13960/t81k21j5x;view=1up;seq=489
Werther, Ralph-Jennie June. "Protest from An Androgyne." American Journal of Urology and Sexology , v. 14, n. 7 (July 1919): 313-16. Letter in response to article by Dr. James Weir on effemination in the Aoril issue of this journal. Accessed February 28, 2016 from http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ien.35558002395693;view=1up;seq=323
Werther, Ralph-Jennie June. Riddle of the Underworld. (Part of unpublished third autobiography by Werther, discovered by Randall Sell and published for the first time on OutHistory.) Earl Lind (Ralph Werther-Jennie June): The Riddle of the Underworld, 1921 http://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/earl-lind
Werther, Ralph-Jennie June. "The Sorrows of Jennie June." American Journal of Urology and Sexology, v. 15, n. 4 (April 1919): 160-65.
Werther, Ralph-Jennie June. "Studies in Androgynism." Medical Life, v. 27, n. 12 (December 1920), pp. 235-246. Medical Life was edited by Victor Robinson. Accessed on February 26, 2016 from: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.31158009117754?urlappend=%3Bseq=71 Reprinted: Medical Review of Reviews (Anthropos 2) 40 2, (1934) 40: 185-96.1934). Medical Review of Reviews was also edited by Victor Robinson.Reprinted in Medical Life (NY), (1920) 27: 235-46. Accessed February 28, 2016 from the HathiTrust at:
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.31158009117754?urlappend=%3Bseq=71
Whitman, Walt: Werther says: "Walt Whitman stands foremost among American androgynes. But he was of the mild type. Many passages of Leaves of Grass and Drumtaps exist as proof. He never married, although closely pursued by even wealthy women desiring him as husband. In middle age he spent his hours for recreation in the society of adolescents—as I was informed by Whitman's so-called "adopted son". [JNK bolded this!] That is, he courted them, as a normal man courts a woman. Chance made me intimate with the "adopted son" in his seventies. All three of us happened to belong to New York City. [JNK: Werther may be talking about Harry Stafford. Did Stafford ever live in NYC? Or maybe the "adopted son" was the aide who cared for Whitman in his old age.]
Wilde, Oscar. Werther suggests that Wilde, using a pseudonym, wrote the novel Escal Vigor (actually Escal-Vigor [first published 1999] by Georges Eekhoud.) Werther offers a theory that the name Escal Vigor has the same number of letters as Wilde's name. "I have myself built a pseudonym on my baptismal name in similar fashion. (Auto. 29-30). So either Ralph Werther or Earl Lind probably have the same number of letters as his baptismal name. Jennie June is a name he started using as a child, he says.
White, Frank/Eunice. (FIs ?) Werther tells story of.
See also