Alexander Hamilton and John Laurens, 1779-1782, by Jonathan Ned Katz

An exhibit on eighteenth century U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and his relationship with John Laurens. Multiple historians consider how to interpret the intimacy between Alexander Hamilton and John Laurens during the American Revolution. In 1976, Jonathan Ned Katz, in a first book documenting what he then called "Gay American History," presented letters between Hamilton and Laurens. Those letters are presented on OutHistory as Katz presented them in 1976. Since then Katz has studied what other historians have said about Hamilton's and Laurens' relationship and he presents excerpts from those historians here on OutHistory, along with his own later essay "Alexander Hamilton's Nose."

Allan McLane Hamilton, The Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton (1910)

Allan McLane Hamilton writes:

The gay trio to which Hamilton and Laurens belonged was made complete by La Fayette. On the whole, there was something about them rather suggestive of the three famous heroes of Dumas [The Three Musketeers], although the period of the American Revolution was less romantic than that of the Musketeers. . . . There is a note of romance in their friendship, quite unusual even in those days, and La Fayette, especially during his early sojourn in this country, was on the closest terms with Hamilton.

Note that Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton was a psychiatrist who wrote about “sexual perverts” and other sexual variants. For example, see his article "The Civil Responsibility of Sexual Perverts," American Journal of Insanity (1896).

Also see his books, including:

Recollections of an Alienist, Personal and Professional (New York, George H. Doran Company (1916),

A System of Legal Medicine (New York: E.B. Treat, 1907 [first ed. 1900),

A Manual of Medical Jurisprudence, with Special Reference to Diseases and Injuries of the Nervous System (New York [etc.] Bermingham & company, 1883),

The Development of the Legal Relations Concerning the Insane, with Suggestions for Reform (New York : William Wood & Co., 1908).

NOTE
Hamilton, Allan McLane. The Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton, Based Chiefly Upon Original Family Letters and other Documents, Many of Which Have Never Been Published. New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1910, London: Duckworth, 1910, p. 245.