Early Years and First Feminine-to-Masculine Transition in New York City
Rollin Kedzie Morgan was born on June 8, 1880, in New York City to George E. Morgan (1845–1931) and Mary Evelyn (Foote) Morgan (1851–1932). He had an older sister, Evelyn (1878–1937), and a younger one, Marion (1887–after 1950). He was assigned female at birth and given the name Myra.
As a child in Harlem, Rollin supposedly “preferred to play base ball and tops…to joining the girl companions in skipping rope and other feminine amusements,” in the words of the Barre (VT) Evening Telegram.[1] According to a Windham County Reformer (Brattleboro, VT) article, he accompanied his father on hunting expeditions to the Adirondacks and learned how to handle a fishing rod and gun.[2] Evidently his parents condoned his interests, as “unfeminine” as they were.
In 1900, Rollin’s father George, a physician, quit medicine and bought a hotel in Heartwellville, a hamlet in northern Readsboro, Vermont.[3] Rollin, his younger sister Marion, and his parents showed up in the 1900 U.S. Census as citizens of Readsboro, living with his older sister Evelyn and her husband Alexander Britton.[4] The Morgan family also had a boarder, Bessie FitzPatrick, and two servants, Kate McDermott and Edward Shaw, living with them.
During this time, Rollin helped out at the hotel. He reportedly did outdoor labor—in the stables, for example—while wearing men’s clothes. When working indoors, he dressed in women’s clothes and served food to guests.[5] To his father’s friends who vacationed in the area, Rollin often remarked how much he missed New York City.[6]
In late September 1901, Rollin, now twenty, made his first feminine-to-masculine transition by returning to his beloved New York City. He cut a dashing figure when he registered at the Hotel Boulevard in Harlem. According to the St. Albans (VT) Daily Messenger, he sported cropped hair, “a neat suit of gray flannel, a derby hat, and low patent leather shoes.” Wearing glasses and affecting “a self possessed masculine swagger,” Rollin no doubt felt relieved and confident.
Going by the name of Myron Morgan and claiming that he was eighteen, Rollin sought a job as an office worker at H. W. Johns Manufacturing Company, which specialized in asbestos products, including roofing, insulation, and paints. Manager Charles Horton hired Rollin to work in the firm’s mail room and run errands for five dollars a week. Horton described Rollin as “very bright” and “willing and anxious to please,” in the Messenger’s words. Friendly with the other clerks, Rollin bantered with them easily.[7]
When Rollin’s father George learned that Rollin had left home in men’s clothes, he did not call the police. George reasoned that Rollin would eventually appeal to his own friends or friends of the family for financial help. George wrote to his social circle and to Rollin’s, requesting them to report any news about his child.[8]
George did not want Rollin’s excursion treated as a potential crime and therefore a subject of public interest. Obviously thinking that Rollin’s behavior was scandalous, he restricted the truth to his friends: people of an equivalent socioeconomic class who comprehended how damaging Rollin’s New York City flight could be to the Morgans’ reputation.
Rollin’s past caught up with him, however. A coworker named Townsend had known the Morgans when they lived in Harlem. Townsend noticed a resemblance between his new coworker and Myra Morgan as well as a similarity in their names.
After Rollin had been working in the city for over a week, Townsend and an equally suspicious friend accosted Rollin and questioned him. Rollin admitted his birth name and said he would go home. He ended his employment at the firm and returned to Heartwellville.[9]
Notwithstanding Rollin’s father’s efforts to keep things quiet, news of Rollin’s first feminine-to-masculine transition initially appeared in the October 11, 1901, edition of the New York Sun and then spread across the country.[10] In Vermont, both the Barre Evening Telegram, which reproduced much of the New York Sun article, and the St. Albans Daily Messenger put Rollin on the front pages of their October 12, 1901, editions.[11] By referring to Rollin’s experience in the headline as a “masquerade” and, in the body of the article, as a “part,” the Telegram characterized his actions as a temporary, fictional identity, akin to an actor’s role. Rollin’s “quickly” promising to return home and his rapid departure from his job reinforced the ephemerality of his new identity.[12] The Messenger agreed; the headline called Rollin’s feminine-to-masculine transition an “escapade,” implicitly acknowledging his bravery while also belittling his action as a fun-filled diversion from real life.[13]
On the one hand, Rollin’s feminine-to-masculine transition was dismissed by his contemporaries as an evanescent, negligible lark. On the other hand, Vermont newspapers illustrated a deep uneasiness with Rollin. The Telegram’s subhead, focusing on what Rollin had made “the public think,” painted him as deliberately deceptive. He had tricked not just those he worked with but “the public”—society at large. In addition, the article’s inclusion of a comment from Rollin’s supervisor Horton—“The boy seemed so respectable and anxious for work that I engaged him”—strongly implied that Rollin was, in truth, neither male nor a respectable person.[14]
The Messenger added to the picture of Rollin as duplicitous by quoting Horton at length. “There was absolutely nothing…to lead me to suspect that” Rollin was any different from other young men at the company, said Horton. The supervisor added, “I was never more surprised in my life than when I learned” Rollin’s birth name and identity. Looking back, Horton identified the “softness” of Rollin’s voice as the only mark of his supposed femininity. In other words, the Messenger played up Horton’s shock to highlight how convincing Rollin was as a man. The Messenger used Rollin’s successful feminine-to-masculine social transition against him by insinuating that he was engaged in comprehensive fraud. According to much of the news coverage, Rollin was a disreputable liar. His identity as a man was an offense against propriety and, indeed, everyone in society.
In response, Rollin’s mother Mary began public damage control. In the October 18 Deerfield Valley Times (Wilmington, VT), she “most emphatically denied” Rollin’s first feminine-to-masculine transition. Rollin, she said, had merely been in New York City for a while visiting an aunt. In closing, Mary “asserted most positively that there wasn’t a word of truth in the story of the Sun” and, for good measure, declared that Rollin “also denied it most emphatically.”
The Times’s labeling of Rollin’s actions as a “thoughtless indiscretion” highlighted why Mary objected to Rollin’s behavior.[15] In 1901, the term “indiscretion” connoted sexual impropriety.[16] Thus Rollin’s transition was seen as a sexual transgression. His behavior was unbecoming by the standards of modesty, domesticity, and femininity to which he was expected to adhere as someone assigned female at birth. Mary was upset because, from her perspective, Rollin had compromised his own reputation and that of the entire family.
Notes
[1] “A Masquerade,” Barre (VT) Evening Telegram, 12 October 1901, 1.
[2] “Mr. Brown’s Hired Man Was a Dandy at Hard Work but She Proved to Be a Girl,” Windham County Reformer (Brattleboro, VT), 3 July 1903, 1.
[3] “She Secured Work as a Boy,” New York Sun, 11 October 1901, 7.
[4] U.S. Census Bureau, 1900 U.S. Census, Readsboro, Bennington County, Vermont, supervisor’s district 274, enumeration district 34, sheet 5, dwelling 102, family 105, s.v. “Morgan, Geo. E.” digital image, ancestry.com.
[5] “Mr. Brown’s Hired Man,” Windham County Reformer, 3 July 1903, 1.
[6] “She Secured Work,” New York Sun, 11 October 1901, 7.
[7] Details in this and the previous paragraph come from “A Vermont Girl’s Escapade,” St. Albans (VT) Daily Messenger, 12 October 1901, 1.
[8] This paragraph draws from “A Vermont Girl’s Escapade,” St. Albans Daily Messenger, 12 October 1901, 1.
[9] Details in this and the previous paragraph come from “She Secured Work,” New York Sun, 11 October 1901, 7.
[10] “She Secured Work,” New York Sun, 11 October 1901, 7.
[11] “A Masquerade,” Barre Evening Telegram, 12 October 1901, 1; “A Vermont Girl’s Escapade,” St. Albans Daily Messenger, 12 October 1901, 1. The Lyndonville (VT) Journal only published a blurb gleaned from the Sun. “Preferred to Be a Boy,” Lyndonville (VT) Journal, 16 October 1901, 3.
[12] “A Masquerade,” Barre Evening Telegram, 12 October 1901, 1.
[13] “A Vermont Girl’s Escapade,” St. Albans Daily Messenger, 12 October 1901, 1.
[14] “A Masquerade,” Barre Evening Telegram, 12 October 1901, 1.
[15] This quotation and the previous paragraph draw from “Story Was a Fake,” Deerfield Valley Times (Wilmington, VT), 18 October 1901, 7.
[16] See, for example, “County Court. Business of the Adjourned December Term Finally Completed Monday Forenoon. Celebrated Slayton Divorce Case, Concluded Saturday, Resulted in Dismissal of Both Petitions,” St. Johnsbury (VT) Republican, 23 January 1901, 1, in which “both husband and wife had been about equally guilty of indiscretions” (i.e., instances of adultery).