Harvard's Secret Court

[stuartwsa]

I have just finished reading a book that I would highly recommend, Harvard's Secret Court: The Savage 1920 Purge of Campus Homosexuals by William Wright (St. Martin's Press, 2005). It is all about the expulsion of several students for simply even associating with anyone even slightly suspect, and how Harvard tried to ruin their lives through vendetta.
The whole episode began with the suicide of a student, Cyril Wilcox of High Street, Fall River. Cyril's brother Lester knows about his brother, and after the suicide finds scandalous letters that infuriate him. In his anger and grief, he contacts Harvard, and passes on the letters, which sets the wheels in motion.
Coincidentally, after the secret court has met and sat in judgment, a second student from Fall River, Eugene Cummings, commits suicide as well.
There is a bit about the structure of Fall River society that rings true. And our Lizzie is mentioned a couple of times.
Lester Wilcox married Lucy French and took a job as supervisor at the Granite Mills. One part was actually amusing:
Lucy's family owned a farm in Swansea, close to Fall River. It was called "the Lizzie Borden farm" because of a distant relationship. ("Everyone in Fall River is related to Lizzie Borden," Lester's son, Richard Wilcox, would later say.)
Sadly, Lester ended his days in the Taunton Asylum, and was even suspected of having something to do with the great fire of 1928.

[nbcatlover]

They weren't kidding:

http://jrm.phys.ksu.edu/Genealogy/Needh ... I2761.html

Hannah Cook's mother is Mary Borden, daughter of Richard Borden and Joan Fowle of Portsmouth Colony.

Good thing for the Borden sanity survey that Lester came later.

[Kashesan]

sounds like a good read!

k

[DWilly]

I went and checked this book out at the library and so far I really enjoy it. I wonder how much Lizzie knew about Cyril Wilcox and Eugene Cummings? In the book it said that Cyril's family was "prominent and well liked." There is mention of The Wilcox Pharmacy, which the book says was "one of Fall River's three top drugstores." And said the pharmacy was, "the one favored by the old families." There was also the R.A. Wilcox Paper Company. The book also says the Wilcox family lived "on almost-fashionable High Street." Wonder if that was near The Hill?

The other Fall River young man to kill himself was Eugene Cummings. His father was a teacher in Fall River. We see that Cummings's name pop a lot with Lizzie.

Another funny quote: In the part where it talks about Mary Wilcox being interviewed by doctors and it's mentioned about the various mental problems in the family. It ends with this line: "Then, too, there was the legendary Lizzie Borden only a chromosome or two away."

[stuartwsa]

I believe that High Street is just down a block or so from Maplecroft, and that it intersects French Street.
I wondered about the Cummings connection to the Borden case as well.
I found it to be a really interesting book, and the bits about Fall River were a great bonus. For some reason I have a fascination with the history of Fall River (Lizzie aside), and love reading about it.

[nbcatlover]

I just got through reading a serial article online which was published in The Harvard Crimson starting Nov. 21, 2002. It is a very interesting and very sad story of how the university destroyed people's lives because of allegations about sexual preference (in some cases, it seems, totally unfounded, too).

It is an adult article and may not be to everyone's tastes, but it provides background for the book stuartwsa referenced.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=255428

[stuartwsa]

Thanks for that link, nbcatlover. I hadn't read that article before. It's an incredibly sad story, isn't it?

[DWilly]

What's ironic about this whole sad affair is that Lawrence Lowell, the President of Harvard during this time, had a lesbian sister who he loved dearly. Poet Amy Lowell, like Lizzie, had a *thing* for actresses.