Anne Longfellow Thorp
Just as it can be hard for living lesbians to be visible when they are not partnered, it can be harder to prove the existence of historical lesbians if they did not have long and visible partnerships with other women. There is little conspicuous evidence of Anne Longfellow Thorpe’s romantic attachment to women, but numerous strands intertwine to suggest that the “magnificent spinster,” as she was dubbed by the woman-centered poet May Sarton (1912-1995), is firmly rooted in the lesbian history of Mount Desert Island.
Anne Longfellow Thorp (ALT) was born on April 9, 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the fourth of five daughters of Joseph Gilbert Thorp Jr. (1852-1931), a wealthy Boston lawyer, and Anne Allegra Longfellow Thorp (1855-1934), daughter of iconic American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). As an aside, ALT’s grandfather, in addition to famous poems such as “Evangeline” and “Paul Revere’s Ride,” wrote a novel, Kavanagh (1849), which biographer Charles C. Calhoun contends “depicts what is probably the first lesbian relationship in American fiction.” The year after her birth, ALT’s father had a summer house built on Greening Island in Southwest Harbor, Maine. He named the house Raventhorp, and ALT and her sisters spent many happy weeks there, as children and adults.
ALT was at least a peripheral part of the lesbian family from a young age—her aunt Alice Mary Longfellow (1850-1928) was another dynamic spinster who maintained a long and deeply affectionate relationship with a woman. Independent by nature, Alice Longfellow helped launch the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women, which later became Radcliffe College. By the time she was 24 she was intimately involved with Fanny Coolidge Stone (1851-1931), the daughter of a Massachusetts politician. The two traveled extensively together, and Fanny was a regular visitor to the Longfellow home.
When her father was elected to Congress, Fanny moved to Washington to assist him during legislative sessions. Separated for months at a time, Alice and Fanny wrote each other affectionate, yearning letters. Like many a separated lover, Fanny closed one of her letters to Alice, “Goodnight, with a loving close hug. I do wish I could sleep with you tonight Alushka.” Alice and Fanny remained closely attached for more than four decades. Alice also had other close women friends, including the writers Annie Fields (1834-1915) and Sarah Jewett (1849-1909), whose long partnership provided the inspiration for the lesbians depicted in Henry James’ 1886 novel, The Bostonians. Sarah was another Mainer, who immortalized the landscape and culture of her home town of South Berwick in numerous novels and short stories.
Few details have been recorded about ALT’s childhood except that her grandfather and parents encouraged her inquisitive mind and intellectual development. In her 1997 biography of May Sarton, Margot Peters describes ALT and hints at the personality that must have formed in her early years, “She was a recognizable Cambridge type, with her love of the outdoors, noble aims, innocence, and lack of frivolity, though not of fun.” Like her Aunt Alice, she had enough family wealth not to require a husband, and she set her sights on higher education and a career in teaching.
After finishing her early education at a Boston girls’ school called Miss May’s, in 1915 ALT entered Vassar College, where one of her classmates was the lesbian poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892- 1950), who went by the name Vincent during her college years, as she both lived and wrote about intimate relationships between women. During her time at Vassar, ALT also met pioneering progressive educator Katherine Taylor (1869-1979), another influential unmarried woman, who became a mentor and would exert a tremendous influence on her later career.
The US entrance into World War I closely followed ALT’s graduation from Vassar, and, when the war ended, her dual senses of social responsibility and adventure led her to travel to the coast of France to work with children orphaned by the war. Some accounts say that she went with “a close friend,” which some lesbians might view as code for something more intimate. In any case, given the social standards of the time, ALT’s companion must have been a woman, and one she felt trusting enough to travel with.
When she returned to Cambridge, ALT resumed contact with her Vassar friend, Katherine Taylor, who had recently been named director of the Shady Hill School, a neighborhood cooperative just making the transition to certified coeducational institution. Katherine invited ALT to come teach at Shady Hill, and she accepted, working first with the five-year-olds, then, at her own request, teaching seventh grade. ALT remained at Shady Hill until her retirement in 1951. She was both respected and beloved for her creative teaching style, especially her use of drama to enliven medieval history.
One of ALT’s most celebrated students was May Sarton, who eventually became a prominent writer who had numerous sexual relationships with women. Born in Belgium, May entered Shady Hill shortly after her family immigrated to the US. She had several influential teachers there but was especially enamored with ALT, who she called “the most beneficent person I have ever known.” After leaving Shady Hill, May maintained contact with ALT, and in 1930 presented her with a handmade edition of her earliest published poems, dedicated “For A.L.T/From MAY/Noel 1930.” One of its poems, “First Love,” suggests all the tenderness and agony of an adolescent crush, beginning “This is the first soft snow / That tiptoes up to your door,” and ends “This is the hunt, and the queer / Sick beating of feet that fear.” In 2021, this hand-sewn volume was valued by Swann Galleries at over $2500.
ALT was even more grounded at Shady Hill because her eldest sister Alice Allegra Thorp (1888-1955) worked there as a secretary for many years, and may have been another lesbian influence in ALT’s life. Alice was never married to a man and lived for many years with the Shady Hill librarian, Agnes Swift (1908-2004). “Swifty,” as she was known to students and friends, was a capable, independent woman who grew up sailing in Massachusetts Bay and gained a reputation as an expert hand with a boat. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1931 and soon after joined the Shady Hill faculty where she remained for over four decades. Former colleagues described her as, “a wonderful-looking woman with pink cheeks, dark hair, and piercing blue eyes" and “a wonderful chuckle.”
Swifty lived with Alice, as friend and caregiver (and possibly more) until Alice’s death in 1955. For at least some of that time, ALT lived with them, and the three spent most summers at Ravensthorp, where Swifty taught the local children to sail and carve model boats. Alice died only 4 years after ALT’s retirement from Shady Hill. ALT remodeled a barn behind the Longfellow family home into an apartment, and she and Swifty continued to live together in companionable domesticity (and perhaps more), dividing their time between Cambridge and Greenings Island until ALT’s death from complications from a stroke in 1977.
May Sarton continued to love and value her old friend and former teacher. After ALT’s death, she organized the publication of a tribute that was read at ALT’s memorial. In 1985, May published The Magnificent Spinster, a thinly veiled homage to ALT in the story of Jane Reid, a daughter of a well-to-do progressive family who grows up on the Maine coast and becomes a teacher. Like ALT’s life, the book contains no overt or verifiable lesbianism, but it is a tribute to the fulfillment and benefits that can be gained from a life centered on and surrounded by independent-minded women. One imagines that May’s view of ALT must be crystalized in her description of Jane, whose “attitude toward women was chivalrous (there she was always romantic), toward men humorously maternal, never taking them quite seriously, perhaps, and toward children, childlike.” That romantic, woman-centered consciousness, as much as anything, can be said to be the basis of lesbian identity.
Further Reading about ALT and the Women in Her Life
Calhoun, Charles C. Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life. Beacon Press, 2004.
Gofton, Sandra. “LGBTQ+ Moments on the East Coast: A Case Study on the Longfellow House, Its Queer Residents, and the Spaces Around Them.” May 2, 2021. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/f4e7733dea414020bbd0a4b64fb1d103
Loehr, S. R. “Katharine Taylor and the Shady Hill School, 1915-1949.” Doctoral Dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst 1989. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5461&context=dissertations_1
Negri, Gloria. “Agnes Swift, 96; Librarian Lived with Zest, Loved the Sea.” Boston Globe. July 8, 2004.
Peters, Margot. May Sarton: Biography. Ballantine Publishing, 1997.
Sarton, May. The Magnificent Spinster. W. W. Norton & Company, 1988.
Welch, Margaret and Lauren Malcolm. Finding Aid for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), Family Papers, 1768-1972, (Bulk Dates 1825-1950). National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Northeast Museum Services Center, Fall 2006. https://www.nps.gov/long/learn/historyculture/upload/hwlfamilyaidnmscfinal.pdf
“Agnes Swift: Obituary.” Brattleboro Reformer. June 30, 2004.
“Boston Marriages.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/boston-marriages.htm
“Sapphic Victorians and the Queerness of Alice Longfellow.” Longfellow House Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site. https://www.nps.gov/media/video/view.htm?id=57105293-40A5-4983-B1AC-7BBA7C57B691
“Women in US History: Fanny Coolidge Stone.” Temple University. https://sites.temple.edu/womenushist/fanny-coolidge-stone/
Anne Longfellow Thorp (ALT) was born on April 9, 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the fourth of five daughters of Joseph Gilbert Thorp Jr. (1852-1931), a wealthy Boston lawyer, and Anne Allegra Longfellow Thorp (1855-1934), daughter of iconic American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). As an aside, ALT’s grandfather, in addition to famous poems such as “Evangeline” and “Paul Revere’s Ride,” wrote a novel, Kavanagh (1849), which biographer Charles C. Calhoun contends “depicts what is probably the first lesbian relationship in American fiction.” The year after her birth, ALT’s father had a summer house built on Greening Island in Southwest Harbor, Maine. He named the house Raventhorp, and ALT and her sisters spent many happy weeks there, as children and adults.
ALT was at least a peripheral part of the lesbian family from a young age—her aunt Alice Mary Longfellow (1850-1928) was another dynamic spinster who maintained a long and deeply affectionate relationship with a woman. Independent by nature, Alice Longfellow helped launch the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women, which later became Radcliffe College. By the time she was 24 she was intimately involved with Fanny Coolidge Stone (1851-1931), the daughter of a Massachusetts politician. The two traveled extensively together, and Fanny was a regular visitor to the Longfellow home.
When her father was elected to Congress, Fanny moved to Washington to assist him during legislative sessions. Separated for months at a time, Alice and Fanny wrote each other affectionate, yearning letters. Like many a separated lover, Fanny closed one of her letters to Alice, “Goodnight, with a loving close hug. I do wish I could sleep with you tonight Alushka.” Alice and Fanny remained closely attached for more than four decades. Alice also had other close women friends, including the writers Annie Fields (1834-1915) and Sarah Jewett (1849-1909), whose long partnership provided the inspiration for the lesbians depicted in Henry James’ 1886 novel, The Bostonians. Sarah was another Mainer, who immortalized the landscape and culture of her home town of South Berwick in numerous novels and short stories.
Few details have been recorded about ALT’s childhood except that her grandfather and parents encouraged her inquisitive mind and intellectual development. In her 1997 biography of May Sarton, Margot Peters describes ALT and hints at the personality that must have formed in her early years, “She was a recognizable Cambridge type, with her love of the outdoors, noble aims, innocence, and lack of frivolity, though not of fun.” Like her Aunt Alice, she had enough family wealth not to require a husband, and she set her sights on higher education and a career in teaching.
After finishing her early education at a Boston girls’ school called Miss May’s, in 1915 ALT entered Vassar College, where one of her classmates was the lesbian poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892- 1950), who went by the name Vincent during her college years, as she both lived and wrote about intimate relationships between women. During her time at Vassar, ALT also met pioneering progressive educator Katherine Taylor (1869-1979), another influential unmarried woman, who became a mentor and would exert a tremendous influence on her later career.
The US entrance into World War I closely followed ALT’s graduation from Vassar, and, when the war ended, her dual senses of social responsibility and adventure led her to travel to the coast of France to work with children orphaned by the war. Some accounts say that she went with “a close friend,” which some lesbians might view as code for something more intimate. In any case, given the social standards of the time, ALT’s companion must have been a woman, and one she felt trusting enough to travel with.
When she returned to Cambridge, ALT resumed contact with her Vassar friend, Katherine Taylor, who had recently been named director of the Shady Hill School, a neighborhood cooperative just making the transition to certified coeducational institution. Katherine invited ALT to come teach at Shady Hill, and she accepted, working first with the five-year-olds, then, at her own request, teaching seventh grade. ALT remained at Shady Hill until her retirement in 1951. She was both respected and beloved for her creative teaching style, especially her use of drama to enliven medieval history.
One of ALT’s most celebrated students was May Sarton, who eventually became a prominent writer who had numerous sexual relationships with women. Born in Belgium, May entered Shady Hill shortly after her family immigrated to the US. She had several influential teachers there but was especially enamored with ALT, who she called “the most beneficent person I have ever known.” After leaving Shady Hill, May maintained contact with ALT, and in 1930 presented her with a handmade edition of her earliest published poems, dedicated “For A.L.T/From MAY/Noel 1930.” One of its poems, “First Love,” suggests all the tenderness and agony of an adolescent crush, beginning “This is the first soft snow / That tiptoes up to your door,” and ends “This is the hunt, and the queer / Sick beating of feet that fear.” In 2021, this hand-sewn volume was valued by Swann Galleries at over $2500.
ALT was even more grounded at Shady Hill because her eldest sister Alice Allegra Thorp (1888-1955) worked there as a secretary for many years, and may have been another lesbian influence in ALT’s life. Alice was never married to a man and lived for many years with the Shady Hill librarian, Agnes Swift (1908-2004). “Swifty,” as she was known to students and friends, was a capable, independent woman who grew up sailing in Massachusetts Bay and gained a reputation as an expert hand with a boat. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1931 and soon after joined the Shady Hill faculty where she remained for over four decades. Former colleagues described her as, “a wonderful-looking woman with pink cheeks, dark hair, and piercing blue eyes" and “a wonderful chuckle.”
Swifty lived with Alice, as friend and caregiver (and possibly more) until Alice’s death in 1955. For at least some of that time, ALT lived with them, and the three spent most summers at Ravensthorp, where Swifty taught the local children to sail and carve model boats. Alice died only 4 years after ALT’s retirement from Shady Hill. ALT remodeled a barn behind the Longfellow family home into an apartment, and she and Swifty continued to live together in companionable domesticity (and perhaps more), dividing their time between Cambridge and Greenings Island until ALT’s death from complications from a stroke in 1977.
May Sarton continued to love and value her old friend and former teacher. After ALT’s death, she organized the publication of a tribute that was read at ALT’s memorial. In 1985, May published The Magnificent Spinster, a thinly veiled homage to ALT in the story of Jane Reid, a daughter of a well-to-do progressive family who grows up on the Maine coast and becomes a teacher. Like ALT’s life, the book contains no overt or verifiable lesbianism, but it is a tribute to the fulfillment and benefits that can be gained from a life centered on and surrounded by independent-minded women. One imagines that May’s view of ALT must be crystalized in her description of Jane, whose “attitude toward women was chivalrous (there she was always romantic), toward men humorously maternal, never taking them quite seriously, perhaps, and toward children, childlike.” That romantic, woman-centered consciousness, as much as anything, can be said to be the basis of lesbian identity.
Further Reading about ALT and the Women in Her Life
Calhoun, Charles C. Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life. Beacon Press, 2004.
Gofton, Sandra. “LGBTQ+ Moments on the East Coast: A Case Study on the Longfellow House, Its Queer Residents, and the Spaces Around Them.” May 2, 2021. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/f4e7733dea414020bbd0a4b64fb1d103
Loehr, S. R. “Katharine Taylor and the Shady Hill School, 1915-1949.” Doctoral Dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst 1989. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5461&context=dissertations_1
Negri, Gloria. “Agnes Swift, 96; Librarian Lived with Zest, Loved the Sea.” Boston Globe. July 8, 2004.
Peters, Margot. May Sarton: Biography. Ballantine Publishing, 1997.
Sarton, May. The Magnificent Spinster. W. W. Norton & Company, 1988.
Welch, Margaret and Lauren Malcolm. Finding Aid for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), Family Papers, 1768-1972, (Bulk Dates 1825-1950). National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Northeast Museum Services Center, Fall 2006. https://www.nps.gov/long/learn/historyculture/upload/hwlfamilyaidnmscfinal.pdf
“Agnes Swift: Obituary.” Brattleboro Reformer. June 30, 2004.
“Boston Marriages.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/boston-marriages.htm
“Sapphic Victorians and the Queerness of Alice Longfellow.” Longfellow House Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site. https://www.nps.gov/media/video/view.htm?id=57105293-40A5-4983-B1AC-7BBA7C57B691
“Women in US History: Fanny Coolidge Stone.” Temple University. https://sites.temple.edu/womenushist/fanny-coolidge-stone/