Today is the 50th
anniversary of the death of Cole Porter. He has long been one of my favourite
song and show writers. He has often been compared with Sir Noël Coward but I
think they are two very different writers. In tribute to Cole Porter here is a
look at his ancestry.
A lot is known about
Cole’s wealthy background. In particular his mother Kate (1862-1952) and his
grandfather James Omar Cole (1828-1923) have played major parts in his life.
But before I go into his
privileged ancestry I want to look at his more humble paternal roots.
The Porter family have
Irish roots. The earliest member of the family to arrive in America was James
Porter (1699-1778) and his wife Eleanor. Their grandson Andrew is recorded in
the 1830 census as living in Gallatin, Kentucky, but he appears to have been
born in Maryland and died in Indiana. Andrew’s son Samuel Porter (1810-1883)
was the first member of the family to achieve some influence in the community.
In 1851 Samuel was
elected as Switzerland County representative to the Indiana State assembly. He
was Cole Porter’s other grandfather, and he wasn’t the only state legislator in
his ancestry, as you’ll see later.
Samuel Porter married a
Scottish immigrant called Catherine McCallum. She had arrived from Scotland
with her parents and grandparents in 1818 at the age of 2. Samuel and Catherine
were well-off but by no means rich. Their son, also called Samuel (Cole’s
father), moved to Peru, Indiana, and began to date young Kate Cole. But Kate’s
father, a self-made millionaire, was at first reluctant to see the couple
married.
James Omar Cole had made
his fortune as a result of the California Gold Rush of 1848. As an adventurous
22-year-old he had left the family home in Peru, Indiana, and headed into the
wild Wild West. From his beginnings as a mining assistant he gathered enough
wealth in ten years to open several stores, a brewery, a cold-storage company
and a sawmill, and become a millionaire.
James wasn’t the first
adventurous member of his family. Like all Americans of colonial descent his
ancestors wee even more adventurous. Many of them left their homes, either in
search of a new life or to escape persecution, and they landed on American
soil.
Cole Porter descends
from quite a large number of these early settlers. Several families can be
grouped together geographically, and I’ll concentrate of them because of their
involvement in one of the many conflicts between the colonists and Native
Americans – the Pequot War of 1637.
By 1636 European
colonists had formed several small settlements in Connecticut consisting of
just several hundred people. The area was already a battleground between
several native tribes over control over land, and this developed into a battle
for control over the fur trade with the colonists. The Pequot traded with the
Dutch, and the rival Mohegan traded with the English. Tensions rose, and
eventually it led to the capture and deaths of a Pequot chief and an English
privateer.
In 1637 the Connecticut
General Court (a newly appointed body that was the first to convene
independently of the governing Massachusetts council) declared war on the
Pequot tribe. Clerk of the Court was Thomas Welles, a settler from Warwickshire
in England. He and his family had arrived in America in 1635 and came to the
Connecticut settlement of Hartford the following year. Thomas is Cole Porter’s
7-times-great-grandfather.
At the 1637 General
Council a special militia of 90 men was raised to fight the Pequots. They
included several of Cole’s relatives. The militia made alliances with the
Pequot’s rival tribes. They attacked several Pequot villages, and the Pequots
surrounded the coastal trading post of Port Saybrook. They raided other
settlements, killing up to 30 colonists.
In the small town of
Wethersfield there lived a large number of Cole Porter’s ancestors including
the Footes, Demings, Treats and Churchills (no relation to Winston), all of
whom were to become influential in later American history and have many other
famous descendants.
The conflict reached a
tragic climax with the Mystic Massacre, an attack by the colonists and their
allies on the Pequot village of Mystic. Most of the Pequot warriors had gone to
attack Hartford, leaving mainly the women, children and elderly in the village.
The militia callously set fire to the village and killed anyone trying to
escape. Of the 600 Pequot villagers only less than 20 survived.
Many of the Pequots fled
from their other villages and tried to find refuge with other tribes, most of
them without success. A large group of Pequot refugees were trapped in
swampland. This time the militia allowed the women and children to leave but
the rest were attacked and defeated. Any surviving Pequot warriors were hunted
down, by both colonists and rival tribes, almost wiping out the Pequot for
good.
A second Connecticut
General Court was convened at which the Pequot lands were seized and
distributed among members of the militia and their allied tribes. Among the families
to benefit were Cole Porter’s ancestors Thomas Barnes, Capt. Thomas Weld and
Deacon William Peck, among others.
And so did Thomas
Welles, the Clerk of the Court. When Connecticut drew up its constitution it
was he who produced the documents, effectively declaring Connecticut a separate
colony. Thomas rose in the legislature to become Treasurer, then Secretary,
then Deputy Governor, and finally Governor of Connecticut, the only person in
history to hold all four offices.
Throughout his career
Thomas served as a magistrate and served on three witchcraft trials. One of
those on trial was another of Cole Porter’s relatives, Mrs. Lydia Gilbert.
There’s another
courtroom incident, though it didn’t involve Thomas Welles but his grandson
Thomas Thompson. He was married twice. His first wife died leaving 2 daughters
(including Anne, Cole’s 4-times-great-grandmother). Thompson remarried, and his
new wife had a bit of a temper, according to neighbours, and Thompson was
beaten regularly by his wife. In 1705 Thompson’s wife threw a pair of shears at
him, the points entering his skull and going into his brain. It didn’t kill him
instantly but he survived several days in agony, dying around Christmas time.
His widow was put on trial for murder, found guilty, and (we believe, no-one is
sure) executed.
Cole Porter had colonial
ancestors who lived in other parts of New England. Peter Tallman was a German
colonist who settled first on Barbados and then moved to Rhode Island. His
grandson William married Anne Lincoln, whose brother was ancestor of Abraham
Lincoln. William and Ann’s son Benjamin married Dinah Boone, a first-cousin of
frontiersman Daniel Boone.
In the past decade
genealogists have been discovering new records and several of Cole Porter’s
ancestral lines to royalty have been disproved. One of these was through Thomas
Welles above, who has no connection to the English noble family with royal
blood from whom he was said to have descended. However, there is one bloodline
which provides an appropriate link to an English king, and it comes through
Thomas Welles’s wife Alice Tomes. Alice is descended from Piers Gaveston, the
lover (and possible “wedded brother” partner) of King Edward II and Constable
of Nottingham Castle.
I’ve noticed
a trend over the past 3 years. Since this blog began in 2011 there have been
more influential people and celebrities coming out as lgbt each year. Whether
this is just because I’m noticing more of them or because more of them are
actually coming out is difficult to tell. What it means, though, is that the
list of people who have come out since UK National Coming Out Day last year is
too long to publish today even if I split it into 2 lists like I did last year.
Instead I’ll give an overview of the list and try to find any other trends that
are emerging.
As I’ve said
before, there’s a difference between coming out publicly and being out
personally. I’m both – I’m out personally to everyone who knows me, and I’m out
publicly to the world online with this blog. A lot of the people I’ll mention
today have also been out personally to people they know and haven’t hid it, but
they chose not to mention it publicly to people they don’t know.
I’ve grouped
this years newly out people together according to profession – sport, acting,
politics, music, and “miscellaneous”. There may be some well-known names I
don’t mention today. That doesn’t make them less significant but I want to
include as many other names as possible. We’ll start with the largest group,
sport.
American
collegiate sport has a greater significance in that country than similar
academic levels in other countries. I don’t hear of many UK college or
university athletes coming out, for instance. The only public sporting event I
can think of is the Oxford and Cambridge University boat race. Since last year
more US collegiate athletes have come out than before, bumping up the numbers
in this group quite significantly. This
may be an indication of the growing acceptance of openly lgbt competing
athletes in America. There have been some homophobic responses, but they have
not stopped more athletes from coming out.
American
football in particular has often appeared to be among the more homophobic
sports. This may be changing with the coming out in February of Michael Sam.
Cyd Zeigler has followed Michael’s progress in the football league closely on
the Outsports website and I recommend you visit it yourself for more
information.
The other
football, soccer, has also been seen as quite homophobic in the UK. With the
coming out of Liam Davis last year it was hoped that more professional
footballers would begin to come out. Apart from German league player Thomas
Hitzlsperger there has been complete silence.
Perhaps the
biggest impact on lgbt sport this year was the Olympic Winter Games in Russia.
After the last National Coming Out Day Russia introduced anti-gay legislation,
and because the Sochi Olympics were so soon to begin Russia became a focus for
protest from lgbt groups around the world. The politics and human rights issues
are best dealt with at another time, but it was the anti-gay laws that led to
several people coming out officially. Most significantly, Brian Boitano, former
Olympic figure skating champion, came out after he was appointed to the US
delegation to Sochi. He was joined on the delegation by sport legend Billie
Jean King and by Caitlin Cahow, a Team USA ice hockey Olympian who came out in
mid-November.
The biggest
sporting coming out story was Ian Thorpe’s. Ever since his competing days as a
swimmer his sexuality was subject to gossip, and Ian turned his coming out into
a media event.
Staying with
the Olympics we move to Tom Daley. I’m never sure how well known he is
internationally but in the UK he makes more headlines than the legalisation of
same-sex marriage. He came out in December.
In total 9
Olympians have come since last year, including those already mentioned.
A more
unexpected outing this year came in the world of boxing, not with the Argentine
couple Ana Laura Esteche and Johanna “Yoki” Giménez, but with the boxing manager
Kellie Maloney who came out as transgender in August and almost immediately
found herself in the “Celebrity Big Brother” house.
Moving onto
the next largest group by profession, acting, we saw a handful of actors in
popular television series coming out, including Andrew Scott (“Sherlock”),
Monica Raymond (“The Good Wife”) and Kristian Nairn (“Games of Thrones”).
Of the
singers and musicians who came out this year the most unexpected was that of
Debbie Harry of Blondie. One singer trying to make a comeback was the UK’s
Kavana. He came out in February while he was in the reality series “The Big
Reunion”.
Reality tv
and talent shows saw a large group of performers coming out, some of whom as
mentioned in my recent article on singers in talent contests. Other reality tv
personalities to come out include Bob Harper, a personal trainer on NBC’s “The
Biggest Loser”, and Mark McAdam, a Sky Sports presenter.
Politics had
a smaller number of coming out stories this year. In the UK we saw the first
transgender European MP with Nikki Sinclaire. Two US Senators came out – Steve
Gallarde and Jim Ferlo – and one former Senator from Puerto Rico, Roberto
Arango. Germany’s Employment Minister, Barbara Hendricks, came out in December,
one month after Scottish Minister for Local Government, Derek Mackay.
The last
group can only be described as “miscellaneous”. They include the newly
appointed head of the World Psychiatric Association, Dinesh Bhugra (how fitting
to have an openly lgbt head of a profession which for many decades classed
homosexuality as a mental illness). Kenyan author Binyavanga Wianaina came out
on his birthday in January, the only writer on this year’s list. Less than 2
weeks ago I mentioned the 3 beauty pageant queens to come out, to which I can
also add the model Andreja Pejic.
The
international range of those who came out is larger than before. The bulk have
been from the USA or UK, but other nationalities which appear include those
from Brazil, Canada, Finland, Peru, Sweden and Uruguay.
On 2nd
October the UK held its annual National Poetry Day. This made me think of the
war poets of almost a century ago. The First World War wasn’t the first to be
written about in poetry, but it produced the most well-known war poets.
In today’s article I
look at some of these war poets, and have a little look on either side of the
First World War to other conflicts that have inspired lgbt writers to express
their feelings about war.
There are several
categories into which war poetry and literature can fall. The first is the
heroic poetry of Ancient Greece as seen in “The Iliad”. Queer poets have often
written works that come under a second category, that of homoerotic encounters
within the field of war. A third category, and one which may cross over into
the second, is the war poetry of lgbt writers such as Siegfried Sassoon. This
category includes elegies and memorial poetry. A fourth category which I’ll
leave for another time is literature by lgbt writers who use war as a
background to their work rather than as a result or commentary on it.
One of the less
well-known collections of war poetry, called “Drum Taps”, is by Walt Whitman
(1819-1892), whose experience working with the wounded of the American Civil
War produced works expressing the loss of a loved one during conflict. This is
a loss experienced by all, but Whitman’s “Drum Taps” places his own attraction
to wounded soldiers into a sense of personal loss.
This sense of loss
continues in the literature of the First World War, but it is also often
accompanied by a sense of injustice and the feeling of the futility of war.
This was brought into sharp focus in the life of Wilfred Owen (1893-1918).
Owen served as an officer
in the British army. He suffered from shellshock, and in 1917 whilst
recuperating in Edinburgh met Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967). Sassoon introduced
Owen to the Greek elegies which were to influence his work. Owen’s elegies were
not merely recounting heroism and valour but also includes, through his own
personal experiences, the harsh reality of trench warfare.
It is Owen’s own death
on the battle front, just a week before the Armistice was signed in 1918, that
provided an added level of injustice to his poems.
Siegfried Sassoon is,
perhaps, the most well-known of the war poets from the First World War. At
first he was a willing fighter but later, after the death of his lover at
Gallipoli and experiencing the horrors of war, he began to express views
against the British government’s conduct of the war. It was at this time that
he met Wilfred wen and, like Owen, returned to the war in France. Unlike Owen
Sassoon survived the war and lived through World War II.
The traditional elegy
and the platonic homoeroticism that marked the war poetry of the First World
War was carried into the 1920s and 30s by Sassoon and other writers such as
Stephen Spender (1909-1995). Spender worked as a journalist in Spain during the
Spanish Civil War.
By the outbreak of World
War II in 1939 there was a shift in society’s attitude to homoeroticism in war
literature. “The Seven Pillars of Wisdom”, an account of the Arab conflict
around the time of the end of the First World War by T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia)
wasn’t published until 1935, the year of his untimely death. It’s more explicit
portrayal of homosexuality was seen as “acceptable” because it was centred
mainly on the actions of his captors. Lawrence’s own genuine homosexual desires
were played down.
World War II produced
very little in the way of the war poetry that equalled the power and legacy of
the First World War. In contradiction to my intention not to include later
works that use the war as a background one major work which was written in the
late 1970s has played a major role in revealing a little-known aspect of World
War II. It is a play called “Bent”. Unlike the
writers already mentioned there was no personal experience upon which to base
the play, only accounts from others. “Bent” revealed the persecution of gay men
living in Nazi Germany.
While it cannot be
classed as war literature in the true sense of the term “Bent” should not be
overlooked in any literary overview of the war. Its influence has led to an
increased knowledge of the horrors of war, and the creation of memorials to
lgbt victims from the Holocaust.
The war poetry of the
First World War was just one of the many influences in the way we see warfare
today. Criticism of the injustices are not seen as cowardly, as they might have
done before when going to war was seen as heroic and good. Since the First
World War more visual images have become more prevalent than the written word
through photographs, films and news reels. Today new war literature is a very
small part of the public’s awareness of war, and the image has become more
powerful than the word.
In the first of my “Out
Of This World” series about astronomical objects and features on other planets
named after people I mentioned that all of the names used for features on Venus
are female.
This became the subject
of an opera by lesbian composer Sorrel Hays. The ultimate result was called
“Mapping Venus”, and it was originally inspired by a NASA space mission called
the Magellan Project.
Because Venus is
shrouded in a thick cloud of acid vapour it has been impossible to see any
surface features with earth-bound telescopes. The only way to see what was on
the planet’s surface was to land probes on it, or by obtaining radar data
collected by an orbiting spacecraft. In 1978 NASA’s Pioneer Venus Orbiter
produced the first map of the surface using radar. Once features could be
identified the task of naming them began.
The naming of all
astronomical and planetary bodies is the responsibility of the International
Astronomical Union. It is they who authorise the names of the asteroids I’ve
been listing in my “Out Of This World” mini-series. It is also they who decided
to name all the features on Venus after women, both real and mythological.
By 1989 there was a
desire to make better maps of Venus, so the Magellan probe was launched. It
arrived at Venus in 1990. The resulting radar images created a more detailed
map and revealed a lot more features to name.
Among the lgbt women who
have had features on Venus named after them are:
Jane Addams (1860-1935),
social reformer and Nobel Peace Prize winner,
Josephine Baker
(1906-1975), dancer and entertainer,
Aphra Behn (1640-1689),
writer,
Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923),
actor,
Karen Blixen
(1885-1962), writer,
Rosa Bonheur
(1822-1899), painter,
Karin Boye (1900-1941),
writer,
Willa Cather (1873-1947),
writer,
Simone de Beauvoir
(1908-1986), writer,
Emily Dickinson
(1830-1886), poet,
Isadora Duncan
(1877-1927), dancer,
Eleanora Duse
(1859-1924), actor,
Sophia Jex-Blake
(1840-1912), pioneer female physician,
Frida Kahlo (1910-1954),
artist,
Selma Lagerlöf
(1858-1940), novelist, first female Nobel Literature Prize winner,
Wanda Landowska
(1877-1959), harpsichordist,
Margaret Mead (1901-1978),
anthropologist,
Edna St. Vincent Millay
(1892-1950), poet,
Georgia O’Keefe
(1887-1986), painter,
Gertrude Stein
(1874-1946), writer,
Alice B. Toklas (1877-1967),
writer and art patron,
Virginia Woolf
(1882-1941), writer.
In 1995 Sorrel Hays was
commissioned to compose a piece by Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne for their
experimental drama department. This is
just one of 8 commissions Sorrel received from them since 1983, and the new
commission evolved into what was to be her most ambitious project to date.
The commission resulted
in the radio opera “Dream in Her Mind”. Taking NASA’s Magellan project as the
starting point Sorrel created an ethereal gathering of a group of famous women
from history on the planet itself.
Chief “surveyor” and
cartographer of this gathering is Gertrude Stein who encourages the
other women to choose which part of the planet they prefer. In the opera Sorrel
includes text from Stein and other female writers who gather on Venus –
Hildegard of Bingen, Simone de Beauvoir and Emily Dickinson, among others – to
explore female consciousness. Not surprisingly, most of the women who gather on
Venus is this musical work do now have actual features on the planet named
after them.
“Dream in Her Mind” was
developed into the larger work called “Mapping Venus”.
One of the main features
in Sorrel’s work is the use of electronic techniques including synthesisers and
pre-recorded sound. In this she often works closely with her partner Marilyn
Reis, who is one of the first female audio engineers to make a mark in a
male-dominated industry.
Here are the
answers to the quiz I gave you four days ago.
1981 - Justin Fashanu becomes the first black
footballer to be a million pound transfer in UK soccer.
2009 - The first season of “RuPaul’s Drag
Race” airs on US television.
2014 - Uganda celebrates the 50th
anniversary of the canonisation of 22 boys and men murdered by the paedophile
King of Buganda because they refused to have sex with him.
1982 - Paul
Winfield, on of those actors whose face you recognised but can never remember
the name, co-stars in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”.
2013 - Legendary singer-songwriter Frank
Ocean comes out as bisexual.
1970 - Chris Dickerson is the first black
American bodybuilder to win the Mr America title.
1978 - Sylvester tops the dance charts with
“You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”.
1877 - Edmonia Lewis is commissioned by
former US President Ulysses S. Grant to sculpt his bust.
2006 - The UK holds its first Black Pride
festival.
2008 - US Army Major Alan Rogers becomes the
first known lgbt victim of the conflict in Iraq.
1792 - Benjamin
Banneker – farmer, astronomer and surveyor – produces the first astronomical
almanac to be published by a black American.
1988 - Sir Ian McKellen comes out on a BBC
radio discussion programme.
1312 - King Edward II’s lover, Piers
Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall, is murdered.
117 - Hadrian becomes Emperor of Rome.
1997 - Ellen DeGeneres comes out on “The
Oprah Winfrey Show”.
1998 - Dana International becomes the first
transgender winner of the Eurovision Song Contest.
2011 - The US military policy of “Don’t Ask,
Don’t Tell is repealed.
1951 - Gilbert Baker, designer of the first Rainbow
Pride flag in 1978, is born.
1973 - Sir
Elton John writes the song “Candle in the Wind” which he later performs at the
funeral of Princess Diana in 1997.
1984 - US
equestrian Robert Dover competes in the first of his record-breaking 6
appearances by an lgbt athlete at the Olympic Games.
Today I feel a mixture
of sadness and celebration. In August, during the run of the most recent Gay Games in Cleveland, I
wrote a short series on some of the medallists from previous games. One of
those I mentioned, in fact the first one and the athlete who inspired the theme
of that mini-series, was Mariah Crossland.
Several weeks afterwards
I was contacted by Martha Newell, a close friend of Mariah’s, who informed me
that Mariah had sadly lost her battle with cancer on 3rd September.
I thought it would be
appropriate today to put this link to Mariah’s obituary, written by her
friends, because today is Mariah’s memorial service and celebration of her
life. I thank Martha for contacting me and giving me this chance to celebrate
Mariah’s achievements.
When you read the
obituary I hope you will follow the suggestion given at the end and celebrate
Mariah’s life. I will.
October is
Black History Month in the UK and LGBT History Month in the US, so here’s
another quiz for you.
Below is a
list of years. Below that is a list of events in lgbt history. Can you match up
the event to the correct year? Only one event in given for each year. In
celebration of Black History Month the first ten questions are on black lgbt
history.
117
1312
1792
1877
1951
1970
1973
1978
1981
1982
1984
1988
1997
1998
2006
2008
2009
2011
2013
2014
1)
Justin
Fashanu becomes the first black footballer to be a million pound transfer in UK
soccer.
2)
The
first season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” airs on US television.
3)
Uganda
celebrates the 50th anniversary of the canonisation of 22 boys and
men murdered by the paedophile King of Buganda because they refused to have sex
with him.
4)
Paul
Winfield, one of those actors whose face you recognise but can never remember
the name, co-stars in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”.
5)
Legendary
singer-songwriter Frank Ocean comes out as bisexual.
6)
Chris
Dickerson is the first black American bodybuilder to win the Mr America title.
7)
Sylvester
tops the disco dance charts with “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”.
8)
Edmonia
Lewis is commissioned by former US President Ulysses S. Grant to sculpt his
bust.
9)
The
UK holds its first Black Pride festival.
10)
Major
Alan Rogers becomes the first known US lgbt victim of the conflict in Iraq.
11)
Benjamin
Banneker – farmer, astronomer and surveyor – produces the first astronomical
almanac to be published by a black American.
12)
Sir
Ian McKellen comes out on a BBC radio discussion programme.
13)
King
Edward II’s lover, Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall, is murdered.
14)
Hadrian
becomes Emperor of Rome.
15)
Ellen
DeGeneres comes out on “The Oprah Winfrey Show”.
16)
Dana
International becomes the first transgender winner of the Eurovision Song
Contest.
17)
The
US military policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed.
18)
Gilbert
Baker, designer of the first Rainbow Pride flag in 1978, is born.
19)
Sir
Elton John writes the song “Candle in the Wind” which he later performs at the
funeral of Princess Diana in 1997.
20)
US
equestrian Robert Dover competes in the first of his record-breaking 6
appearances by an lgbt athlete at the Olympic Games.
I’ll give the
answers next week.
