3,000 Love Letters Revealed: Inside Eleanor Roosevelt’s Secret Spousal Bond
By Maya Lin-Takahashi
Following Hickok’s death in 1968, her papers went to the FDR Library under instructions that they remain sealed until ten years after her passing. When archivists unlocked the boxes in 1978, the historical establishment reacted with resistance. Prominent biographers insisted that interpreting the letters through a sexual lens was anachronistic, arguing that late-Victorian women routinely used terms of adoration without physical intent.
Joseph Lash, Eleanor’s friend and Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, characterized the letters as motherly affection and emotional hyperbole. In his 1980 book Love, Eleanor, Lash downplayed the overt physical intimacy of the text, framing Eleanor as a lonely maternal figure offering solace to an emotionally needy journalist.
That consensus shattered in 1992 with the publication of the first volume of Blanche Wiesen Cook’s groundbreaking biography, Eleanor Roosevelt. Cook analyzed the correspondence alongside Hickok's diary entries, travel itineraries, and contemporary lesbian social networks in Greenwich Village. She concluded that their relationship was unmistakably a queer romance. As Cook famously asked: if two people spend their nights writing about longing for physical embrace and sleeping in adjoining rooms, on what grounds do historians demand further proof?
Subsequent historical studies by Lillian Faderman and Susan Quinn reinforced Cook’s thesis. The historical record indicates that Eleanor Roosevelt was part of an expansive, protective circle of independent women who challenged the gender and sexual orthodoxies of the early twentieth century.
Maya is a hardware enthusiast who tests and reviews smart home devices, smartphones, wearables, and audio gear. She focuses on practical consumer value and build quality.
