Queer history stories can be worthy, but too scholarly, even snooze-inducing. Or they can grab you by the lapels and jolt you awake like a double shot of espresso. “Lady Romeo: The Radical and Revolutionary Life of Charlotte Cushman, America’s First Celebrity” by Tana Wojczuk will keep you up at night.
Turning the page – hungering for more. Her mouth was compared to “the Arc de Triomphe.” Abraham Lincoln was a fan. Queer poet Walt Whitman praised the “towering grandeur of her genius.” Louisa May Alcott wrote in her diary that she “had a stage-struck fit” after she saw Cushman perform.
The governor of New York and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt were in the audience for Cushman’s farewell performance in November 1874.