Today I give you a real-life Femslash Friday: The Toast’s very own Alexis Coe’s Alice + Freda Forever.
In 1892, America was obsessed with a teenaged murderess, but it wasn’t her crime that shocked the nation — it was her motivation. Nineteen-year-old Alice Mitchell had planned to pass as a man to marry her seventeen-year-old fiancée Freda Ward, but when their love letters were discovered, they were forbidden from ever speaking again. Heartbroken and desperate, Alice filched her father’s razor and, in broad daylight on a winter afternoon, slashed her ex-lover’s throat.
If that doesn’t fucking do it for you, then I don’t know what will. I’m going to be interviewing her on Wednesday, October 22nd at 7:30 at Booksmith, so if you’ve always dreamed of watching self and an archivist talk about lesbian murder, here’s your chance.
This was 100% a Deadly Women episode! I like it when they do the old-timey ones.
Between this, Foxcatcher, and the movie with Catherine Zeta-Jones as a cocaine queen, everything is coming up “things I know from Investigation Discovery shows.”
But let us not forget Lisa Duggan’s excellent and more historical/theoretical (BUT STILL HELLA JUICY and perfectly titled) book on the topic, Sapphic Slashers!
Dudes, I totally don’t want to be a nag about this, but, like, historian and archivist are different professions.
Alexis Coe, she is cool! But is she a historian who uses archives for research, or has she actually worked in an archive/s?
oh my god i don’t know
“woman who uses archives for work purposes”
I loved the book! Picked it up on Tuesday at lunch, finished it by Thursday night. Definitely going to show up to watch the lesbian murder discussion.
*raises hand* Um . . . can I just say that I’m kiiiiiind of uncomfortable with the way this discussion has been framed as a tragic love story? (In the book blurb and the previous article here.) Obviously it’s a tragedy that (probably? possibly?) would not have happened if Alice and Freda had been allowed to get married in the first place, and there’s a lot of history and sociology involved in the way the trial framed Alice’s actions, but . . . she still murdered her girlfriend because the girlfriend rejected her. I mean, that’s still domestic violence. I don’t know, I’m just not entirely okay with their relationship being framed as a romance when it ended with one party murdering the other because she wanted/agreed to leave.
I agree 100%. Especially considering the fact that this article: http://the-toast.net/2014/10/10/lets-talk-resourc… was just posted a few hours ago.
Thank you for this. I am a little ashamed of how I went straight for “now that story’s a juicy one!” and didn’t give this point enough critical thought.
Yes, THIS.
100% agree.
For what it’s worth, I just finished the book and didn’t think it romanticized or excused Alice’s actions. I can see how the allure of this kind of thing can be troubling, though.
As an aside: it’s a fantastic book, and now one of my favorites about my home state.
Yes, I was pretty damn startled by the “twist.” Not exactly a romance…
100% will be there yes thank you.
will this be filmed for the internet?
She is a trained historian who uses archives for research, and she has also worked in archives!