Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade (55 page)

“After about four years”
: Steward, “Letter to a Young Gay Alcoholic,”
Advocate
346, July 8, 1982, pp. 35–38.

“Barker put his head”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” pp. 90, 91.

“Physically he does improve”
: Wilcox to Toklas, undated, but at the time of Miriam Andréas’s trip to Paris. Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature.

“Oh, Sammy, aren’t you”
: Toklas to Steward, Dec. 31, 1946;
Dear Sammy
, pp. 156–58.

5: SOBRIETY AND AFTER

“small tempera portrait drawings”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 264.

“much more interested in”
: Baron to Steward, Aug. 13, 1947. Samuel M. Steward Papers, Kinsey Institute.

“Flogging was not something”
: Baron to Steward, Aug. 19, 1947. Samuel M. Steward Papers, Kinsey Institute.

“While I regard my”
: Ibid.

Stevens liked his beating
: Steward’s Stud File card on Hal Stevens notes “2-23-59, historic s/m introduction for Renslow, Dom…” Renslow confirmed that this event was his first experience of S/M practices. Renslow, interview with author, June 2005.

But when they met
: Steward to Lynes, Dec. 22 [nd, 1952]. Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“Perhaps the first tangible”
: Steward,
Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos
, p. 9.

“I got to talking”
: Steward to Baron, “Summer 1948.” Samuel M. Steward Papers, Kinsey Institute.

“In all those [sixteen]”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” pp. 329–30.

“Oh, oh. I humbly”
: Wilder to Steward, Sept. 14, 1948.

“Wendell made the mistake”
: Steward,
Chapters
, pp. 76–77.

“In autumn of 1948”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 244.

Unemployed but unwilling
: Ibid.

its students came largely
: Ibid., p. 252.

“Many entering freshmen could”
: Ibid., pp. 252–53.

“let the fog rise”
: Ibid., pp. 246–47.

“As a minority…homosexuals”
: Cory,
The Homosexual in America
, p. 14.

“is not quite sure”
: Ibid., p. 39.

“The homosexual’s chief concern”
: Ibid., p. 56.

“I’ve kept off the subject”
: Toklas to Steward, April 8, 1949;
Dear Sammy
, p. 151.

“painting as a diversion”
: Toklas to Steward, Sept. 8, 1949;
Dear Sammy
, pp. 169–72.

“it’s all one to”
: Toklas to Steward, quoted in
Staying on Alone
, p. 129.

6: KINSEY AND COMPANY

Kinsey’s study of human
: Gathorne-Hardy,
Sex, the Measure of All Things
, p. 305.

Since the Kinsey data
: This summation of the Kinsey findings and its place in 1950s cultural history comes from Bronski,
Pulp Friction
, pp. 13–14, but the statistical figures come directly from Kinsey’s
Sexual Response in the Human Male
.

“was only one of”
: Tripp,
Homosexual Matrix
, pp. 239–40.

Moreover, since his statistical
: James H. Jones,
Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life
, p. 519.

Kinsey’s belief in the
: Gathorne-Hardy,
Sex
, p. 453.

In so doing, Kinsey’s
: Paul Robinson,
The Modernization of Sex: Havelock Ellis, Alfred Kinsey, William Masters and Virginia Johnson
, pp. 50–51. (N.B.: Robinson’s analysis of Kinsey’s accomplishments is the most concise yet written.).

The team obtained eighteen thousand
: Robinson,
Modernization of Sex
, p. 44.

Despite being subjected to
: Gathorne-Hardy,
Sex
, pp. 272–73.

Kinsey’s findings about homosexual
: Robinson,
Modernization of Sex
, p. 67.

“What I really wanted”
: Steward to Kinsey, Feb. 8, 1950, Kinsey Institute.

“I’ve arranged a small”
: Steward to Kinsey, March 4, 1950, Kinsey Institute.

only in 1960
: For a comprehensive account of the legal liabilities attached to possession of erotic materials during the 1950s, see Werth,
Scarlet Professor
, p. 267
passim
.

Kinsey and Pomeroy also
: Kinsey to Steward, June 6, 1950, Kinsey Institute.

Toklas had reserved a room
: Toklas to Steward, Jan. 29, 1950;
Dear Sammy
, p. 174.

“[It was] as if”
: Steward,
Dear Sammy
, p. 86.

It was this rare
: Details of the book’s publication (including details of its long-delayed publication in English) can be found in Edmund White,
Genet: A Biography
.

Half French, half Russian
: White,
Genet
, p. 316. White’s attribution for this statement is Roger Stephane.

“8 Frenchmen in a”
: Stud File entry for “Francois, 7-VII-50,” Samuel M. Steward Papers.

In doing so he
: For more on this subject, see Gordon Allport,
The Use of Personal Documents in Psychological Science
(New York: Social Science Research Council, 1942).

7: LIVING IN DREAMS

During that fall, Steward
: George T. Reginato (not his real name) would take time off from DePaul, eventually graduating with the class of 1954. He later became a lawyer. Reginato appears in the Stud File, in the book of drawings at the Kinsey Institute, in Steward’s journals, and in Steward’s erotic fiction, most notably in “I (Cupid) and the Gangster.” Steward mentions that Reginato’s father was Dominic Reginato in the Len Evans interview, tapes one and two, and information on him can be found in a number of publications on organized crime and the Chicago Outfit, including “US Mafia, Short History and Key Players,” available on the Web at www.alternatives.com/crime/usmafia.html, and a number of documents published on the Web by the Laborers’ International Union of North America, at www.laborers.org. (N.B.: Letters from the author to George T. Reginato went unanswered and unreturned.)

Steward became so infatuated
: The drawing is in an album of visual fantasies addressed directly to Kinsey, and which can be found in the Kinsey archives.

“the camera works wonderfully”
: Steward to Kinsey, March 1, 1951, Kinsey Institute.

“so far I have”
: Steward to Kinsey, April 13, 1951, Kinsey Institute.

“there is no place”
: From an American congressional report, 1950, as quoted in Patrick Higgins,
A Queer Reader
, p. 162. (Courtesy Joseph Bean.)

Many homosexually active men
: Paraphrased from “Homosexual Citizens” in
Washington History
, vol. 6, no. 2, p. 47. (Courtesy Joseph Bean.)

The FBI, meanwhile, began
: Jones,
Kinsey
, p. 632.

“among homosexuals, learning that”
:
The Mattachine Review
quotation dates from 1956; see “Homosexual Citizens,” p. 52. (Courtesy Joseph Bean.)

“free”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 12.

And yet during the fall
: Eugene McNamara, “Meet Your Professor: Samuel M. Steward, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, English,”
The DePAULIA
[Jan. 1952; np]. Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“It was a pleasure”
: Toklas to Steward, Jan. 30, 1952;
Dear Sammy
, p. 196.

After an introductory visit
: Kinsey to Steward, Aug. 20, 1951, features a brief acknowledgment of the donation. Kinsey Institute.

“a pair of Bikinis”
: Steward to Kinsey, Aug. 2, 1951, Kinsey Institute.

“I am very much”
: Kinsey to Steward, Nov. 6, 1951, Kinsey Institute.

“had a great deal”
: Kinsey to Steward, Nov. 23, 1951, Kinsey Institute.

“My contacts still keep apace”
: Steward to Kinsey, Dec. 20, 1951, Kinsey Institute.

“Querelle seems one of”
: Steward to Wescott, Dec. 31, 1951, Glenway Wescott Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

“If Glenway Wescott could”
: Toklas to Steward, Jan. 30, 1952;
Dear Sammy
, p. 196.

“horrid little penis”
: Gathorne-Hardy,
Sex
, pp. 352–53.

“Irish-looking”
: Rosco,
Glenway Wescott Personally
, p. 142; Gathorne-Hardy,
Sex
, p. 323.

“that horrid author”
: Wescott,
Continual Lessons
, p. 264.

Certainly Wescott was jealous
: Gathorne-Hardy,
Sex
, p. 354.

“a giant Paul Bunyan”
: Roscoe,
Glenway Wescott Personally
, pp. 143–44.

The film of Miksche
: Paraphrased from Gathorne-Hardy,
Sex
, p. 335.

“Kinsey and I”
: Steward,
Chapters
, pp. 101–103.

“It was an extremely”
: Steward to Kinsey, June 10, 1952. Kinsey Institute.

The next day Steward
: For a beautifully concise appreciation of Julien Green’s autobiographical works, see Robinson,
Gay Lives
, pp. 233–59.

“In hesitating to talk”
: Julien Green,
Julien Green Diary 1928–1957
, p. 12.

“As you undoubtedly know”
: Steward to Kinsey, July 17, 1952. Kinsey Institute.

She had recently become
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 199.

Brest had long been
: White,
Genet
, pp. 146–48.

“Did you ever get”
: Steward to Kinsey, dated 8-12-52 [mistakenly?], Brest.

Tennessee Williams had been
: Donald Spoto,
The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams
, p. 146.

“[The] stories of
One Arm”: Steward, Journals, Oct. 22, 1954. Kinsey Institute.

“I had gone in”
: Steward to Williams, Jan. 5, 1976. Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“George [Lynes] and I”
: Steward, “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall,”
$TUD
, pp. 32–47.

“Dear George”
: Steward to Lynes, on Taft Hotel stationery, undated. Samuel M. Steward Papers.

8: WRITING LYNES

“Worry no more…”
: Steward to Lynes, Sept. 16 [1952], Samuel M. Steward Papers.

During the fall Steward
: A rough draft of Steward’s letter to Morihien survives, undated; it had been tucked into an envelope addressed to Steward from Morihien. Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“typewritten over what appears”
: Lynes to Perlin, Oct. 27, 1952. Correspondence between George Platt Lynes and Bernard Perlin. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

“pornographic filth”
: Werth,
Scarlet Professor
, p. 166.

“
Right after
Finistère
was”
: Steward to Edward Field, “20–I–XCIII” (Jan. 20, 1993), Samuel M. Steward Papers.

At age thirty-eight, Peters
: Edward Field to Steward [nd], Samuel M. Steward Papers. Field was hoping to write a biography of Peters at the time, and so had immersed himself in the study of Peters’s life, including details of his psychoanalysis and his living situation in the Gurdjieff community.

Moreover, Gurdjieff
: Edward Field to Steward [nd], Samuel M. Steward Papers (see note immediately above).

“burst into tears about”
: Steward to Field, Feb. 1, 1993, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“[Francis] is in Portugal”
: Toklas to Steward, Oct. 24, 1952;
Dear Sammy
, p. 200.