Anglia 2020; 138(3): 428–448 Katrin Horn* Of Gaps and Gossip: Intimacy in the Archive https://doi.org/10.1515/ang-2020-0037 Abstract: Arguing for gossip’s relevance in the archive, this article examines the surviving private material relating to Charlotte Cushman (1816–1876). Cushman was the most celebrated American actress of the nineteenth century yet spent most of her life in an expatriate community in Rome, where she shared her home with other female artists. Analysing letters, diaries, and related forms of life writ- ing by Cushman herself as well as by friends and family, this article pursues two goals: First, it accounts for how a fear of gossip (by Cushman and her family) might have shaped the gaps in the collection concerning Cushman’s sexual and romantic relationships. Second, it makes the case for the archival traces of gossip as evidence in writing the story of Cushman’s intimate life. The article thus re- flects on the role of gossip and privacy in “intimate archives” (Dever et al. 2010) and contemplates their relevance to Cushman as an insightful case study of LGBTQ history. Overall, this article advocates turning to the archive with a re- newed fervour for evidence of intimacy as well as for turning to intimacy for evi- dence. Introduction “Gossip thrives when the facts are uncertain, neither publicly known nor easily discovered” (Merry 1984: 275). As a source of knowledge, gossip thus runs counter to an “archival field [that] historically has had a central preoccupation with the actual and the tangible” (Cifor/Gilliland 2016: 2). What about situations, however, in which there is no actual and tangible archival evidence? Researchers regularly must contend with fragmentary records, whether the gaps are caused by a loss of documents over time, are inherent in the material (e. g. letters), or result from self- censorship by the author. Such issues are often exacerbated when the research focuses on private matters due to “the invisibility that often surrounds intimate life”,as“sex and feelings are too personal or too ephemeral to leave records” (Cvetkovich 2002: 110, 112). Yet what they leave, are traces of gossip. Corresponding author: Katrin Horn, Universität Bayreuth E-Mail: [email protected] Of Gaps and Gossip: Intimacy in the Archive 429 Gossip’s connection to intimate life goes beyond its often-private subject mat- ter. Intimate matters encompass not only “what is closely held and personal”, but also “what is deeply shared with others” (Yousef 2013: 1). Such wavering between secrecy and disclosure also marks gossip. Furthermore, its content, according to historian Louise White, is usually “secondary to the process of creating bonds and boundaries” (1994: 76). Such close bonds among people in turn create the “kind of code not easily penetrable or comprehensible to those outside its boundaries”, as Susan Wahl argues (1999: 1). Gossip, in that sense, emerges as a prime example of what Wahl calls a “language of intimacy” (1999: 1). While rumours can be dis- seminated anonymously, gossip is always personal: an “intimate, usually collec- tive narrative” (Adkins 2002: 216) that relies on close personal ties between all involved. It can become a useful “agent of preservation” (Spacks 1985: 77) for the intimate life of self and others, as its traces spread across multiple sites of preser- vation in diaries, letters, and other forms of life writing, where they invite less censure than confessional ego-documents. This article makes the case for gossip’s relevance in the archive, especially concerning the archive as a source for the history of intimate matters and for LGBTQ histories, and it will do so by examining Charlotte Cushman’s legacy of private materials. Cushman (1816–1876) was the most celebrated American ac- tress of the nineteenth century, yet she spent most of her life in an expatriate community in Rome, where she shared her home with other female artists. The Library of Congress holds the largest collection of Cushman’s private material, 23 containers (two of them oversize) in total, which include hundreds of letters to and from Cushman, complemented by a collection of newspaper clippings (pre- pared, at least partially, by Cushman herself) and other ephemera from friends, lovers, and family.1 By analysing what has been preserved at the Library of Con- gress and comparing it with records of friends and acquaintances held at other archives, I pursue two primary goals. I will first account for how a fear of gossip (by Cushman and her family) might have shaped the gaps in the collection con- cerning Cushman’s sexual and romantic relationships. This fear expresses itself not only in self-censorship in different forms of life writing, but it also influences when and how such private writing enters the public arena of biography and in- stitutionalised archives. Second, I consider the archival traces of gossip as evi- dence in writing the story of Cushman’s intimate life. To this end, I study the ways in which gossip and considerations of privacy influence “intimate archives” (Dever et al. 2010), contemplating in particular their relevance to Cushman as a 1 Charlotte Cushman Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, abbreviated as CCP for citations in this article. 430 Katrin Horn crucial case study for writing LGBTQ history. Specifically in this context – wrought as it is with silences, power imbalances, open secrets, and refusals of public recognition –, gossip attains its full potential as both a form of social control and as a discourse that escapes it. “Public Opinion, That Omnipotent Engine Before Which We All Must Bow” Charlotte Cushman’s career spanned several decades, with early success as an opera singer in the USA, her breakthrough as a Shakespearean actress in England in 1844, and continuous tours and reading engagements that lasted until her death in 1876. Contemporary accounts relied on superlatives to describe her as “the great tragedienne of the age” (“Charlotte Cushman As She Was” 1851: 38), “the grandest actress on [the English stage]” (Greenwood 1871: n. pag.), or “great- est American dramatic artist” (“Charlotte Cushman” 1874: 742). In his analysis of the replication of power imbalances in archival collections, Rodney Carter stresses that “marginal voices” often do not enter into collections of libraries, universities, and other institutions of knowledge preservation (2006: 219). Precisely for this reason, Cushman is such a highly insightful case study for the role of gossip in the archive. As an actress and as a woman with exclusively same-sex relationships, her reputation as a reputable woman and member of so- ciety was doubly at risk at a time when Americans became increasingly invested in respectability (Kasson 1990: 43). Actresses in general were emblematic of the perceived dangers of women’s participation in the public sphere and thus even more so than male actors associated with what was perceived as “the theatre’s allure and its weakness: its intimate but dependent relationship with its audi- ence” (Kobetts Miller 2019: 1). Cushman defied gendered expectations of hetero- sexual marriage, secluded domesticity, and biological motherhood – and yet, due to her status as a celebrity, her life was deemed worthy of attention and, later, archival preservation. As historian Victoria Harris reminds us, margins are not only “that space just on the ‘bad’ side of the divide between normality and de- viance”, but also “the space just on the ‘good’ side as well”. In Harris’s terms, Cushman could be categorised as “‘marginally’ normal” (2010: 1099). Her finan- cial advantages and social networks place her in close proximity to ‘the centre’, where the management of reputation becomes a crucial method in her efforts to straddle the line between deviance and conformity. Cushman was keen to share enough of her private life to keep the public engaged, but not so much as to threat- en her reputation as a respectable artist and model American. Defined as the Of Gaps and Gossip: Intimacy in the Archive 431 “social information about the value of people” (Origgi 2019: 68), reputation for Cushman was a deeply economic concern – a situation exacerbated by the growth in syndicated celebrity gossip and pieces of ‘foreign news’ that characterise the changing newspaper landscape in the second half of the nineteenth century, when Cushman was at the height of her international fame.2 On 12 September 1860, for example, Charlotte Cushman implores Emma Crow3 to inquire at the post office about a seemingly lost love letter and reminds the younger woman of the importance of its recovery: “I don’t like such dear let- ters addressed to me to be lost or be sent to the dead letter office. If any ‘unscru- pulous person or persons’ should find it my reputation might be lost forever – and only think how fearful that would be” (CCP 1: 186).4 This is only one of many instances illustrating that Cushman “kept scrupulous records of the letters she wrote and received” (Merrill 2000: 218) in order to stay in control of any and all information shared by and with her that might become fodder for gossip beyond her immediate circle of friends and family. As early as 1836, an acquaintance of Cushman’s who wrote theatre reviews for the New Yorker alerted her to the power of “public opinion, that omnipotent engine before which we all must bow” (CCP 11: 3310 verso). Cushman bowed not only herself, but made others bow, too: “Dar- ling mine, I wish you would burn my letters”, she implored Emma Crow on 20 June 1858 (qtd. in Merrill 2000: 212). Taking matters into her own hands, she explained the reticence of her letters, again to Emma Crow, a few years later: “I will avoid all love words or epithets save those which might meet any eye, only putting a blank_ there which she can fill up with anything in the world most sweet and dear, anything which she pleases” (CCP 1: 275 verso, 29 June 1861).