Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade (53 page)

Partly literary, partly diaristic, partly epistolary, partly visual, and partly statistical, Steward’s lifelong documentation of his sexual activity was something he began simply as a way of creating order and sense out of his daily experience of the world. He adapted the project to suit the more rigorous demands of Alfred Kinsey, and later still he mined it for his fiction. This lifelong project was, throughout its evolution, an attempt both to demystify homosexual erotic activity and at the same time to present it in all its physical and emotional complexity.

In his intense lifelong focus on the self, Steward in some ways resembles his early literary hero, Huysmans. And indeed, he patterned his life from his earliest years on the alienated, decadent, and “wicked” ideal of Des Esseintes in
Against the Grain
. There was surely a good deal of Des Esseintes’s closed-off narcissism in Steward, and in later life that closed-off quality evolved even further, into a melancholic disappointment verging on real bitterness. But unlike Des Esseintes, who abandoned himself to sensual solipsism, Steward rejected both the decadent and the mystical in his understanding of his sexual nature, and also discarded the notion of sin. The clarity, honesty, and plainspoken good humor of his sexual confessions, even at their bleakest moments, connect him instead to Kinsey’s systematic, scientific study of sexuality—and through that study to an abiding belief in the healing power of truth.

1: “WILD—HOG WILD”

“stern and austere Puritanism”
: Steward, unpublished autobiography manuscript (henceforth “Early Chapters”), p. 335. Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“cooking and serving, making”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 35.

“showy little pieces”
: Steward,
Chapters from an Autobiography
(henceforth
Chapters
), p. 3.

“in my sheltered little-boy”
: Ibid., p. 7.

“‘Choice’ had no part”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 57.

“Midwest American views”
: Steward,
Chapters
, p. 15.

“over in less than”
: Steward, “Threefold Autobiography,” unpublished manuscript, pp. 64–65. Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“So began my criminal”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 65.

“I figgered I was”
: Steward,
Straight to Hell
interview, Samuel M. Steward Papers. (N.B.: Though Steward provided this interview to McDonald for
Straight to Hell
, my citations are drawn from Steward’s manuscript response to McDonald in the Samuel M. Steward Papers.)

a boy who stole
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 46.

“resolutely rejected a world”
: See Paul Robinson,
Gay Lives: Homosexual Autobiography from John Addington Symonds to Paul Monette
, p. 211, for a beautifully concise description of Genet’s youthful development and worldview.

“The personality which has”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 48.

“not only did I”
: Steward,
Chapters
, p. 12.

“dabbled largely in [other]”
: “Threefold Autobiography,” p. 4.

“The propagandizing of my”
: Ibid., p. 72.

“‘I want to know’”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 15.

“a sad little experience”
: Ibid., p. 16.

“It was not until”
: Steward to Kinsey, Feb. 8, 1950.

“My aunts’ house on”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 22.

“
[
Valentino
]
was returning”
: Carl Maves, “Valentino’s Pubic Hair and Me,”
Advocate
, June 6, 1989, pp. 73–74.

“For my entrance essay”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” pp. 18–19.

“I
inhaled
him”
: Ibid., pp. 110–12.

“[When] I wrote a”
: Ibid., p. 111.

Nonetheless Steward met a
: Ibid., p. 18.

“early poetry by Pound”
: Ibid., pp. 96–97.

“a single English or”
: Van Vechten quoted in Roger Austen,
Playing the Game: The Homosexual Novel in America
, p. 43.

“none of us was”
: This quote comes from the Phil Andros story “Arrangement in Black and White,” from
$TUD
, p. 143. The observation is made by the character Benjamin Thomas, whose background and interests are similar if not identical to those of Steward himself.

The Strange Confession:
The Strange Confession of Monsieur Montcairn
was published in a limited edition of 750 copies. (Austen,
Playing the Game
, pp. 46–47, footnote p. 56.) The anonymous source cited by Austen for this information was most probably Steward himself, who is quoted anonymously elsewhere in the book. Austen relied heavily on Steward for a great deal of information, only some of which he attributed to “Phil Andros.”

“This is yours”
:
Contemporary Verse
, vol. 25, no. 4, Oct. 1929 (Atlantic City, N.J.): n.p.

The form of the poem
: Steward, “The Passion and the Soul of Petrarch,”
Sewanee Review
41 (Oct. 1933): 419–29.

“Sam Steward made his”
: “Gossip on Parnassus” by Atticus Mus (Benjamin Musser), in
Bozart and C[ontemporary]. V[erse].
, March–April 1930 [np; Steward Scrapbook, Samuel M. Steward Papers].

“reefer, bathtub gin”
: Eric Garber, “T’Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness: Homosexuality in 1920s Harlem,” in
Black Men—White Men: A Gay Anthology
, ed. Michael J. Smith (San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1983), p. 13.

“but it drains you”
: Steward to John Preston, Nov. 21, 1980, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“That much is subtly”
: “Sophistication Is Dominant Note in Ohio Poet’s Book,”
Dallas News
, May 1930 (unsigned; n.p.; Steward scrapbook, Samuel M. Steward Papers).

“‘Pan and the fire-bird’”
: “Mostly Words” (column by Arthur J. Busch,
Brooklyn Citizen
, April 13, 1930 (np; Steward scrapbook, Samuel M. Steward Papers).

“Given my loathing of”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 101.

“It’s like backing into”
: Ibid., pp. 102–103.

“I went into the church”
: Ibid., p. 115.

“Having developed a passionate”
: Steward, “J.-K. Huysmans and George Moore,”
Romantic Review
, vol. XXV, no. 3 (July–September 1934): 197–206.

“innuendoes and crafty indictments”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 115.

“My allegiance to Catholicism”
: Ibid., p. 170.

2:
TERES ATQUE ROTUNDUS

“Trying to teach cowboys”
: Steward,
Chapters
, p. 33.

“enough happened to weaken”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 163.

“pop[ped] out of the”
: Steward,
Chapters
, p. 33.

“We had a two-week”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 162.

“one day in class”
: Steward to Stein, Nov. 19, 1933. Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. (Unless noted, all letters from Steward to Stein are in this archive.)

Steward’s first letter to Stein
: Steward to Stein, Dec. 13, 1934.

He quickly set up
: Toklas to Steward, March 24, 1935;
Dear Sammy
, pp. 126–27.

“there are spots in”
: Stein to Steward, postmarked Sept. 2, 1935, Bilignin par Belley, Ain;
Dear Sammy
, p. 128.

The Commonweal: Steward,
Chapters
, p. 34.

“The whole scene around”
: Steward to Stein, Oct. 26, 1935.

“fine upstanding young [male]”
: Steward,
Chapters,
p. 37.

“If a don of”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 174.

“When I wrote
[Pan and the fire-bird]”: Steward to Stein, Oct. 26, 1935.

“I had two hundred”
: Steward to Stein, Feb. 2, 1936.

“direct, dramatic subjectivism”
: Stanley Young, “Trouble in Academe,”
New York Times
, May 31, 1936.

“Four hours after the”
: “Removal Based on Rumors, Says Ousted College Professor,”
Columbus Dispatch
, June 13, 1936 [np]. Steward scrapbook, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

But an official investigation
: “Committee Notes and Reports: Academic Freedom and Tenure at Washington State College,”
Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors
, vol. XXIII, no. 1 (Jan. 1937), pp. 19–21.

“Tomorrow I am posting”
: Steward to Stein, June 11, 1936.

“My Dear Sam”
: Stein to Steward, June 16, 1936, Bilignin;
Dear Sammy
, pp. 129–30.

“but I sent a”
: Steward,
Chapters
, pp. 39–40.

“Zabel worked us unmercifully”
: Ibid., pp. 40–41.

“If I accomplished nothing”
: Steward, interview by Gregory Sprague, Chicago Historical Society. Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“Whitman was no mere”
: Newton Arvin,
Whitman
, p. 277. This example of Arvin’s own homophobia was first brought to my attention by Donald Webster Cory,
The Homosexual in America
, p. 164.

“Zabel turned me into”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 191.

“If you were hypocrite”
: Ibid., pp. 189–90.

“By the time I”
: Ibid., p. 88.

“These were the vacant”
: Ibid., p. 83.

“My classes are always”
: Steward,
Dear Sammy
, p. 53.

Last to join this
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 192.

with whom Steward had
: Steward to Jan Bouman, Aug. 15, 1988. Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“sojourn the latter part”
: “All the World’s a Vacationland for Professors: Loyolans Seek Diversion in Europe,” Loyola newspaper [?], undated, part 3, page 2. (The citation of Wednesday, August 4, corresponds to the 1937 calendar.)

“hardly…Wordsworth’s ‘pastoral farms’”
: Steward,
Chapters
, pp. 46–47.

“[Lord Alfred Douglas] opened”
: Ibid., pp. 47–51.

“brave and brilliant stand”
: Ibid., p. 53.

As a result
: For the best and most concise reading of Gide’s contribution to gay autobiography, see Paul Robinson,
Gay Lives: Homosexual Autobiography from John Addington Symonds to Paul Monette
, specifically pp. 172–73.

“[While] I think that”
:
Gay Sunshine Interviews
, vol. 2, p. 228.

Gide was appalled
: Steward,
Chapters
, p. 55.

“I was not old enough”
: Robinson,
Gay Lives
, p. 199.

For the next two years
: Steward,
Chapters
, p. 62.

“We have been having”
:
Dear Sammy
, footnote, p. 177.

“I am at the Carleton-Elite”
: Stein to Wilder, Sept. 7, 1937 (postcard, transcribed by Wilder). Gertrude Stein, Thornton Wilder,
The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Thornton Wilder
, ed. Edward Burns, Ulla E. Dydo, and William Rice, p. 168.

“basic dishonesty [that he]”
:
Stein-Wilder
, footnote, p. 169.

“My feelings about [Wilder]”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” p. 154.

“Our week began”
: Steward,
Chapters
, p. 71.

“During those several”
: Ibid., pp. 72–74.

The Magic Mountain: Ibid., p. 75.

“With what nervous heart”
: Steward refers to the conversation with Wilder in “A Visit with Thomas Mann,”
Advocate
, Sept. 15, 1983, pp. 28–31; Wilder notes the visit in his letter to Stein, Sept. 13, 1937 (
Stein-Wilder
, p. 175), which also remarks on Steward’s visit.

At Rolland’s door
: “A Visit with Thomas Mann,”
Advocate
, Sept. 15, 1983, pp. 28–31.

“Montreux was frightfully dull”
: “Sept 12–13 Montreux. Lac Leman…the search for Romain Roland. ‘Il est malade.’ The castle of Chillon.” Steward, 1937 travel diary, Samuel M. Steward Papers.

“Steward [is] a fine”
: Steward to Stein, Sept. 15, 1937.

“I’m glad you liked”
: Stein to Wilder, Sept. 13, 1937,
Stein-Wilder
, pp. 174–75.

“the last of the”
: Wilder to Stein, Sept. 17, 1937,
Stein-Wilder
, p. 177.

3: THE CHICAGO NOVEL

“I read books on the ballet”
: Steward, “Early Chapters,” pp. 15–17.

Erotically conceived ballets such as
: loosely paraphrased from Martin Green,
Children of the Sun: A Narrative of “Decadence” in England after 1918
, pp. 27–28, 31.

“The only communal feeling”
: “Steward on Sex: Author ‘Phil Andros’ Looks Back” (interview by Eric Rofes),
Advocate
, Dec. 11, 1984, pp. 88–90. (Henceforth, Rofes interview.)