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A Word Aside : : June 25, 2006
Even I have not missed what is happening in the notes that follow this Aside. Many times I write things and they are simply then out of my mind. It's as though I have chewed and swallowed. In these writings about Purcell's review of Gebhard's thesis cum autobiography, the edge of my biographical task becomes visible as I approach the abyss of a serious consideration. To reach that question, a reprise of my history with this work might be helpful. Long ago, Larry Millet wrote a review for the Minnesota Historical Society Press about the biographical essays included in my Guide to the William Gray Purcell Papers. The Guide was the reason for which I was brought into the ongoing processing of the Purcell Papers in the first place. As the Finding Aid to the collection was developed, the Northwest Architectural Archives, in the persons of Alan Lathrop and Barbara Bezat, wanted to produce a guidebook to the collection. They tasked me with this, and I completed the book in 1985, some six years after starting the work.
The manuscript was presented to the Minnesota Historical Society Press, where it received the kind attentions of editors Ann Reagan and Sally Rubenstein. The draft had two parts. First, the aforementioned series of biographical essays covering all nine periods of Purcell's life with interleaving essays about other significant people represented in the Papers. The second half was an abstract, description, and index of the contents of the collection, with an introduction to the archival history, provenance, and scope and content of the various record groups. All told, the manuscript is some 750 pages long.
The comments provided by Larry Millet were forwarded to me. He found my work creditable on the whole, though he detected a hagiographic tone in the essays. Of course, I was writing about my heroes. I guess I was thinking of them as saints. After all, their view of life and the impressions they left rattling around in the crystals of time that were their personal and professional records had delivered me to conscious awareness of my spiritual inner being, already in progress. Sounds like something a saint would do. They were kindred with me in their understanding of existence. My good fortune.
However, it is of their passages as human beings that I must write, as well as their life attainments. At what point, if any, does personal information become irrelevant or at least inapplicable? And here, specifically, we arrive at the Edge.
Does the sexual orientation of these people have any bearing on their achievements? Is it inappropriate, even rude and disrespectful, to raise issues for which there may be no possible definitive conclusion? For example, I have enjoyed the work of Bruce Goff for many years. Only last week did I see him represented in an essay about gay American architects. It never even occurred to me to think about his sexuality; only his designs. Yet now, without reference to any specific building, I find that my thinking about his design in general has changed with this information. But why? How? What difference does it actually make?
That brings me to the boundary between art history and biography. Even though the cognoscenti may be slumming when they read my little offerings, so I am told, there is still an intention within my writing to examine things from an historical perspective that is not, specifically, biographical. There is also an equally important intention to make clear that these artworks and accomplishments were undertaken by people for the sake of people. Obviously, that is the purview of biography. So is there a confluence of purposes here that may, without proper attention, be in conflict?
When a reader comes to the tent of the Cause and the hosanna of the Message is being presented, forming the art history part, is that function of greater importance than stirring up any antipathy they might possess toward a personal characteristic? Even more to the point, is raising up such considerations on the basis of anecdote, circumstantial evidence, and limited though authentic documentation a valid thing to do? For example, we can say conclusively that Edna Summy Purcell had lesbian relationships. This was confirmed by her son James and Purcell commented his despair in his diaries. Is this relevant to anything?
One correspondent of mine believes that it is. He presents the case that everything is relevant. He refers to the potential for these relationships to have impacted the place where the Purcells lived, and that there is the possibility that the departure from Minnesota and also from Pennsylvania might have been related. My view is that this is not likely. However, he says, that may inform P&E as an operating architecture firm. Yes, I reply, if that were discernibly the case. And, yes, there is indirect evidence in the testimony of Gertrude Phillips for a third party relationship being the reason, beyond those given in polite company, why things started to fall apart between Feick and Purcell personally. However, that can be read innocently to the letter, and only in the backrooms of the mind does the bow of queerdom get attached.
Simply put, there is no certainty that William Gray Purcell was gay, lived in a marriage of convenience, and had children by adoption not because of fertility issues. On the other hand there is the report, from a reliable someone who was a close and very straight friend for forty years, that he "never had sex with a woman in his life." Plus, a century ago was another world with a quite different set of social expectations. We must be wary of trying to use a hammer with a screw. Little quotes taken out of context from letters while at college, or the occasional fey sketch, or whatever comes to hand, the way we read the lines might be vastly different than they were intended in the moment of their origins. We must avoid projection.
Yet, the fundamental nature of human beings has not changed in a mere century. There was a thriving homosexual subculture on many social levels in Chicago, just as there was in New York and even Philadelphia. Edna got hooked up. Did Purcell? Did he care? Was he latent, or just not going there out of social propriety? Did he have a closet with a back door? None of these questions can be answered from the available evidence. Therefore, do we draw the line in the sand precisely where the records are specific? Could be that doing so leaves the wrong impression, particularly of his relationship with Edna?
Lastly though not only, there is the respect issue. Would this be something that Purcell would want discussed publicly? Of course not, regardless of the extent. One correspondent says that I can't be Purcell's friend, as he is actually dead and I am projecting through my own thoughts the notion that he'd not like this being aired. I am reminded that I serve in the role of a historian here, which hopefully implies some objectivity unrelated to previous hagiography in the Guide essays. In the final analysis, so it is declared to me, I have the obligation to present all information in a balanced way and let the readers find their own conclusions.
Thus have I been washed ashore on this beach. The case is more easily made to discuss the role of women in his life, since the Trinity of grandmother Catherine Gray, mother Anna, and first wife Edna were the key relationships. No brainer. But for the rest, I come down on a conservative side of things. I think a discussion of whether or not same-gender identification was present for Purcell, latent or otherwise, is untenable beyond the very limited references available. Whether I think he was gay or not, one way or the other, seems not enough connected dots to report. So I will content myself, and my readers, with the available references and let them decide. I have.
research courtesy mark hammons