Rose Elizabeth Cleveland First Lady and Literary Scholar

Rose Elizabeth Cleveland was the First Lady of the United States for nearly two years assisting her brother, President Grover Cleveland. Lesser known, she was also a literary scholar, novelist, and a poet who published work that empowered women. Throughout her life, she placed herself in the center of controversies concerning the position of women; their social, political and educational rights and opportunities; and the changing attitudes regarding their sexuality. She posed crucial questions about social norms and identity formation, questioned the validity of the heterosexual norm, and challenged patriarchal expectations. This book puts Rose Cleveland in her proper place in the historical record and shows her work concerning the ways in which society perceived, invented, and articulated gender and sexuality to be relevant still today.

Sirpa Salenius is University Lecturer at the University of New Haven Tuscany Campus, Italy. She has been teaching English and American literature at American University study abroad programs in Italy since 2003. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Eastern Finland. Her research interests include Transatlantic and African American Studies, and she has written articles on nineteenth-century American artists and writers in Italy.

Preface

Introduction

1. Literary Lady at the White House

2. Profession: Writer and Editor

3. Same-Gender Relationships in Fiction

4. Life with Evangeline Whipple

Conclusion