Notorious Newport: gay tales of booty, murder and mansions by the sea!

Professor Andrew Lear is a world-renowned expert on sexuality in art and the author of the best-known book on sexuality in Greek vase-painting.  He is the founder of Oscar Wilde Tours, the gay history tour company, and Shady Ladies Tours, the woman's history tour company.

Andrew Lear

Come learn about the gay side of Newport's Gilded Age mansions—the talented, charming queers, the scandals, the murders, and more!

<p><em><strong>Can&#x27;t make the live event?  No problem!  You can watch the video recording at your convenience for 2 weeks.</strong></em></p><p>Like the Hamptons today, Newport Rhode Island was the top summer resort for the American elite from Civil War to the Great Depression. During this period, dubbed by Mark Twain the Gilded Age, families like the Vanderbilts, the Astors, and the Morgans built palatial seaside mansions along the shore—mansions that feature conspicuously in everything from Edith Wharton&#x27;s novels to the new HBO  series, &quot;The Gilded Age.&quot;  </p><p>Until his death in 1905, one of Newport’s gay greats was the famous party host Robert L. “Bobby” Hargous. Another was Edith Wharton’s friend, architect Ogden Codman. Codman was responsible for some of the resort’s most elegant houses and interiors.</p><p>Gay men like Codman, his fellow gay Newport and New York designer Whitney Warren, and Harry Leher, whose only &quot;job&quot; seems to have been keeping everyone in Newport entertained, took the precaution of getting married. So did the LGBTQ+ Vanderbilts: Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, an accomplished sculptress and founder of the Whitney Museum, and Harold Stirling “Mike” Vanderbilt, who invented contract bridge and successfully defended The America’s Cup three times—though the third time by cheating....  Mike  didn&#x27;t get married till he was 49, after a dozen years “engaged” to a lesbian friend, Eleonora Sears—one of the great athletes of the early 20th century.</p><p>Newport&#x27;s gay life wasn&#x27;t confied to the elite, however.  Newport was then the  nation’s main naval base, and  plenty of gay &quot;trade&quot; flourished here too, leading to the spectacular Navy YMCA Scandal of 1919—and the cover-up, led by none other than Franklin Delano Roosevelt.    </p><p>Nor did the scandal die out in the early 20th century. Another  talented gay designer, Eduardo Tirella, came to Newport in the 1950s.  But he ended up run over in 1966 by the richest woman in America, Doris Duke—supposedly accidentally, though it’s widely believed that she got away with murder.</p><p>Today, of course, things are different.  Valued as generous philanthropists, knowing fashion and party consultants and emergency bartenders, Queers are still welcome in the Newport elite. But a far less Byzantine community has evolved. Certainly today, if a much esteemed, accomplished, out and proud gay role model were killed, their assailant, no matter how rich they were, would meet with justice. </p><p></p>

<h2>Speaker Bio</h2><p>Born in Akron, Ohio, Michael Henry Adams is an accomplished writer, lecturer, historian, tour guide, and activist, living in Harlem.   A Fine Arts graduate of the University of Akron, Michael trained in Columbia University&#x27;s graduate historic preservation program as well as studying English country houses at the Attingham Summer School.  His books include <em>Harlem, Lost and Found: An Architectural and Social History, 1765-1915 </em>(Monacelli Press, 2001) and <em>Style and Grace: African Americans at Home</em> (Bullfinch, 2002). Currently, he&#x27;s at work on the forthcoming <em>Homo Harlem, A Chronicle of Lesbian and Gay Life in the African American Cultural Capital, 1915-1995</em>.</p>

<h2>FAQs</h2><h3>When will the Zoom invite come?</h3><p>The Zoom invite will be in the CONFIRMATION EMAIL from your order—IF YOU DO NOT RECEIVE IT IN YOUR CONFIRMATION EMAIL PLEASE MESSAGE US IMMEDIATELY. Subsequent to this, the Zoom invite will be sent to your email address at 48hrs, 2hrs, and 10mins before the event. PLEASE CHECK YOUR SPAM AND SOCIAL FOLDERS IF YOU DO NOT SEE THE ZOOM INVITE IN YOUR INBOX.</p><h3>If I can&#x27;t make the live recording, can I watch the event at another time?</h3><p>The event will be recorded, and all ticket holders will receive a link to the recording by email the evening after the presentation, with a password to access it.  It will be available to view for 2 weeks after the live event. If you do not receive the link to the recording a couple of hours after the live event please email us—sometimes Eventbrite emails can get lost in spam/social folders.</p><h3>What time zone is the event scheduled in?</h3><p>The event is scheduled for 2pm EST (i.e. New York time). You can watch it in any time zone but please adjust to the time zone you are in.</p><h3>Refund policy?</h3><p>Refunds are available up to the start time of the event. After the start time, refunds are only available if you have been unable to access the event.</p>

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Notorious Newport: gay tales of booty, murder and mansions by the sea!

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