The old man was the only other Tuesday morning visitor to the cemetery at Wethersfield’s Congregational Church. “Griswold,” I answered when he asked who I was looking for. “There are dozens,” he replied with a gentle shake of his head. “Estelle Griswold,” I added. “Early 1980s.” He nodded. “If you start up there, I’ll take a look down here.”
He had a limp, I realized, but as I began to work my way back and forth along a steep hillock, he slowly walked the rows of gravestones down nearer the road. He was right, there were dozens of Griswolds, reaching back many generations, but in less than five minutes, about two thirds of the way up the hillock, I came upon the small flat headstone that was my goal: “Estelle Trebert Griswold—June 8, 1900—August 13, 1981.”
I gave him a shout, letting him know that I’d found the one I’d been looking for. A few moments later, as I left, I stopped to say thank you, but I didn’t ask his name.
Far more often than we usually remember, books like this do indeed depend upon the kindness of strangers as well as the hospitality of friends. In Waterbury, in New Haven, in Dallas, and in scores of other places, people whose names I likewise didn’t catch have many times been just as friendly and eager to help as the old man in Wethersfield.
Bro Adams and Cathy Bruce, and Bill and JoAn Chace, all kindly welcomed me as a house guest on the many trips that took me to Waterbury, Hartford, New Haven, and Middletown. Twenty years ago, as an undergraduate, I spent the better part of four years at Wesleyan, and to go back—especially to Olin Library—for the research on this book supplied a marvelous sense of closure. The happenstance that even in 1974, thanks to the late Clem Vose, all of Roy Lucas’s litigation files were in the basement of the same building where I began the thesis that became my first book—Protest at Selma—made my 1991 discovery of those long-untouched papers all the more ironic. Clem, Eugene Golob, David Titus, and Richard Buel at Wesleyan, like Peter Fish, David Price, David Paletz, and David Barber at Duke, all long ago taught me some of what scholarship involves, but most of what one learns is the product of time spent alone, not formal instruction. The six years of work on this book, like Bearing the Cross before it, have been a deeply satisfying and almost always pleasant endeavor, and the experience of teaching oneself a fundamentally new literature and story—especially one that so far has been much less explored than civil rights history—has been extremely enjoyable.
Six years of work of course accumulates many debts that one does remember. In all of the Connecticut research, I am most deeply indebted to Ann Y. Smith, the director of Waterbury’s Mattatuck Museum, whose willingness to help open all sorts of local doors has given the first two chapters of this book a richness they otherwise could not have had. Ann’s colleagues Dorothy Cantor and Deborah Grazier were likewise helpful on many occasions, and my Waterbury inquiries also greatly benefitted from many conversations with one of the area’s most knowledgeable historians, Jeremy Brecher.
Also in Waterbury, I am deeply thankful to Senator Thomas F. “Tim” Upson for unearthing the fifty-year-old case files of his father, and to Anita Bologna at the Waterbury Republican for guiding me through that paper’s superb clipping morgue. My other Waterbury debts include John Tobin at the Waterbury Hospital, Brad Ward in the State’s Attorney’s office, and the staff members at both the Bronson Library and at the Superior Court law library.
At Hartford’s superb and pleasant Connecticut State Library and Archives, I was graciously helped by State Archivist Mark H. Jones, Anwar Ahmad, and many other librarians. Wesley W. Horton, Joseph Lynch, Herbert Janick, and Ellsworth S. Grant all gave me kind advice, and the Hartford Courant provided me full access to its library. Andrea Haas Hubbell of Connecticut Public Television generously shared with me the transcripts of her interviews, and Randall C. Jimerson at the University of Connecticut was also extremely helpful. Elizabeth A. Swain graciously eased my usage of the Lucas papers at Wesleyan, and James Campbell and his colleagues at the New Haven Colony Historical Society were also repeatedly helpful during my long sojourn there. Ruth C. Emerson and Judge Joseph B. Clark were each instrumental in giving me access to two collections of papers that added tremendous richness to the Poe and Griswold stories, and Angel Diggs and her colleagues at the New Haven Register kindly allowed me to review that paper’s clipping morgue. My additional New Haven debts include Nicholas J. Cimmino at Superior Court, Katherine Morton and Judith Schiff at Yale’s Sterling Library, Dr. Orvan W. Hess, and Andrew Ullman. Both Elizabeth Phillips and Professor Stephen C. Veltri greatly strengthened my knowledge of Fowler Harper, and the late John McLean Morris and Mrs. Helen Rose enlarged my understanding of Lee Buxton. David Brion Davis, Howard Lamar, Ralph Carlson, and Maud Andrew all provided crucial assistance in helping me locate the Poe plaintiffs.
In Northampton, Helen and Dan Horowitz graciously welcomed me into their home, and Susan Grigg and Margery Sly, along with Peter Engelman of the Margaret Sanger Papers Project, made Smith College’s Sophia Smith Collection extremely pleasant to work in. George Scialabba kindly hosted me during several visits to Cambridge, and at Radcliffe College’s Schlesinger Library, Eva Moseley, Anne Engelhardt, and Susan von Salis were all very helpful, as was Richard Wolfe at Harvard Medical School’s Countway Library. Ben Primer, Nanci A. Young, Jean Holliday (and Beverly A. Williams) all made for most pleasant research visits to Princeton’s Mudd Library, and Mills and Brenda Thornton graciously hosted me in Ann Arbor.
David Wigdor, Mary Wolfskill, Fred Bauman, Jeff Flannery, and their colleagues in the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress have for some years now made it a place where I truly look forward to doing research. James Hutson and Jill Brett, as well as Linda Carr and Rosalie Scott, have also gone out of their ways to be extremely helpful during my work in the Library’s Madison Building. Trudy H. Peterson, Mary Ronan, and Sue McDonough all helped ease my work at the National Archives, and Judith A. Miller and Peter Buscemi have been my favorite people in Washington for almost a decade now.
In Dallas, Ginny Whitehill time and time again has been exceptionally kind—and crucial—in helping with my work on Roe. David Farmer, Kay Bost, and Kristin Jacobsen at SMU’s DeGolyer Library were also extremely helpful, and Craig Flournoy and Judy Sall helped arrange my full access to the clipping morgues of both the Dallas Morning News and the late Dallas Times-Herald. Jim and Carolyn Clark, Doris Middleton, Barbara Richardson, Judy Mohraz, and Karen Denard also extended wonderful courtesies during my visits to Dallas. Margaret Taylor, Julie Lowenberg, Judge Susan Legarde, and Peter Harlan, and Elnore Savage and Carolyn Hames in Fort Worth, were all very helpful as well.
In Austin, Heather Moore at the Ransom Library, Linda Hanson at the Johnson Library, Michael Widener at the Tarlton Law Library, and Katherine J. Adams at the Barker Texas History Center all helped ease my work, as did the staff of the the Texas Legislative Reference Library. Sandra Garrett helped me considerably with stories from The Rag, and David McNeely, Marie Maynor, Chris LaPlante, Tony Black, and Pete Cortez all helped me track down important leads in Austin. The clipping files at both the Austin Public Library and the Dallas Public Library also proved useful.
In Atlanta, Margie Pitts Hames, like Ginny Whitehill in Dallas and Ann Smith in Waterbury, was exceptionally helpful and crucial with my work on Doe, as was Sidney O. Smith, Jr. Louise Cook (and now Joe Hale) once again made research visits to Atlanta enjoyable and entertaining, and Gary Pomerantz kindly arranged for my access to the library resources of the Atlanta Constitution and the late Atlanta Journal.
Both the marvelous Archie Motley at the Chicago Historical Society and Stan Oliner at the Colorado Historical Society were extremely helpful, as were Gloria Roberts at PPFA, Caroline Rittenhouse at Bryn Mawr College, and David Klaasen at the University of Minnesota’s Social Welfare History Archives. Leigh Ann Wheeler helped review the Minnesota materials for me.
Claudia Dreifus and Barbara Milbauer generously shared with me the fruits of their earlier work, and Marian Faux, Sagar C. Jain, and Harriet Pollack kindly checked to see if they had retained similar materials. Steve Wermeil was especially generous in discussing with me his ongoing work.
I spent a part of 1991 as a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Humanities, where Robert C. Vaughan, Susan Coleman, Ruby Davis, and Carol Hendricks, among others, all made for an exceptionally pleasant stay, and where Mary Carter Bishop, Suzanne W. Morse, and Susan Stein were helpful and interesting colleagues. I also benefitted tremendously from the University of Virginia’s superb libraries, and especially from the wonderfully friendly and effective interlibrary loan staff at Alderman Library. This past year I’ve repeatedly been helped by both Ulla Volk and Carol Salomon at the Cooper Union Library. Thanks to John Jay Iselin, John Harrington, Roxann Clawson, Maria Schiro, and my other entertaining colleagues, teaching at Cooper has been an extremely pleasant experience.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., kindly introduced and recommended me to the good people at the Twentieth Century Fund, and both Michelle Miller and Richard C. Leone have been most supportive and encouraging of this very large book.
In addition to many of the people whose names are listed among my interviews in the bibliography, Michael Bessie, Dr. David Bingham, Timothy Byrnes, Dan Carter, James H. Cone, Joy Dryfoos, Mary Dudziak, Kim Fellner, Rachel Gorlin, Linda Greenhouse, Dr. Martin Heskell, Nan Hunter, Dennis Hutchinson, John C. Jeffries, Jr., Carol Joffe, Randall Kennedy, Michael Klarman, Uta Landy, Bruce Lee, Kristin Luker, Matt Mallow, Nick Mills, Teresa Nelson, Richard Newman, James F. O’Brien, Lieutenant General William Odom, Lynn M. Paltrow, Barbara Radford, Evelyn Raiola, Linda Rocawich, Henry Schwarzschild, Joyce Seltzer, Reva Seybolt, Jim Sleeper, Helen A. Stephenson, Tina Welsh, Joanne Whitehead, James W. Williams, Juan Williams, Wendy Williams, and Tinsley Yarbrough all provided thoughtful assistance or advice. In the bibliography itself, those interviews or conversations which took place by telephone, rather than in person, are designated by the symbol (T).
This book shifted from William Morrow & Co. to Macmillan along with my editor, Lisa Drew, and Lisa’s assistant, Katherine Boyle, has been exceptionally helpful and astute as this manuscript moved toward publication. Mary Flower handled the huge job of copyediting this book, and David Frost at Macmillan helped ease this forward. At one particular juncture, Macmillan president Barry Lippman was also most considerate. Jane Cushman has been my agent for almost a decade now, and Jeff Gerecke, Karen O’Boyle, Tony Outhwaite, and Tom Cushman at JCA have repeatedly been most helpful. Throughout all of these recent years, Ellen Vercruysse has superbly and economically handled all of my travel arrangements.
Ann Smith kindly reviewed the final draft of chapter one, and Lynn M. Paltrow thoroughly read chapter nine. Ellen Chesler, Pamela S. Karlan, and Susan F. Newcomer all read the entire final manuscript and offered extensive suggestions and corrections. Perhaps moreso than anyone else, Ellen, Pam, and Susan have all talked with me on scores of occasions about one or another part of this story over the last few years, and my cumulative gratitude for all of those conversations and phone calls—above and beyond their comments on the manuscript—is quite considerable.
I began this book—the “privacy book,” I then called it—in the fall and winter of 1987–1988, in the immediate wake of the Senate hearings on Robert H. Bork’s unsuccessful nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Perhaps even more than with Bearing the Cross, the researching of this book has introduced me to a large number of wonderful and impressive people. The degree of supportiveness I’ve received from so many of them has been a tremendous boon, especially when some of those with whom I’ve spoken—such as Hector Kinloch, Elizabeth “Odegard,” and Robert “Oldendorf”—were being asked about the most privately traumatic experiences of their lives. Some people who themselves appear in the book—Jean and Marvin Durning, Ruth Emerson, Margie Hames, Larry Lader, Roy Lucas, and Ginny Whitehill—have been especially willing to have repeated conversations and send along all sorts of relevant items, but the considerable respect which I feel for all of them does not mean that they will necessarily welcome or agree with every particular aspect of this long but wonderfully important story. Relatively little of this history has ever been brought together, or even brought to light, prior to now, and, much as with Bearing the Cross, I hope that this book too will help open the door for others that will follow. Just as Dallas’s memorable Judge Irving L. Goldberg once said about judicial opinions, a book too “should have not only a beginning and an end, but a future.”