Fifteen Years in Man’s Attire

Background: Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, cities continued to offer individuals the chance to craft new identities and create new intimate relations and communities, as this 1885 article illustrated. This Missouri newspaper story relates the story of Frank Gray, an individual who transed. Until being discovered by the irate husband of a married woman, Gray had become a respected and established community member.

The Protracted Masquerade of a Kansas City Woman

About two years ago a smooth-faced individual came to this city and started a saloon, which was conducted successfully and returned the owner a handsome profit. Later the same individual, who was known to the business men of Kansas City by the name of Frank Gray, opened a grocery store at Seventh and Wyandotte streets, and soon secured a paying patronage. During this time Gray dealt largely in real estate, and the investments he made showed him to be possessed of great business tact. Recently, however, he became involved in a lawsuit, and the sensational discovery was made that Frank Gray was a woman named Mrs. Mary Walcott. This revelation brought forth still others, and it is now learned that Mrs. Walcott has done this masquerading as a man for 15 years and has a married daughter living in this city. The discovery is said to have been made by a private detective, who received a pointer from the woman's husband. During her dual existence Mrs. Walcott had smiled upon the ladies, and transacted business like a man, but when she visited Columbus, Ohio, the home of Mrs. Walcott, she dressed as becoming her sex. While she was in this city, however, her disguise was so complete and her voice so masculine that no one suspected that she was a woman. No reason is assigned for her peculiar action in thus disguising herself. The discovery was made through the medium of divorce--a suit, brought by a man named L. W. Foster against his wife, on the grounds that she was altogether too intimate with Gray. He sent his wife to Chicago and began proceedings in divorce. Mrs. Walcott had even by constant shaving cultivated a slight mustache, which aided her in concealing her sex.

Source: “Fifteen Years in Man’s Attire,” Herald and Tribune (Kansas City, Missouri), November 17, 1885, at https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85033429/1885-11-19/ed-1/seq-3/.