Roswell George Mills

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Roswell George Mills
Born1896
Buffalo, New York
Died1966
Miami, Florida
Occupationjournalist, poet
Nationality Canadian
Period1900s-1940s
Notable worksLes Mouches Fantastiques
PartnerGraeme Davis
Khagendrenath Ghose

Roswell George Mills (1896 - 1966) was a Canadian journalist, poet and magazine publisher. A friend and colleague of poet Elsa Gidlow, [1] he is the first known gay man in Canadian history whose life and sexual orientation is attested through biographical literature rather than court records of a sodomy trial. [2]

Born in Buffalo, New York, on July 4, 1896, [3] Mills moved to Montreal, Quebec, in childhood with his family. [3]

In early adulthood Mills worked as a journalist for the Montreal Star , where his byline appeared on the financial pages and as a theatre and opera critic. [2] He also wrote a women's column under the pseudonym "Jessie Roberts". [2] He and Gidlow met at a poetry club. According to Gidlow,

He was beautiful. About nineteen, exquisitely made up, slightly perfumed, dressed in ordinary men's clothing but a little on the chi-chi side. And he swayed about, you know. We became friends almost instantly because we were both interested in poetry and the arts. [4]

Mills was open about his sexuality and considered it a personal crusade to make people "understand that it was beautiful, not evil, to love others of one's own sex and make love with them." [2] Between 1918 and 1920 Mills and Gidlow collaborated on the underground magazine Les Mouches fantastiques , Canada's first known LGBT publication. Mills published several poems in the magazine. [2] An Episcopalian priest from South Dakota, Graeme Davis, took leave from his church posting and moved to Montreal to become Mills' lover after discovering the magazine. [2]

Mills also gave piano lessons. [5]

Mills followed Gidlow in the early 1920s to New York City, where he took a job in the financial section of the Oil, Paint, and Drug Reporter. [2] He soon ended his relationship with Davis and moved in with Khagendrenath Ghose, an immigrant from India. [2] He subsequently lost contact with Gidlow for a number of years, although they met again in Paris in 1928, where Mills was living with a German architecture student named Jurgen. [2] Mills, Gidlow and Jurgen all travelled to Berlin in 1929, discovering the city's burgeoning gay subculture and touring Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sex Research. [2] Gidlow later moved back to the United States while Mills remained in Europe, although the two continued to correspond. [2]

By 1943, Mills was again living in New York City and working for The Brooklyn Eagle . [3] By 1961 he was living in Miami, Florida, where he died on May 5, 1966. [3]

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References

  1. Elsa Gidlow, Elsa, I Come with My Songs. Booklegger Publishing, 1986. ISBN   0912932120.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Elsa Gidlow’s Circle – Roswell George Mills". The Drummer's Revenge, June 1, 2010.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Faig, Ken. (July 2006). "Lavender Ajays of the Red-Scare Period: 1917–1920". The Fossil. 102 (4), 5–17.
  4. Richard Cavell and Peter Dickinson, eds. Sexing the Maple: A Canadian Sourcebook. Broadview Press, 2006. ISBN   1551114860.
  5. Advertisement on page 13. Canadian Jewish Chronicle, March 16, 1920.