[Ads-l] Origins of "Bulldyke" and Related Terms

[Shapiro, Fred]

One of the most interesting word-mysteries involves the origins of the word "bulldyke" and related terms such as "bulldyking," "bulldyker," and "bulldagger."  The Oxford English Dictionary's first use for "bulldyker" (contributed to them by me) is from J. Richardson Parke's book Human Sexuality (1906): "In American homosexual argot, female inverts, or lesbian lovers, are known euphemistically as 'bulldykers,' whatever that may mean: at least that is their sobriquet in the 'Red Light' district of Philadelphia."  Their chronologically next citation from this group of words is "She stated that she had indulged in the practice of 'bull diking,' as she termed it.  She was a prisoner in one of the reformatories, and there a certain young woman fell in love with her." (Medical Review of Reviews [1921])  None of the OED citations shed any light on the meaning of the "dyke" component of the word.

A search for "bulldyke" on Newspapers.com pulls up a July 29, 1892 article in the Muscatine (Iowa) News-Tribune, beginning with the following remarkable passage: "CHICAGO ... With an idea of killing off a greater portion of the women in the levee district, Hattie Washington, a colored woman, started out at 3:30 o'clock Wednesday afternoon with a big revolver in her hand. She went to Blanche Alexander's place, at 101 Custom House place, in search of Belle Watkins, who, she said, had won the affections of Harvey Neal, alias 'Bulldyke.'"  Is this the same "bulldyke" term later commonly used for "mannish" lesbians?  Commentators writing about the 1892 article have suggested that Harvey Neal's name may disprove his having been a "bulldyke" in the later meaning, but that it is more likely that Harvey was a lesbian who had assumed a typically male name.

There is a bizarre additional angle to the Harvey Neal question.  Immediately adjacent to the article in the Muscatine newspaper appears a story about the murder of Freda Ward by Alice Mitchell.  Alice Mitchell and Freda Ward were lovers, and Ward's highly publicized murder was the incident that first brought lesbianism into widespread public consciousness.  I imagine that the placement of the two items in the newspaper was purely coincidental, but it almost seems like the Muscatine News-Tribune had some kind of special focus on lesbianism.

I should point out that the OED mentions the Hattie Washington incident (citing to an identical report in the Chicago Inter Ocean, July 28) in an etymological note.  They ask the reader to "compare the following isolated early use as a nickname for a person who is confirmed to be male in another part of the story."  However, there is no mention of Harvey Neal in any other part of the story in either newspaper.

Fred Shapiro




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