Gasp! In Prohibition Ken Burns come this close to acknowledging that a gay historical figure was gay

Frances E. Willard

Living gay baseball stars can rest assured and dead gay jazz masters can rest in peace knowing that their secrets are safe with documentary film maker Ken Burns. After all, history can only go so far on PBS' biggest, people-pleasing cash cow.

Given that, AKSARBENT was a bit shocked tonight to see a little crack appear in the Florentine Films LGBT Iron Curtain when Burns allowed an scripted acknowledgement that Women's Christian Temperance Union leader Frances E. Willard had a long-time female companion.

Willard was the most important and influential American woman of the 19th century; she was the first female represented in Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol.

Her tireless efforts went far beyond temperance, extending to women's sufferage, federal aid to education and free school lunches, unions for workers, the eight-hour work day, work relief for the poor, municipal sanitation and boards of health, national transportation, strong antirape laws, and protections against child abuse.

Progressive American African journalist and anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells wasn't much of a fan of Willard on account of what Wells thought was WCTU pandering, under Willard's leadership, to southern racists by depicting alcohol as a substance that incited black criminality. From wikipedia:

When Wells returned to Britain in 1894, she brought a copy of the article with her [racist remarks made by Willard to the Voice, a New York temperance newspaper], and openly mocked Willard and the temperance movement for its attention to the "evils" of card playing, sports and lewd dancing, while "during all the years which men, women, and children were scourged, hanged, shot and burned, the WCTU had no word, either of pity or protest. Its great heart, which concerns itself about humanity the world over was, toward our cause, pulseless as a stone."

Wells attempted to have Willard's remarks publicized in Britain by republishing the article, but was blocked by Lady Henry Somerset, Willard's lover and host in the United Kingdom, who threatened to use her influence to make sure Wells would never have another speaking engagement in Britain.