What Does It Take To Pull Off A Secret Double Life, by Martha A. Sandweiss

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What does it take to pull off a secret double life? How did Clarence King, the celebrated white explorer, scientist and writer, transform himself into a black Pullman porter named James Todd? In my last blog, I raised some of the issues surrounding his racial masquerade. But King's alternative identity involved a class masquerade, as well. How could an Ivy League-educated scientist from an elite Newport family pass himself off as a working man?

I have tried to imagine how King slipped into the persona of James Todd as he crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, leaving his elite midtown Manhattan haunts to join his African American wife and mixed race children in Brooklyn, and later in Queens. Perhaps he slipped into a Pullman porter's coat, or adopted a working class accent (his friends all commented that he was gifted mimic of dialects). Perhaps he emptied his wallet or stashed his nice clothes in the Manhattan hotel where he maintained a quite of rooms. But even so, he would have to remain on guard even after he got home to his wife. Since she did not know his true identity, he would have to lie about where he had been that day, what he had eaten for lunch, what he had done at work. The effort must have been exhausting.

How could his masquerade remain undetected for thirteen years, with his African American wife never learning of his true identity, and his well-to-white friends never learning of her existence? Kin and his wife Ada Copeland married in 1888 when news traveled in different ways than it does now. Telegraphs were common but residential telephones rare. Television and radio did not exist. Newspapers were plentiful but rarely illustrated. It is hard to imagine how one could pull this off in the current era of cellphones, cellphone cameras, cable news, and internet access.

In some ways, New York City itself enabled King's deceptions. Then as now it was a city of neighborhoods, many segregated by social class. And yet it was a city with a remarkable public transit system, even before the construction of the subway, that allowed citizens to move easily from one part of the city to another. King could travel to see his family in Brooklyn and Queens, but reasonably imagine they would never stumble into his midtown world. Since he lived in residential hotels and passed much of his time in his gentlemen's clubs, no neighbors would note his frequent absences. He could just disappear into the city.

By definition, a successful secret life is one that is never discovered. And so it is hard to say how many remarkable stories may be unfolding right now in any big American city. Still, by any standard, the tale of the famous white explorer who for thirteen years lived a double life as a black working man would seem hard to beat.

Martha A. Sandweiss, Passing Strange, The Penguin Press, Penguin Books