I came across this while I was browsing the net. It seems quite possible that she could have been lesbian, or at least bi. But I just wanted to see what others thought about this. And are there any other historical closted lesbian figures out there who have been forgotten?

 http://lesbianlife.about.com/cs/herstory/a/Eleanor.htm

 The First Lady preferred Ladies

Out after death: a new book on Eleanor Roosevelt and the woman she loved caps a list of bios that tell the whole truth about people we admire

When I began work on Empty Without You (The Free Press, $25), which presents the first comprehensive collection of the letters that Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok wrote to each other, I was mainly interested in what the correspondence revealed about the two women's physical relationship.

I had read a handful of quotations from the letters, but I was interested in learning more about the context of those quotations. I wanted to know how those suggestive passages fit into the larger conversation that Eleanor and Lorena had during their 30-year relationship. Lorena kept 3,500 of their letters while destroying several hundred more because, as she later wrote Eleanor's daughter, "your mother wasn't always so very discreet in her letters to me."

As I read the letters, I found dozens of erotic passages. "I want to put my arms around you, I ache to hold you close," Eleanor wrote in 1933, during her early days as first lady. "I can't kiss you [in person] so I kiss your picture!" she wrote soon afterward. In other passages Eleanor talked about lying down with the cigar-smoking, scotch-drinking Associated Press reporter and about their plans for a future when the two women would share a home and blend their separate lives into one.

Lorena provided her share of titillating tidbits as well. "I remember your eyes, with a kind of teasing smile in them," she wrote a few days before going to the White House to see Eleanor in late 1933, "and the feeling of that soft spot just northeast of the corner of your mouth against my lips." Lorena concluded that letter with, "Good night, dear one. I want to put my arms around you and kiss you at the corner of your mouth. And in a little more than a week now--I shall!"

As both a gay man and a historian, I found it exhilarating to edit the letters documenting that Lorena was, throughout 1933 and during at least part of 1934, the most important person in the life of the greatest first lady in American history. Although Eleanor did not, during her lifetime, publicly define herself either as a lesbian or a bisexual woman, the more than 300 letters that I have transcribed and annotated in Empty Without You leave no question that Eleanor had a loving relationship with Lorena that was intense, passionate, and physical.

The letters, however, document more than just the physical dimensions of Eleanor and Lorena's relationship. When Eleanor and Lorena began their correspondence in the spring of 1933, Eleanor was deeply depressed. Although most women would have been delighted to have become first lady, Eleanor was not. For 15 years she had been working on behalf of social causes that she cared about. When Franklin Roosevelt was elected president, though, she saw no alternative to being thrust into the ceremonial role of White House hostess--limited to deciding whether lunch would consist of sandwiches filled with cucumbers... or watercress.

Lorena had a larger vision. A self-made career woman who had risen to the pinnacle of American journalism, she was the only woman in the country assigned to cover the 1932 Roosevelt presidential campaign. The letters showed me that it was really Lorena who counseled Eleanor on how to transform an ineffectual role she detested into a position of power and influence. Indeed, Lorena was the woman behind the woman.

It was Lorena who persuaded Eleanor to conduct weekly news conferences; Eleanor ultimately held 348 sessions, using them to promote such substantive concepts as women's rights, a minimum wage, and an end to child labor. Lorena also encouraged Eleanor to write a syndicated newspaper column; Eleanor began "My Day" in 1935 and continued writing the column six days a week for the next 27 years, until she died in 1962.

Even more important than these tangible contributions, I came to realize, was Lorena's emotional support and nourishment. Lorena gave Eleanor, for the first time, a love that was complete and without: strings. This unconditional love was a key factor in giving Eleanor the confidence and sense of self that were absolutely essential for her to undertake the Herculean task of moving the position of first lady into territory that her 33 predecessors had never even imagined. With Lorena's constant stream of endearments--"Darling, I do love you so," "I'm proud of you, I ant," "At last you are coming into your own!"--arriving in the mail each and every day, Eleanor was able to grow and blossom, to thrive and flourish--to take flight.

And Eleanor knew and acknowledged the key role that her "first friend" had played, even if the public did not. "Believe me, you've taught me more and meant more to me than you know," the first lady wrote Lorena in one letter. In another she remarked, "You've made of me so much more of a person."

For the 30 years that Lorena's letters continued to arrive, Eleanor remained a pioneer and an adventurer. First at the White House and later at the United Nations, the first lady of the world established a new paradigm for the American woman, stepping boldly onto the global stage to confront the issues of the day and to stand tall as a feminist role model and humanitarian without peer.

By reading the letters and seeing how Lorena's words of love and encouragement propelled Eleanor forward, I came to realize--for the first time in my own life--how important it is for a person of achievement to have the emotional support that a life partner can provide, if you know that no matter what happens, there is still someone in your life who will love and comfort you, you are more willing to take the chances that may allow you to climb to a new plane.

Lorena gave Eleanor that gift. Discovering this element of their letters was a wonderfully enriching experience for me. That experience was far more rewarding, in fact, than reading about how they caressed and kissed each other--no matter how soft, the spot.