"Rose Elizabeth Cleveland was the First Lady of the United States for nearly two years assisting her brother, President Grover Cleveland. Lesser known, she was also a literary scholar, novelist, and a poet who published work that empowered women. Throughout her life, she placed herself in the center of controversies concerning the position of women; their social, political and educational rights and opportunities; and the changing attitudes regarding their sexuality. She posed crucial questions about social norms and identity formation, questioned the validity of the heterosexual norm, and challenged patriarchal expectations. This book puts Rose Cleveland in her proper place in the historical record and shows her work concerning the ways in which society perceived, invented, and articulated gender and sexuality to be relevant still today"--