In 1851, four years after actress Josephine Clifton’s death, she was named as one of Edwin Forrest’s adulterers during the American actor’s divorce trial. Forrest was an established transatlantic celebrity who exemplified rugged American masculinity in both his roles and celebrity persona. In 1849, Forrest’s rivalry with English thespian William Charles Macready inspired the deadly Astor Place Riots in New York. Clifton had been a direct contemporary of Forrest’s. She emulated his nationalist celebrity but struggled to overcome sexual scandals and demonstrate her virtuous character, vital to female stage presence. This history played into the Forrest divorce. Even in death, Clifton’s private character was put on trial.
During Forrest’s divorce trial, witnesses endeavored to show that Clifton’s “unbecoming familiarity” with Forrest during their 1842-43 tour was tantamount to adultery. The accusations raised questions about acceptable realms of familiarity between a married man and a then-unmarried woman, however professionally connected. They also involved competing interpretations of Clifton’s reproductive biology.
In the trial, physician John Hawks and his wife Laura Hawks testified about meeting Clifton in the “saloon car” of a train. Clifton was in severe physical distress, with much “groaning [and] twisting of the body.” Forrest attended Clifton, who took some opium pills. Then he asked Laura to leave the otherwise empty car. The pills provided relief. However, Laura was shocked when she learned that the couple were not married, which led John to suspect that Forrest had helped Clifton administer an abortion. Clifton’s physicians countered that during her lifetime she suffered during her menstrual periods. This was such an occasion.
Competing claims about what occurred on the train spoke directly to a growing contest over gynecological medicine in the United States. During the 1840s and 1850s, a visible commerce in abortifacients and popular medical literature began to receive more push-back from regular physicians, trained and affiliated with medical colleges and societies. These battles over sexual knowledge also intersected with questions about legitimate realms of intimacy between men and women. In the trial, the intimacy between Clifton and Forrest was read as a sign of adultery, which supported the Hawks’ suspicions of abortion.