Marguerite Hicks

Marguerite Bieber Hicks (October 19, 1891 – May 9, 1978) was a queer and disabled Detroit socialite, notable for acquiring a large collection of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century books by women in the 1930s and 1940s.

[3] Some time in the late 1930s or early 1940s, Marguerite began a relationship with Thelma James, a folklorist from Wayne State University,[6] who would be her long-term partner.

[3] The Oakland University Library says that Hicks began collecting rare books "in 1923, in preparation for her doctoral research.

"[7] Megan Peiser and Emily Spunaugle identify her collecting activities as beginning "around the time of her husband's death,"[4] and "in the late 1930s to support a master’s thesis in English literature.

"[9] Her obituary in the Detroit Free Press states that she built her collection "during the 1930s and 1940s, with the help of her longtime partner Thelma James.

[10] The bookplate includes an illustration of her sitting at her desk with her dachshund and her cat, and a coat of arms featuring her motto "Virtus Mille Scuta" or "virtue as good as a thousand shields.

"[6] Megan Peiser draws particular attention to the large number of texts "related to the queer relationship of Queen Anne and the Duchess of Marlborough—possibly the earliest interest in collecting materials related to lesbian relationships in Early Modern England.

Formal waist-up black-and-white photograph of a white woman in a black lace dress, wearing pearls, her white hair curled, wearing cat-eye glasses. She is leaning on a faux marble Grecian-style column.
Formal photograph of Marguerite Bieber Hicks, from Oakland University Archives c. 1960s/1970s