Loving Frank

While early-20th-century American society views Mamah Bouton Borthwick’s relationship with famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright as scandalous, the two lovers see themselves as expressing their true selves. For Mamah and Frank, their relationship offers a means of liberation from society’s expectations, and each uses it to explore parts of themselves through art. Marrying into the upper-middle class, Mamah’s relationship with Edwin “Ed” Cheney brings her comfort but does not spark intellectual connection—not the way her conversations with Frank do. At the beginning of Loving Frank, she is involved in the Woman Movement in Oak Park, Illinois, but it isn’t until she meets Frank that she feels like she is truly living her life and begins to contribute to the Woman Movement on a national level.

Mamah feels freed by her relationship with Frank, and “[s]uch feeling liberates and deepens the personality, inspires us to noble needs and works of genius” (132). This is a sentiment echoed later in the novel when she hears philosopher Ellen Key speak for the first time. Ellen emphasizes “the noblest type of love,” one in which “both lovers yearn to become entirely one being, to free each other and to develop each other to the greatest perfection” (132).