Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hello, revisionous history fans. Malcolm Glawel here, I want
Speaker 1: to tell you about a new podcast from Pushkin Industries
Speaker 1: called Bad Women. Ripper retold you know the story. In
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty eight, five female prostitutes were brutally murdered in
Speaker 1: a London slum, attacks so violent the killer earned a nickname,
Speaker 1: Jack the Ripper. For centuries, we've assumed these women were
Speaker 1: indeed bad women. But what if everything we know about
Speaker 1: them is wrong. Historian Halle Rubinholt has uncovered the true
Speaker 1: stories of the Ripper's victims. Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine, and
Speaker 1: Mary Jane all struggled against the misogyny that thrived in
Speaker 1: Victorian England until they found themselves in the path of
Speaker 1: one of the most vish killers in history. Listeners are
Speaker 1: loving the show. I've called it brilliant, a badly missing
Speaker 1: lair to the story, addicting, fascinating, informative and entertaining, and
Speaker 1: a historical treat and Bad Women is critically acclaimed. It's
Speaker 1: been deemed one of the best true crime podcasts by
Speaker 1: The Guardian, Vulture, and Esquire. Fulcher said Hallie takes aim
Speaker 1: at her critics in her first episode and continues throughout
Speaker 1: too satisfyingly skewer ripperologists, especially one former officer, who seems
Speaker 1: to think the murder victims at the heart of the
Speaker 1: case must have done something to warrant their gutting one
Speaker 1: way or another. If you haven't listened to Bad Women yet,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're waiting for. I'm going to
Speaker 1: share a preview now that will get you totally hooked.
Speaker 1: You can binge the entire season on all your holiday
Speaker 1: travels and staycations. Just search for Bad Women wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: It's a warm September evening. The sky has darkened and
Speaker 2: a moon has risen over the flat, oily river. Hundreds
Speaker 2: of day trippers and pleasure seekers are aboard the Princess
Speaker 2: Alice as she steams through London. Music, singing, and the
Speaker 2: excited shouts of children give the so called Moonlight Cruise
Speaker 2: a holiday feld. No one notices that the craft is
Speaker 2: moving directly into the course of a great iron holed freighter.
Speaker 2: The Princess Alice plows on her paddle wheels, biting into
Speaker 2: the rank sewage brought waters of the Thames. What unfolds
Speaker 2: over the next few terrible minutes will be a tragedy
Speaker 2: for the city, but an opportunity for Elizabeth's stride. Maybe
Speaker 2: the first time she has benefited from the misfortune of others,
Speaker 2: but it will not be the last, before she meets
Speaker 2: her murderer on the streets of Whitechapel. I'm Hallie rubin Holt.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bad Women. The Ripper retold, a series
Speaker 2: about the real lives of the women killed by Jack
Speaker 2: the Ripper and how we got their stories so wrong.
Speaker 2: One side, money plenty and friends too by the scar.
Speaker 2: Then fortune smart upon me and long one pass m
Speaker 2: a lonely and not twelve halfet lone seems too lovely.
Speaker 2: I'm comfy from Elizabeth, Gustav's daughter, was borne by candlelight
Speaker 2: in the darkness of a Swedish November. Her father tended
Speaker 2: the land and rural towards landa, cultivating fields of grain,
Speaker 2: flax and potatoes. He also owned a barn, several cows, pigs, chickens,
Speaker 2: and a horse. The family was more prosperous than many
Speaker 2: in the area, and Elizabeth grew up in a sturdy
Speaker 2: clapboard farmhouse as a farmer's daughter. In the eighteen forties.
Speaker 2: She would have been initiated into the routine of agricultural
Speaker 2: life as soon as she was steady enough on her
Speaker 2: feet to carry pails and gather eggs. When she grew older,
Speaker 2: she would have assisted with milking, tending the chickens and pigs,
Speaker 2: making butter, and even distilling aquavit, the alcoholic liquor traditionally
Speaker 2: offered at meal times in Swedish households. Elizabeth's local community
Speaker 2: was small and conservative. She was raised a Lutheran, and
Speaker 2: prayer would have punctuated her days upon waking, before meals
Speaker 2: and before bed, asking the Lord to shepherd his flock
Speaker 2: safely through the long night. As a girl, little was
Speaker 2: expected of her beyond mastery of housekeeping, childcare, and basic
Speaker 2: animal husbandry, all of which she could learn from assisting
Speaker 2: her mother. She therefore received little schooling. Elizabeth probably grew
Speaker 2: accustomed to the constant rhythm of farm life, the turning
Speaker 2: of the seasons, the cutting of the fields, the freezing
Speaker 2: of the earth, the thaw, the sowing of seeds. But
Speaker 2: just before her seventeenth birthday, everything changed. Elizabeth set out
Speaker 2: for the city of Gothenburg to seek employment as a
Speaker 2: servant in Sweden. As in other European countries, it was
Speaker 2: traditional for young women to gain experience of domestic life
Speaker 2: beyond the confines of their homes and communities. This was
Speaker 2: seen as a kind of apprenticeship before they eventually as
Speaker 2: assumed command of their own households. Elizabeth went to work
Speaker 2: as a maid for a lower middle class family. Domestic
Speaker 2: labour at this time was cheap and in plentiful supply,
Speaker 2: so even families of meager means could afford to hire help.
Speaker 2: Employers were obliged to house, feed, clothe, and tend to
Speaker 2: their servants when they were ill. In return, servants offered
Speaker 2: their complete obedience. Yet choosing and hiring a servant could
Speaker 2: also be risky. Bringing unknown young women into the home
Speaker 2: could have unpredictable consequences. There was a preference for the ruddy,
Speaker 2: cheek daughters of yeomen, who smelled like grass and goats.
Speaker 2: It was believed that these girls had not yet learned
Speaker 2: how to deceive or steal. They were innocent and honest.
Speaker 2: By contrast, urban girls had been exposed to avarice and licentiousness.
Speaker 2: Although it was a master or mistress's responsibility to keep
Speaker 2: them safe peril. Nonetheless, lurked at every turn for maids,
Speaker 2: whether or not she encouraged the advances of the master
Speaker 2: or his son, his brother, cousin, friend, or father. There
Speaker 2: were plenty of opportunities for a young servant woman to
Speaker 2: find herself alone with men, to be coerced, overpowered, or
Speaker 2: to give in to mutual desire. And so while service
Speaker 2: was believed to be the making of a young working
Speaker 2: class woman, becoming entangled with a man could be her undoing.
Speaker 2: Some women's lovers would promise to look after them, and
Speaker 2: many made good on these pledges, establishing their mistresses and lodgings.
Speaker 2: Some men lived alongside their paramours, and they posed as
Speaker 2: married couples. Others visited only on occasion. Some relationships continued
Speaker 2: for many years, if not a lifetime, but many more
Speaker 2: fell apart within weeks. The nineteenth century double standard enabled
Speaker 2: men to walk away from such attachments. By contrast, it
Speaker 2: often devastated the lives of the war women, who were
Speaker 2: left to bear the crying and gurgling consequences of these unions.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth has taken to the grave the name of the
Speaker 2: man who altered her life with his lust. It will
Speaker 2: never be known whether her first encounter with him was
Speaker 2: consensual or forced where it occurred or under what circumstances.
Speaker 2: But by March eighteen sixty five she was six months pregnant,
Speaker 2: and whoever had got her into that position was no
Speaker 2: longer present to shield her from the consequences. Until the
Speaker 2: eighteen sixties, in Sweden, extramarital sex and illegitimate pregnancy were illegal,
Speaker 2: punishable offenses. In fact, across all Europe Bennett's colonies, sexual
Speaker 2: immorality was a source of anxiety verging on paranoia. In Gothenburg,
Speaker 2: the prostitution police were charged replacing women on the sex
Speaker 2: trade Register, colloquially referred to as the Register of Shame.
Speaker 2: There were two lists, one containing the names of knowledge
Speaker 2: prostitutes and the other of suspected women, pregnant, single women,
Speaker 2: women frequently seen alone with men or out at night,
Speaker 2: and mistresses. The chief concern was the spread of venereal disease,
Speaker 2: specifically syphilis, and bad women were seen as responsible for
Speaker 2: its spread. This belief was then used to justify the
Speaker 2: harsh treatment of women in legislation designed to prevent infection.
Speaker 2: When her pregnancy began to show, it was surmised that
Speaker 2: twenty one year old Elizabeth was guilty of lecherous living.
Speaker 2: She was ordered to appear at the Police Inspection House.
Speaker 2: On her first visit, she was entered into the official
Speaker 2: register as public woman number ninety seven. She was then
Speaker 2: further questioned and her answers included in the ledger.
Speaker 3: Age twenty one years, appearance, blue eyes, brown hair, straight nose,
Speaker 3: oval face, five foot two inches, slender build. I surmise
Speaker 3: that this woman has not been living a life of gluttony.
Speaker 2: The rules that were to govern Elizabeth's daily life would
Speaker 2: then have been explained to her a lecture intended to
Speaker 2: humiliate her.
Speaker 3: You will attend the inspection house twice a week on
Speaker 3: Tuesdays and Fridays, or face arrest and a fine, or
Speaker 3: three nights in prison on rations of bread and water.
Speaker 3: You will not be permitted outdoors after eleven at night.
Speaker 3: You must conduct a quiet and a silent life. You
Speaker 3: must not loiter in the windows or doorway of your home.
Speaker 3: You must dress in a decent way when appearing in public,
Speaker 3: and not call attention to yourself.
Speaker 2: At the Police Inspection House, Elizabeth would have been subjected
Speaker 2: to regular examinations of her genitalia. This routine was designed
Speaker 2: as much to chase in the city's public women as
Speaker 2: to screen them against the dreaded syphilis.
Speaker 4: Syphilis is transmitted primarily through sexual intercourse, and it has
Speaker 4: three key stages in its acquired form, primary, secondary, and tertiary.
Speaker 2: Hanley is a lecturer in the history of science and
Speaker 2: Medicine at Birkbeck University of London.
Speaker 4: The primary stage is characterized by the presence of a
Speaker 4: soft saw or a canker at the side of infection,
Speaker 4: so in most cases this sort of been on a
Speaker 4: person's genitals and this saw could appear a couple of
Speaker 4: weeks to several months after infection and it would last
Speaker 4: for a short period of time then disappear, and when
Speaker 4: it disappeared, the patient moved into a period of disease latency.
Speaker 2: The secondary stage could occur anywhere from several months to
Speaker 2: several years. Later, patients would experience flu like symptoms, a fever,
Speaker 2: swollen glands, a sore throat, and then the eruption of
Speaker 2: a rash, as well as war like growths and lesions
Speaker 2: on their genitals. Eventually, it would attack the person's central
Speaker 2: nervous system. Sufferers might experience behavioral changes, including paranoia and
Speaker 2: mood swings, deterioration of the spinal cord, and seizures. There
Speaker 2: were other visible symptoms as well.
Speaker 4: The soft tissue in a person's face begins to break
Speaker 4: down this type of necrotic deterioration where a person's nose disintegrates,
Speaker 4: essentially as does their soft palet in parts of their frontal.
Speaker 2: Though, syphilis affected fertility too, and could be passed on
Speaker 2: to a fetus before birth, so called congenital syphilis. In
Speaker 2: the days before antibiotics, this was a terrible disease. So
Speaker 2: as to avoid giving of fence to Gothenberg's respectable citizens,
Speaker 2: all suspected and known public women were required to enter
Speaker 2: the police inspection house through a concealed rear passage. Once inside,
Speaker 2: they had to strip naked and form a line. Sometimes,
Speaker 2: if the weight was a long one, they were ordered
Speaker 2: to stand in the outdoor courtyard, shivering in the cold
Speaker 2: as the uniformed officers stood over them. For a young
Speaker 2: woman who had been raised in a religious community, the
Speaker 2: indignant of the experience would have been shocking. However, as
Speaker 2: Elizabeth was pregnant with an illegitimate child, she may well,
Speaker 2: like so many women of her era, have internalized her
Speaker 2: punishment as a justifiable one. Elizabeth can only have been
Speaker 2: subjected to this routine a handful of times before it
Speaker 2: was discovered that she was presenting the symptoms of syphilis.
Speaker 2: She was immediately admitted to the cahouosit or cure House,
Speaker 2: the local venereal disease hospital. These treatment centers, also known
Speaker 2: as Locke hospitals, were designed for poor people. A stay
Speaker 2: here carried profound stigma, and this.
Speaker 4: Was in part of de terrent as well. Like the
Speaker 4: shame and stigma that accompanied entry into a workhouse. A
Speaker 4: similar stigma existed for the lock hospitals, and these were
Speaker 4: institutions that were often seriously underfunded, understaffed, and lacked the
Speaker 4: facilities needed to be able to provide people with effective
Speaker 4: care even by Victorian standards.
Speaker 2: Patients at these institutions were effectively imprisoned, hence the name
Speaker 2: Locke hospital. Some women entered voluntarily, but many were incarcerated
Speaker 2: against their will. At Gothenburg's cure House, attendants and nurses
Speaker 2: used force to subdue patients. It was also overcrowded, and
Speaker 2: when the number of patients exceeded capacity, inmates were made
Speaker 2: to sleep on the floor. Mercury was the go to
Speaker 2: treatment for syphilis at this time. The standard forms were
Speaker 2: an ointment, pill, or tonic, but doctors also experimented with
Speaker 2: other modes of administration.
Speaker 4: Fumigation, I think is the best way to describe it.
Speaker 4: So you'd sit in essentially something that looked a bit
Speaker 4: like a steam room, and mercury infused vapors would be
Speaker 4: pumped in and you sit there and you sort of
Speaker 4: absorb it through your skin.
Speaker 2: There was no standardized dosage for mercury, doctors saw its
Speaker 2: administration as an art rather than a science. It was
Speaker 2: also highly toxic and potentially deadly.
Speaker 4: Severe Mercury poisoning could result in everything from loosened to
Speaker 4: lost teeth and bettered breath all the way through to
Speaker 4: hair loss and changed mental state, very similar symptoms to
Speaker 4: what you might expect in the later stages of syphilis itself.
Speaker 2: Pregnant Elizabeth was spared mercury but treated internally with acid
Speaker 2: while her genital wartz would have been dehydrated or cut off.
Speaker 2: After receiving this cure for seventeen days, she went into
Speaker 2: premature labor. Elizabeth gave birth to a stillborn girl at
Speaker 2: seven months while under lock and key at the cure house,
Speaker 2: a birth certificate was still required. The space for the
Speaker 2: father's name was left blank. Methods of treating syphilis varied
Speaker 2: between countries, but they shared an underlying concept women should
Speaker 2: shoulder the blame for its transmission. If the state could
Speaker 2: control the morally corrupt women the disease is spreaders, then
Speaker 2: the problem would be isolated. Sexually transmitted disease involves two parties,
Speaker 2: of course, but male carriers were exempt from regulation. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: the idea that women, specifically female sex workers are solely
Speaker 2: responsible for the spread of disease and should be punished
Speaker 2: for it is one that we haven't left behind.
Speaker 5: There's been a long history of sex workers being imprisoned
Speaker 5: under public health justifications.
Speaker 2: Grace is a sex worker from the UK who contacted
Speaker 2: me after reading my work on Elizabeth's life.
Speaker 5: People fear that we will be seen as vector a's
Speaker 5: a disease. So unfortunately, these attitudes do still persist and
Speaker 5: clients let you know about it, leave me. They will
Speaker 5: say things and you fee, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: In Elizabeth's time, as for Grace today, attitudes and fears
Speaker 2: around the spread of disease caused women real physical harm too.
Speaker 2: Syphilis inspections were brutally rapid. Fifty women might be examined
Speaker 2: using the same medical instrument in less than two hours,
Speaker 2: says Anne Hanley.
Speaker 4: And that speculum was then passed to the attending nurse,
Speaker 4: who sort of cursorily disinfected it for use on the
Speaker 4: next patient. There's no way that these diagnostic examinations were thorough,
Speaker 4: and there's no way that they were hygienic. In many cases,
Speaker 4: women who may not have had a venereal disease were
Speaker 4: being infected by the very process of examination to determine
Speaker 4: whether or not they were infected.
Speaker 2: Even if women seemed to respond to the rudimentary cures
Speaker 2: on offer and were released from the hospital, their slate
Speaker 2: wasn't white clean. Criminal convictions followed those who had been
Speaker 2: inmates at Locke Hospitals, and once a woman appeared on
Speaker 2: a police register, she would not be able to secure
Speaker 2: respectable work. One of the only ways that she could
Speaker 2: actually sustain herself would be to resort to the profession
Speaker 2: she had been accused of practicing. Constitution. Elizabeth joined the
Speaker 2: ranks of women who sold themselves on a notorious Gothenburg
Speaker 2: thoroughfare known mockingly as the street of many nymphs. As
Speaker 2: open solicitation on the street was forbidden, she would have
Speaker 2: traded discreetly indoors at a brothel, perhaps, or in a coffeehouse.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth had been publicly denounced as a whore, had suffered
Speaker 2: the indignity of police examination, had discovered she carried a
Speaker 2: potentially deadly and disfiguring disease, and had been incarcerated and
Speaker 2: subjected to excruciating medical procedures. Estranged from her family and
Speaker 2: from respectable life. She had then been released onto the street,
Speaker 2: with no friend to whom she could turn in the city.
Speaker 2: It was now that the symptoms of syphilis returned and
Speaker 2: medical incarceration was ordered once more. But just when things
Speaker 2: looked to be at their bleakest, an opportunity appeared, one
Speaker 2: that would changed elizabeth life forever.
Speaker 1: That was a preview of Bad Women. You can binge
Speaker 1: the entire season right now wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: It's a powerful show, and I'm very proud that Pushkin
Speaker 1: is able to bring it to you. One last thing
Speaker 1: before you go, a little extra gift for the holidays,
Speaker 1: I just have to share a preview of this month's
Speaker 1: bonus episode of Revisionist History exclusively for Pushkin Plus subscribers.
Speaker 1: Pushkin Plus has everything you love about pushkin shows, plus
Speaker 1: so much more, ad free listening, behind the scenes moments,
Speaker 1: bonus material, crazy as sides, and the excerpt you're about
Speaker 1: to hear is from one of the last and arguably
Speaker 1: one of our best offerings on pushkin Plus this year.
Speaker 1: It's a follow up to one of my favorite episodes
Speaker 1: of Revisionist History, The Dog Will See You Now. You know,
Speaker 1: the one about the COVID sniffing dogs. Well, we've gone
Speaker 1: back for more. Take a listen. A lot has happened
Speaker 1: in Biodetection Canine since we went to visit them. For one,
Speaker 1: the company was recently acquired by another company called Protection
Speaker 1: One Canine. That company specializes in security dogs. Now they're
Speaker 1: all part of the same doggy industrial complex. But something
Speaker 1: else happened. Some of the dogs became Rhodies. Have you
Speaker 1: heard of Eric Church, the country music star who has lyrics.
Speaker 6: Like we recently were part of a Wall Street Journal
Speaker 6: article and if you read the article, Eric Church says
Speaker 6: that having the COVID dogs probably saved the tour that
Speaker 6: all came about because you know, someone within their Church's camp.
Speaker 6: Was a Revisionist History fan and heard the.
Speaker 1: Podcast that's by Detection Canine president Jerry Johnson. You heard him,
Speaker 1: Revisionist History. This very podcast is the connector between country
Speaker 1: music and canines. The Dogs are now backstage COVID sniffers,
Speaker 1: and not just for Eric Church. They're touring with bands
Speaker 1: including the Black Keys and Metallica heavy metal Canines. To
Speaker 1: work with these bands, the Lucky Dogs and their handlers
Speaker 1: travel on the road with the crew.
Speaker 7: How's everybody doing today, I just say, by your mind,
Speaker 7: if I've run the logan dog over the whole part us,
Speaker 7: I'm just gonna you just stand in a single ball
Speaker 7: line and just go ahead and relax your arms on
Speaker 7: your side and the dog will target the left hand.
Speaker 1: Certainly on the day of the show. Mindian Lord to
Speaker 1: adorable German chep for Belgian Melinoise begin work long before
Speaker 1: the music starts.
Speaker 6: So typically the dogs will show up depending on the
Speaker 6: first call, anywhere from five thirty to six thirty in
Speaker 6: the morning, and the first people on scene are usually
Speaker 6: the recording artists people, so they'll come in different shifts
Speaker 6: depending on what their jobs are, so they'll come in
Speaker 6: groups of anywhere from three to ten. The dogs are
Speaker 6: prepositioned at the entrance and everybody comes in. They stand
Speaker 6: in a single file line facing the dog, teams about
Speaker 6: six feet apart, and everybody's kind of socially distanced. And
Speaker 6: then what we have them do is they stand facing
Speaker 6: the dog, nothing in their left hand, and the dog
Speaker 6: comes down and sniffs their left hand. Takes about a
Speaker 6: second per person, and then you know, when they're done.
Speaker 6: Then they go about and do their work. The dogs,
Speaker 6: I think are probably the most popular. I almost call
Speaker 6: them people the most popular individuals on the show.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 6: When people arrive, they can't wait too you know, they
Speaker 6: automatically go to where they need to stand so they
Speaker 6: get sniffed. That.
Speaker 7: So you you're such a three girl.
Speaker 5: Oh my goodness, I help you.
Speaker 4: What's smart? Baby? So smart?
Speaker 1: It's a great environment.
Speaker 4: That's so crazy.
Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, you can hear the
Speaker 1: rest by subscribing to Pushkin Plus on the Revisionist History
Speaker 1: Show page in Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm
Speaker 1: slash plus. It's only four ninety nine a month. It's
Speaker 1: a cup of coffee. And if you're already a subscriber,
Speaker 1: thank you. We hope you've enjoyed the uninterrupted listening and
Speaker 1: bonus content from other Pushkin shows. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: stay tuned for more bonus episodes coming soon.