Speaker 1: Hey, folks, Aaron here Before we begin, just a heads
Speaker 1: up that today's episode contains the story of a traumatic birth.
Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. Tinkering In his small shop just
Speaker 1: off Broadway, Joseph Trust was busy concocting skin creams and
Speaker 1: making promises. He was going to make women beautiful after all,
Speaker 1: and himself rich in the process, and he would do
Speaker 1: both of those things through manipulation and deceit. Joseph did
Speaker 1: this by transforming himself into an alter ego Felix Gurad,
Speaker 1: a chemist and doctor. But behind this sophisticated facade was
Speaker 1: a difficult snake, oil salesman and general scoundrel about town.
Speaker 1: To those who really knew him, and there weren't many,
Speaker 1: he was less of a superman and Clark Kent and
Speaker 1: more of a jackal and hide. One of his items, though,
Speaker 1: was a canary in the coal mine or the Changing Times.
Speaker 1: On August eighth of eighteen forty, he advertised a woman's
Speaker 1: hair removal powder on the front page of the New
Speaker 1: York Daily Herald. He wrote, we could never think of
Speaker 1: falling in love with a woman whose fuzzy face bears
Speaker 1: a resemblance to the back of a half picked goose
Speaker 1: and wonder how anyone else ever could. But ladies removing
Speaker 1: their body hair wasn't anything new, of course, and can
Speaker 1: be traced back thousands of years to civilizations across the world.
Speaker 1: Egyptian women sometimes removed their head and pubic hair, Elizabethan
Speaker 1: women did away with their eyebrows. Ancient Romans used a
Speaker 1: myriad of pumice stones and tweezers that were at a
Speaker 1: lady's disposal. In America, though, female hair removal had yet
Speaker 1: to be commodified and institutionalized. But then that all started
Speaker 1: to change. In eighteen eighty, the King Camp Gillette Company
Speaker 1: created the first modern razor. It appeared at a time
Speaker 1: when the upper and middle class continued their efforts by
Speaker 1: separating themselves from the working class. Personal hygieing was utilized,
Speaker 1: arguably weaponized at times, to fight against what was considered
Speaker 1: to be improper. By the early nineteen hundreds, to be
Speaker 1: clean shaven was a basic expectation of good breeding, and
Speaker 1: so here Joseph Trust was tapping into a veritable gold
Speaker 1: mine of class anxieties uppercross Victorian Americans. You see, were
Speaker 1: in the habit of clinging to any life raft that
Speaker 1: would keep them floating above the masses. Codd advertising language
Speaker 1: meant that women weren't directly asked to do something as
Speaker 1: masculine as getting rid of their five o'clock shadow. Instead,
Speaker 1: they were just smoothing their surfaces out, dissolving the rough bits,
Speaker 1: and bleaching away their nonconformity. And of course, manufacturers knew
Speaker 1: that many women, an established economic force by this time,
Speaker 1: would be drawn in blade refills. New designs and fancy
Speaker 1: creams kept them coming back for more. Charles Darwin too
Speaker 1: weighed in on the body hair issue with a hot
Speaker 1: take in his book The Descent of Man. He claimed
Speaker 1: that humans have less fur than their ape ancestors because
Speaker 1: less hairy mates are more sexually attractive. We evolve out
Speaker 1: of hair. Following that logic, he believed that excessive hair
Speaker 1: puts a person in closer proximity to a primitive state. Closer,
Speaker 1: to use his words, to the savage, it seems that
Speaker 1: women who wore their hair wild and untamed were being
Speaker 1: boxed out of proper society. But if proper society wasn't
Speaker 1: going to take them, there was another place that would
Speaker 1: welcome them, for better or for worse, with open arms.
Speaker 1: The stage I'm Aaron Manky. Welcome to the Side Show.
Speaker 1: All we know for sure is that Julia Pastrana only
Speaker 1: ever wanted to be loved. It's evident from the few
Speaker 1: words that she left behind. Her complete life story has
Speaker 1: been a treasure hunt for contemporary scholars as they've tried
Speaker 1: to find clues scattered across the pages of history. But
Speaker 1: sometimes the dead have their way of keeping secrets. Our
Speaker 1: story begins on a quiet day in Sinaloa, Mexico. It's
Speaker 1: a state that occupies a narrow stretch of land that
Speaker 1: sits between the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountain range to the
Speaker 1: east and the Sea of Cortez to the west. The
Speaker 1: terrain is carved with peaks and valleys and covered in
Speaker 1: fertile soil. In eighteen thirty four, Sinalo was recently freed
Speaker 1: from Spanish rule, but for the previous three hundred years,
Speaker 1: the indigenous population had been squeezed by colonization and ravaged
Speaker 1: by disease and war. It's here that we meet our
Speaker 1: two hunters, or as some claim, they were herders, walking
Speaker 1: a familiar worn path up a mountain, tracking their game.
Speaker 1: Just up ahead sat a cave. It's rocky Mouth, daring
Speaker 1: them to enter. So they did, and what they found
Speaker 1: there startled them. They found a woman, haggard, half feral,
Speaker 1: and captive. But she wasn't being held by just anyone. No,
Speaker 1: she told them she was being imprisoned by a bear.
Speaker 1: She pleaded for their help, but the hunters were ill prepared,
Speaker 1: so they told her that they would come back with assistance.
Speaker 1: Just as they turned to leave, though they were thwarted,
Speaker 1: the bear had come home. The surprise left them with
Speaker 1: no choice. They had to act fast, but then they
Speaker 1: saw something else. The bear was holding a cub in
Speaker 1: his arms. Legend tells us that the cub was this
Speaker 1: woman's daughter, the product of this inner species hostage situation,
Speaker 1: and the baby was nothing like the hunters had ever
Speaker 1: seen before. Black fur covered her face and body. Although
Speaker 1: she cried and cooed like any other human infant, it
Speaker 1: seemed that she was half person and half beast. The
Speaker 1: infant Julia, was taken from her mother and brought to
Speaker 1: the city, violently altering her life path and the woman
Speaker 1: she would become. You see, women are often treated as
Speaker 1: blank slates for the stories of men, and the tale
Speaker 1: of Julia Pastrana would be no print for her. This
Speaker 1: was just the beginning. What we do know now is
Speaker 1: that she was born with two congenital conditions, hypertrichosis terminalis,
Speaker 1: which caused dark hair to grow all over her body,
Speaker 1: and gingerble hyperplasia, which caused overgrown gums. Some scholars believe
Speaker 1: that she could have been a member of the a
Speaker 1: Coxy people. Promotional materials from later in her life would
Speaker 1: claim that she was a member of a root digger tribe,
Speaker 1: a derogatory term given to a number of culturally separate
Speaker 1: and distinct communities in the region. Julia came to live
Speaker 1: in the home of Pedro Sanchez, one of Sinaloa's governors
Speaker 1: and a man with a penchant for curiosities. There she
Speaker 1: became a servant and also was said to have taken
Speaker 1: on the role of liven entertainer. We know that she
Speaker 1: left his home in eighteen fifty four, although the details
Speaker 1: of that exit are hazy, but it said that she
Speaker 1: eventually came into contact with three men, Miguel Ritez, Francisco
Speaker 1: sepel Veda, and most famous of all, Theodore Lent. We
Speaker 1: don't know the act details of their arrangements or how
Speaker 1: she came under their employ Newspapers tell us that in
Speaker 1: the company of her male comrades, she boarded the S
Speaker 1: s Or Above and left Vera Cruz for New Orleans.
Speaker 1: She arrived in the Ports city on October eighteen fifty four,
Speaker 1: took a steamership up the Mississippi River to St. Louis,
Speaker 1: and then finally went on to New York City. And
Speaker 1: it's here that we meet her again, reincarnated as someone new.
Speaker 1: According to promotional posters, she had become known as the
Speaker 1: Marvel Hybrid and the Bear Woman. She debuted at Gothic
Speaker 1: Hall on Broadway, a tiny form in a red dress,
Speaker 1: dancing to a tinkling piano. According to the New York Tribune,
Speaker 1: the eyes of this Lucius Natura beam with intelligence, while
Speaker 1: its jaws, jagged, fangs, and ears are terrifically hideous. Nearly
Speaker 1: its whole frame is coated in long, glossy hair. Its
Speaker 1: voice is harmonious, for this semi human being is perfectly
Speaker 1: stile and speaks the Spanish language. The papers compared her
Speaker 1: arrival to the spectacle of Joyce Heth and claimed that
Speaker 1: Barnum himself was being well out. Barnumed Theodore, though, decided
Speaker 1: that he would get the upper hand over all of them.
Speaker 1: He would marry Julia in secrets and become her legal
Speaker 1: guardian with all the rights that afforded him and Mary.
Speaker 1: They did on November nine of eighteen fifty. Her other
Speaker 1: managers were furious, but Julia stood by and made it
Speaker 1: clear that it was her choice. She wouldn't give up
Speaker 1: her husband for anyone, she said. But as we know,
Speaker 1: the idea of choice in these situations is often an
Speaker 1: attempt to mitigate harm or side with the lesser of evils.
Speaker 1: It has been reported that Julia truly loved Theodore and
Speaker 1: felt that he saw her for who she truly was,
Speaker 1: but some scholars have speculated that he also saw dollar
Speaker 1: signs when he looked at Julia and only wanted to
Speaker 1: possess her for his own gain. And this is how
Speaker 1: things went. For a good long while. Theodore kept recreating Julia,
Speaker 1: further embellishing her act with songs and dances and costume changes,
Speaker 1: and in all of it, her advertisements teased that she
Speaker 1: was nothing more than a domesticated beast. One man Dr
Speaker 1: Alexander B. Mott wrote a letter of certification for Julia,
Speaker 1: claiming that she was a hybrid of a human and
Speaker 1: an orangutan. He called her a mysterious animal and mused
Speaker 1: over her missing tail. So while her contemporary white bearded
Speaker 1: ladies were marketed as beacons of Victorian propriety beautiful oddities
Speaker 1: if you will, her suit women of color were often
Speaker 1: billed as freaks of nature. Not only was her womanhood
Speaker 1: in question, but her very humanity. And it was upon
Speaker 1: this platform that she toured all over North America, her
Speaker 1: story and body being exploited at every turn. Whereas the
Speaker 1: paper's new Barnum dealt in humbuggery and hoax, they believed
Speaker 1: that Julia was the bona fide real deal. It's a
Speaker 1: that her audiences were largely content with, believing that she
Speaker 1: was something less than human, and as they looked at
Speaker 1: all the cash that flowed in, Theodore couldn't have been
Speaker 1: more pleased. Everyone seemed to have an opinion about Julia's looks,
Speaker 1: so much so that she was shut down for obscenity.
Speaker 1: On November five, eighteen fifty seven, she took the stage
Speaker 1: as the star in a play in Berlin, but unbeknownst
Speaker 1: to her and Theodore Lent, spies from the German police
Speaker 1: were in the audience, and unlike other places Julia had
Speaker 1: traveled to, German authorities were on guard against displays that
Speaker 1: they considered to be tasteless, degrading monster shows. The police
Speaker 1: called her appearance immoral and quite literally feared for their children.
Speaker 1: Obstetricians in Germany weighed in, worried that pregnant women would
Speaker 1: miscarry at the sight of her. They also tossed around
Speaker 1: threats of maternal impression, the idea that those in the
Speaker 1: family way were infinitely susceptible to any kind of upset,
Speaker 1: and that those anxieties would manifest in the body of
Speaker 1: the child. The authorities were afraid that more babies would
Speaker 1: be born looking like Julia. This, of course, caused her
Speaker 1: great pain. It was when people saw her as a
Speaker 1: full person that she felt truly animated, truly alive and actualized,
Speaker 1: But so often this wasn't the case. A friend once
Speaker 1: noted that there was always a light fog of sadness
Speaker 1: that hung over her, resigned to a life and narrative
Speaker 1: that kept her humanity locked away in the shadows. After
Speaker 1: the backlash in the press, Theodore reimagined the performance as
Speaker 1: a set of short song and dance numbers, A burlesque
Speaker 1: act and private meetings, all for a fee. Of course,
Speaker 1: Julia attracted the attention of hermann Otto, a sympathetic German
Speaker 1: circus showman. He wrote that for those who knew her,
Speaker 1: she was warm, thoughtful, and spiritually gifted, with a sensitive
Speaker 1: heart and mind. It affected her very deeply in her heart,
Speaker 1: having to stand beside people instead of with them, and
Speaker 1: to be shown as a freak for money, not sharing
Speaker 1: any of the everyday joys in a home filled with love.
Speaker 1: But then something happened that held the potential to change
Speaker 1: all of that. In eighteen fifty nine, she and Theodore
Speaker 1: were in Moscow. Their tour was keeping them busy in afloat,
Speaker 1: but she was starting to feel strangely different. It wouldn't
Speaker 1: be long before she realized why she was pregnant. Now,
Speaker 1: instead of Julia being told that she was a risk
Speaker 1: to expect it mother's, she was becoming one. Obstetricians grew
Speaker 1: concerned with this news. They feared that her particularly narrow
Speaker 1: pelvis would prove to be dangerous. At best, birth is
Speaker 1: a physically traumatic experience. At its worst, it can be deadly.
Speaker 1: Her labor began on March eighteen sixty and she was
Speaker 1: attended to buy a handful of doctors. What we do
Speaker 1: know is that the doctors use forceps to help the
Speaker 1: baby out. We can imagine that they were clamped to
Speaker 1: his skull or to his shoulders, crushing him, and around
Speaker 1: four in the afternoon he was born, and as the
Speaker 1: doctors held him for the first time, they were horrified.
Speaker 1: The baby's body was covered in thick black hair, just
Speaker 1: like his mother. Tragically, the baby, unnamed in the history books,
Speaker 1: died thirty five hours later, and Julia would fare no better.
Speaker 1: First came the chills, and then the shaking. An intense
Speaker 1: pain in her abdomen was followed by unbearable swelling and
Speaker 1: finally a fever. It said that a crowd of spectators
Speaker 1: gathered around Julia's deathbed. If Theodore sold tickets, we don't know,
Speaker 1: but could we put it past him. It said that
Speaker 1: her last words were, I die happy. I know I
Speaker 1: have been loved for myself. Julia followed her baby into
Speaker 1: death on March eighteen sixty. According to the Romantics, she
Speaker 1: died of a broken heart. This, of course, is nonsense.
Speaker 1: A broken heart theory was just yet another story about
Speaker 1: her that became repeated just another tale that was tacked
Speaker 1: on to her body's canvas. In the end, doctors listed
Speaker 1: her official cause of death as inflammation of the uterine
Speaker 1: membrane and the lining of the abdominal cavity. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a beautiful death in which Julia slipped away gracefully. It
Speaker 1: was brutal. Theodore, however, was not one to mourn. Instead,
Speaker 1: he had an idea. Death is usually the end for
Speaker 1: most of us, but the longest stretch of Julia's career
Speaker 1: was just beginning. The unscrupulous Theodore Lentz, committed to never
Speaker 1: losing a dime, sold the bodies of his wife and
Speaker 1: child to a professor at Moscow University. Whether they commanded
Speaker 1: a high price or not depends on how you determine
Speaker 1: their value, but they lined his wallet with the equivalent
Speaker 1: of about eighty four thousand dollars in today's currency. In
Speaker 1: the lab, Julia and her son's body were subjected to
Speaker 1: a top secret cocktail of embalming liquids. It was reported
Speaker 1: that since the child's body was quite fresh, it was
Speaker 1: easy to mummify. Julia, on the other hand, proved to
Speaker 1: be more difficult. She had to be injected several times
Speaker 1: over a long period in order to mask the smell
Speaker 1: of decay. All the while, the professor took photographs and notes,
Speaker 1: recording diligently as the human husks on his table changed
Speaker 1: color and shape. After six months of work, it was
Speaker 1: time for the postmortem debut at the University of Moscow's
Speaker 1: Anatomy Museum. In life, just as in death, Julia Pastrana
Speaker 1: became a sensation. The embalming process also had a curious
Speaker 1: side effect. It seemed that her dissection had finally proven
Speaker 1: her humanity. The papers were surprised to report that, after
Speaker 1: a grueling internal examination, her body was indeed human. She
Speaker 1: wasn't an ape after all. The widower, Theodore length, though,
Speaker 1: stuck around it, said that he liked the mummies so
Speaker 1: much and was so impressed by that Moscow University professor's
Speaker 1: work that he bought back the bodies of his wife
Speaker 1: and son for nearly twice what he'd sold them. And
Speaker 1: like most showmen of that age, Theodore already had his
Speaker 1: next destination in mind, Piccadilly Circus in London, home to
Speaker 1: curious wonders from all over the world. In the early
Speaker 1: months of eighteen sixty two, he set up shop, he
Speaker 1: dressed his dead bride in a Russian dancing dress she
Speaker 1: had made herself, and his son in a sailor suit.
Speaker 1: Two years later, in eighteen sixty four, the bodies of
Speaker 1: Julia and her baby were toured through Sweden. Meanwhile, Theodore
Speaker 1: was off searching for another break, and in Bohemia he
Speaker 1: found it well her He had learned about Marie Bartel,
Speaker 1: another bearded woman. It has said that her family kept
Speaker 1: her locked away, but somehow Theodore managed to ingratiate himself
Speaker 1: with her family enough to seek her hand in marriage.
Speaker 1: Her father obliged, but made Theodore promise that he wouldn't
Speaker 1: show her for money, but unfortunately this was before Google
Speaker 1: and background checks. Just a few days in Theodore stole
Speaker 1: her shaving kits. He made grand plans to take her
Speaker 1: through Europe and gave her a new name to match them,
Speaker 1: Zenora Pastrana. Yes, Theodore had decided to style her as
Speaker 1: Julia's long lost sister, and for a decade they toured
Speaker 1: with Europe's best circuses and entertained royals. By the eighteen eighties,
Speaker 1: interest in their act began to wane, so they decided
Speaker 1: to put some roots down and open a wax museum
Speaker 1: in St. Petersburg, Russia. Julia and her baby, though, had
Speaker 1: been left behind on loan to a Viennese museum, with
Speaker 1: Theodore being paid for the privilege. But the quiet, settled
Speaker 1: life wouldn't last long for Theodore and his second wife.
Speaker 1: It said that he began to lose his marbles and
Speaker 1: was eventually installed in a Russian insane asylum, where he
Speaker 1: would never be heard from again. It might sound like
Speaker 1: a satisfying ending, but our story doesn't stop there. Free
Speaker 1: from his gravitational pull, Marie now struck out on her own,
Speaker 1: with the bodies of Julia and her baby in tow,
Speaker 1: but the threesome would never be a permanent sideshow fixture.
Speaker 1: The following year, Marie married a much younger man and
Speaker 1: left show business, and when she did, she passed her
Speaker 1: mummified partners onto a German showman. By the late eighteen nineties,
Speaker 1: the pair was not longer of much interest to the
Speaker 1: medical or scientific communities. We lose track of the two
Speaker 1: for a while until they surface at an amusement park
Speaker 1: in Oslo. Their home. There wasn't an anatomy museum, but
Speaker 1: a chamber of horrors displayed alongside various body parts and
Speaker 1: bottled sea monsters. Horrific I know, and this would be
Speaker 1: Julia and Baby's story. For the intervening decades. They rotated
Speaker 1: in and out of storage units, appearing at various installations
Speaker 1: before being sent off to warehouses. Collectors came knocking over
Speaker 1: the years, offering top dollar for the remains. Julia went
Speaker 1: on one final tour, but it wouldn't last long. While
Speaker 1: visiting a town in Sweden, local authorities used a law
Speaker 1: from eighteen seventy five to threaten confess ation of the
Speaker 1: mummies if they were put on display. After that, she
Speaker 1: was sent to the winter headquarters of a fair ground
Speaker 1: in Oslo, and it's there that she fell to pieces.
Speaker 1: Vandals tore her dress, ripped her child's arm off, and
Speaker 1: broke her jaw. It seems that Julia and her child
Speaker 1: were treated in death exactly as she had been in life,
Speaker 1: Displayed for entertainment, handled like a possession, and decorated with
Speaker 1: whatever narrative sold the most tickets, And when they no
Speaker 1: longer serve their purpose, they were locked away and left
Speaker 1: a rot. Human beings seen as nothing more and sideshow prompts.
Speaker 1: It's always alarming when you find body parts at the
Speaker 1: town dump. It was nine in the suburbs of Oslo, Norway,
Speaker 1: and some children who were playing in a garbage heap
Speaker 1: found a severed, mummified arm. The owner wasn't immediately clear,
Speaker 1: but she was soon found. Julia Pastrana stood quietly in
Speaker 1: an abandoned caravan nearby, missing life and limb. Time hadn't
Speaker 1: been kind to her, but neither had the world. She
Speaker 1: was quite literally torn apart, stuffing exposed, and suittures popped.
Speaker 1: Some of her skin and clothing were missing, and to
Speaker 1: further compound the cruelty, so was her baby. She would
Speaker 1: resurface ten years later in a janitor's closet in the
Speaker 1: basement of the Forensic Institute of Oslo. It's clear that
Speaker 1: no one still quite knew what to do with her,
Speaker 1: and today we have to wonder what took so long
Speaker 1: to figure it out. But by the ninety nineties, rumbles
Speaker 1: could be heard through the hallowed academic halls of Oslo. Scholars, historians,
Speaker 1: and activists began questioning the university's decision to keep her body,
Speaker 1: and across the Pond in New York, a play was
Speaker 1: being produced about her life. Its story shocked audiences rather
Speaker 1: than entertained them, and it drummed up interest in a
Speaker 1: petition to the Mexican embassy in Oslo to send Julia home.
Speaker 1: But as was the case with Sarki Bartman's repatriation, Julia
Speaker 1: and her supporters faced a long difficult battle with high
Speaker 1: minded institutes that deemed themselves worthy to hold her captive
Speaker 1: in the name of science. This claim was dubious at best,
Speaker 1: and finally the institution relented in February of two thousand thirteen.
Speaker 1: She was dressed in a traditional hupil garment and laid
Speaker 1: in a coffin. The rods and bolts that were used
Speaker 1: for exhibiting her body and death were removed and placed
Speaker 1: at her feet, and with that she was flown home
Speaker 1: to Sinaloa and greeted with the welcome fit for royalty.
Speaker 1: There she would finally rest in a tomb, dressed in
Speaker 1: a riot of flowers from well wishers from across the globe.
Speaker 1: It had taken a century and a half, but the
Speaker 1: world had finally seen her and loved her or who
Speaker 1: she truly was. Everyone wants to be loved, but for
Speaker 1: the right reasons, of course, So if there's someone out
Speaker 1: there who you truly appreciate, if they bring a brightness
Speaker 1: to your life, maybe some joy, or they just make
Speaker 1: being here a little easier. Maybe now is a good
Speaker 1: time to let them know. But we're not quite done
Speaker 1: here just yet. And if you stick around through this
Speaker 1: brief sponsor break, Robin will tell us one more tale
Speaker 1: from the side show and help us see what happens
Speaker 1: when the drama leaves the stage and heads to the courtroom.
Speaker 1: On July two, eighty three, a crowd appeared at the
Speaker 1: Halls of Justice in Manhattan, a formidable complex that housed
Speaker 1: both the court and a detention center for New York City.
Speaker 1: Curious onlookers had heard about one of the cases on
Speaker 1: the docket that day, and they were looking for a
Speaker 1: free show. William Char, you see, had a bone to
Speaker 1: pick with P. T. Barnum. He had visited Barnum's American
Speaker 1: Museum and was angry about it. Standing before the Justice,
Speaker 1: Char recounted his experience from the previous day. After paying
Speaker 1: his quarter for admission, he entered the museum of the
Speaker 1: thousands of curiosities on display awaiting visitors. Char was there
Speaker 1: to see a brand new feature, Madame Josephine Clofolia build
Speaker 1: as the bearded Lady. Madame Clofolio was a hit in
Speaker 1: part due to who she was behind the beard. She
Speaker 1: was a fair skinned woman of Swiss descent, born to
Speaker 1: a class, which gave her access to many refined social circles.
Speaker 1: Mid nineteenth century America was a time of high gender anxiety.
Speaker 1: Gender was conceived as a strict binary You were either
Speaker 1: male or female. You performed one or the other, but
Speaker 1: never neither, and certainly not both. But here she was
Speaker 1: a strikingly beautiful woman, just you know, with a beard.
Speaker 1: When Char was faced with this performance, he was incredulous.
Speaker 1: He quickly deemed Madam Clofolia to be an impostor. She
Speaker 1: had to be a man in disguise. Char, standing amongst
Speaker 1: innumerable humbugs, decided that this gaff had gone too far.
Speaker 1: He believed he had been cheated, so he took Barnum
Speaker 1: and Clofulia to court, and there, at the place where
Speaker 1: criminals and corruption rubbed elbows, Josephine Clofolia and her lovely
Speaker 1: Victorian gown stood listening to a stranger challenging her womanhood character.
Speaker 1: Witnesses were called upon to certified Josephine's legitimacy fortune Clofolia,
Speaker 1: her husband of three years, brought up the two children
Speaker 1: she had birthed, one of whom was still alive. Her
Speaker 1: own father backed him up. Barnum spoke his piece too.
Speaker 1: He claimed that he had paid her a large sum
Speaker 1: for her exhibiting work, and for the best of his knowledge,
Speaker 1: she was a woman. In fact, he said, he had
Speaker 1: her examined by a few physicians, including one Dr Mott,
Speaker 1: the same man who had called Julia Pastrana's basic humanity
Speaker 1: into question. Even Dr Covill of New York City's Prison
Speaker 1: chimed in. He had interviewed her, he reported, and was
Speaker 1: perfectly convinced that, in spite of her beard, she was
Speaker 1: indeed a lady. The magistrate was convinced, and the suit
Speaker 1: was dismissed. Horace Greeley's New York Tribune reported the whole
Speaker 1: story in great detail the very next day. His paper
Speaker 1: had a circulation of about two hundred thousand throughout the
Speaker 1: eighteen fifties, which made it one of the largest daily
Speaker 1: papers in the United States. And imagine this. Horace Greeley
Speaker 1: was also a good friend of P. T. Barnum. Almost immediately,
Speaker 1: Barnum was suspected of arranging the whole ordeal with char
Speaker 1: why Well, either because interest in Madame Cloudfulio wasn't as
Speaker 1: enthusiastic as a showman had hoped, or to make sure
Speaker 1: He's museum with a bona fide. Bearded Lady became a
Speaker 1: top destination for visitors on the fourth of July, and
Speaker 1: it worked for better for worse. The article that spread
Speaker 1: throughout the nation's papers made the title Bearded Lady synonymous
Speaker 1: with the name Madame Cloudfulia, at least for some time
Speaker 1: in America. She continued to travel as a professional, covering
Speaker 1: her beard so that passers by wouldn't get a free
Speaker 1: show she was given. With Julia and so many other
Speaker 1: hairsuit women of color were never afforded the label of respectability.
Speaker 1: The papers sung her praises, championing her beauty and writing
Speaker 1: that she had the finest set of whiskers that anyone
Speaker 1: had ever seen. Side show was written by Robin Miniature,
Speaker 1: with narration by me Aaron Mankey research for the series
Speaker 1: was by Robin Minna, Taylor Haggerdorn, and Sam Alberty, with
Speaker 1: production assistants from Josh Than Jesse funk Alex Williams and
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick. Grim and Mile Presents was created in partnership
Speaker 1: with I Heart Radio. You can learn more about this
Speaker 1: show and everything else from Grim and mild Over at
Speaker 1: grimm and mild dot com, and, as always, thanks for listening.