Speaker 1: Welcomed, unobscured a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky.
Speaker 1: A bloody flag hung over the door. Cora stepped up
Speaker 1: onto the platform, surrounded by black drapery that covered the
Speaker 1: columns of the Mechanics Institute. After all, they were in
Speaker 1: mourning for the honored dead. The flag didn't represent the
Speaker 1: Civil War, though, and the blood on the flag wasn't decorative.
Speaker 1: It was a relic from a dark event that took
Speaker 1: place A year before America's first black daily newspaper, the
Speaker 1: New Orleans Tribune, had called a political convention. The Tribune
Speaker 1: had been founded by an Afro Creole doctor named Louis
Speaker 1: Charles Rudinat as rallying point for Louisiana radicals, and it
Speaker 1: commanded respect among the state's reformers. They met to confirm
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty four state constitution that had stripped power
Speaker 1: the planter class and abolished slavery. The backlash, though, was vicious.
Speaker 1: White planters had the ear of General Banks, the Union
Speaker 1: Army commander governing the state. They said Louisiana should have
Speaker 1: and I quote, a government of white people for the
Speaker 1: exclusive political benefits of the white race. Yeah, they weren't
Speaker 1: subtle about it at all. The planters were powerful, though.
Speaker 1: They convinced Banks to keep the plantation system, and he
Speaker 1: used the Union Army to force black Louisiana's to keep
Speaker 1: working the land of any planter who would declare loyalty
Speaker 1: to the United States. His soldiers marched the roads, capturing
Speaker 1: anyone who left their work. Meanwhile, he let imprisoned Confederate
Speaker 1: soldiers walk. But the black folk on the sharp end
Speaker 1: of these policies didn't go quietly. The Tribune started by
Speaker 1: publishing articles showing how Banks was forcing workers to keep
Speaker 1: living in slavery. It was a voice that would echo
Speaker 1: back across the Atlantic, where Victor Hugo would return with
Speaker 1: the letter to the Tribune, encouraging the radicals to keep
Speaker 1: fighting for justice. Messages came from across the Last Horizon
Speaker 1: as well. The spirit of John Brown appeared to Henri
Speaker 1: and the Sir Harmonique with a word of celebration. He
Speaker 1: praised the Tribune for its defense of black equality. So
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty six, when the Tribune announced a convention
Speaker 1: to amend the earlier constitution and finally give black men
Speaker 1: the right to vote in Louisiana, people came in crowds,
Speaker 1: and the meeting started on a hopeful note too. That
Speaker 1: first night, the city's police fought with a group of
Speaker 1: armed delegates who were defending the convention and killed two
Speaker 1: of them. Sadly, it was a dire omen of what
Speaker 1: would happen the next day. When black delegates to the
Speaker 1: convention arrived at the Mechanics Institute the next morning for
Speaker 1: the second day of the meeting, they were confronted by
Speaker 1: a crowd of white opponents that was swelling with anger.
Speaker 1: Here's historian Emily Clark. The day begins with some fanfare.
Speaker 1: There's a little parade of black New Orleanans marching to
Speaker 1: the Mechanics Institute to celebrate this. This is gonna be
Speaker 1: a great day, but it's not. It ends up being
Speaker 1: an absolutely horrid, horrid day because a white mob, aided
Speaker 1: by local police and firefighters, storm the building and massacre
Speaker 1: many of the delegates inside. Most of the delegates were unarmed,
Speaker 1: but that white supremacist mob was heavily armed. Over forty
Speaker 1: people died that day, almost all of them Black. Violence
Speaker 1: like this in eighteen sixty six ended up galvanizing a
Speaker 1: new brand of reconstruction politics. Nationally, which then worked harder
Speaker 1: to promote black civil rights. In the wake of the violence,
Speaker 1: someone had collected the tattered flag and tucked it away.
Speaker 1: When the community gathered to hold a memorial service for
Speaker 1: the convention, they brought it out again. It was a
Speaker 1: stark reminder of the nation they were working to build,
Speaker 1: and of the courage and sacrifices some had made to
Speaker 1: bring that nation, that Louisiana, that New Orleans into being.
Speaker 1: It was exactly a year later that Cora stepped into
Speaker 1: the Mechanic Institute to honor those who were killed that day. Afterwards,
Speaker 1: the Tribune published her poems call for solemn mournful bells
Speaker 1: to ring out over the city. Nathan must have been proud,
Speaker 1: but when he wrote to the Rochester Express to give
Speaker 1: them news on the progress of reconstruction, he wasn't praising
Speaker 1: Corps powers of oratory. Instead, he was reporting on a
Speaker 1: new scourge in the city. People were fleeing New Orleans
Speaker 1: in the face of two deadly diseases, cholera and yellow fever. Nathan,
Speaker 1: so often traveling those streets as he rallied for change,
Speaker 1: came home one night in late September feeling dizzy and
Speaker 1: shivering with fever. By October one, it had burned through
Speaker 1: his body. Henrietta, less than a year old, wasn't strong
Speaker 1: enough to fight off the infection. By October they were
Speaker 1: both dead. Grieving her losses, Cora retreated back to the Northeast.
Speaker 1: The future that she had envisioned with her radical husband
Speaker 1: had been taken away. If Cora was going to find peace,
Speaker 1: as so many others like her had wanted, it would
Speaker 1: have to come from the most unusual of places, the
Speaker 1: spirits of the dead. This is unobscured. I'm Aaron manky M.
Speaker 1: Benjamin Butler led the charge During the war. He was
Speaker 1: the general in command of the Union forces that sees
Speaker 1: New Orleans. When he returned to Massachusetts, he was elected
Speaker 1: to the United States Congress. During the time that Nathan
Speaker 1: Daniels was in Washington, he had connected with Butler, who
Speaker 1: had once been his superior officer. In Washington. The two
Speaker 1: men lobbied together for reconstruction, but they were opposed by
Speaker 1: Andrew Johnson. Like General Banks, Johnson's opinions were swayed by
Speaker 1: the powerful interests of Southern planters, who still wielded enough
Speaker 1: influence to reach into the White House. It was the
Speaker 1: compromises that President Johnson made and his v toe of
Speaker 1: bills supporting the newly freed Black Americans that put him
Speaker 1: in General Butler's crosshairs. After all, Butler had never been
Speaker 1: shy about fighting southern white leaders he considered traitors to
Speaker 1: the nation. They considered him evil. They called him beast Butler.
Speaker 1: When President Johnson was impeached, Beast Butler was the ringmaster
Speaker 1: who choreographed the events. In the years before she went
Speaker 1: to New Orleans, Cora had been the spirit adviser to
Speaker 1: radical congressmen. Just like Butler, they pushed for reconstruction policies
Speaker 1: that put the government of the South in the hands
Speaker 1: of northern reformers. Lincoln's spirit had spoken through Cora frequently
Speaker 1: and guided their approach to policy, alongside dead Boston abolitionist
Speaker 1: ministers and the spirit of William Wilberforce. Now that she
Speaker 1: had returned to the capital, with grief stripping her of
Speaker 1: any shyness she might have had, she took bolder steps
Speaker 1: than she ever had before. In September of eighteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: she joined a ritualist newspaper editor in confronting President Andrew
Speaker 1: Johnson directly barging right into his White House office. As
Speaker 1: soon as the door closed behind them, Cora opened her
Speaker 1: mouth and laughed. But the voice wasn't her own. As
Speaker 1: the papers reported it, Johnson was and I quote dumb
Speaker 1: with astonishment because the laugh was Abraham Lincoln's. The voice
Speaker 1: that followed said, let him laugh, who wins. No one
Speaker 1: in the room, not Cora, not the reporter, not President
Speaker 1: Johnson explained what the phrase meant. But it was just
Speaker 1: months after Andrew Johnson had been impeached by the House
Speaker 1: and the country was facing the new election that would
Speaker 1: put Grants in office. Cora's spirit address to Johnson was cryptic,
Speaker 1: but there was no doubt that she wanted to confront
Speaker 1: the president with the knowledge that the Spirits had not
Speaker 1: given up on the nation, and anyone who opposed their
Speaker 1: vision for reform was destined to fail. In May of
Speaker 1: a t sixty nine, Cora was still thinking hard about
Speaker 1: that nation, and she was seeing it with more and
Speaker 1: more distress. After mourning the violence of white supremacy in
Speaker 1: New Orleans, she came back to Washington with new words
Speaker 1: of rebuke. She spoke in a meeting of the Universal
Speaker 1: Peace Society, and she wasn't gentle a government that has,
Speaker 1: for nearly a century enslaved the African race. She said,
Speaker 1: that proscribes the Chinese race, proposes to exterminate the Indian race,
Speaker 1: and persistently refuses to recognize the rights of one half
Speaker 1: of its citizens. Women cannot justly be called perfect. If
Speaker 1: Cora was thinking more expansively than ever before about how
Speaker 1: the US government treated and control that's people, we can
Speaker 1: see why she had just married for a third time.
Speaker 1: Her new husband, Samuel Tapin, was a spiritualist, a journalist,
Speaker 1: and a soldier who had been deeply involved in uncovering
Speaker 1: the truth of a brutal mass murder of the Cheyenne
Speaker 1: and Arapaho people in Colorado known as the Sand Creek Massacre.
Speaker 1: Samuel had investigated the killing for the federal government. He
Speaker 1: determined that the commanding officer of the Third Colorado Volunteer,
Speaker 1: a Methodist minister nicknamed the Fighting Parson, had deliberately carried
Speaker 1: out the slaughter in cold blood. As far as Nathan
Speaker 1: could tell, this was a minister who had hoped that
Speaker 1: by killing enough of his indigenous neighbors, he could raise
Speaker 1: his public profile high enough to make a run at
Speaker 1: political office. Nathan's reports went back to the federal government,
Speaker 1: and they went to the spiritualist press as well. His
Speaker 1: opinions resonated with Corus Christians, he wrote, professing to be
Speaker 1: followers of the Prince of Peace, had instead attacked Native
Speaker 1: nations with sword and cannon, creeds and whiskey, bibles and
Speaker 1: booie knives. And he wasn't just talking about one incident either.
Speaker 1: In Samuel's eyes, if it wasn't the steel of sabers
Speaker 1: and rifles threatened the indigenous nations, it was the steel
Speaker 1: of the railroads cutting through the land monopoly, he wrote,
Speaker 1: is fast turning this western garden of the world into
Speaker 1: a moral wilderness. Over the next few years, his opinion
Speaker 1: would be published frequently by the Banner of Light. His
Speaker 1: stature rose within the government at the same time. Ever
Speaker 1: since his work investigating and testifying about the Sand Creek Massacre,
Speaker 1: Samuel had served on the Indian Peace Commission. In that role,
Speaker 1: he helped to negotiate treaties with the Plains nations. After
Speaker 1: that he joined a separate commission, one task with making
Speaker 1: sure the United States government followed those treaties. He had
Speaker 1: little success, though, which only made him more angry. When
Speaker 1: Samuel Tapin married Cora, she was reporting messages from Native
Speaker 1: spirit guides like Weena. Together, the couple joined their voices
Speaker 1: to shape spiritualist opinions about the ongoing seizure of native
Speaker 1: land across the West. In fact, some seance circles even
Speaker 1: reported messages from Cheyenne and Arapaho leaders who had died
Speaker 1: at Sand Creek. Here's historian and browdie. Spiritualists are always reformers,
Speaker 1: and they are very active in Indian rights reform movements.
Speaker 1: They are extremely critical of massacres of Indians. They protest
Speaker 1: against them. Samuel Tappan in particular, who is an Indian
Speaker 1: rights reformer. With leading spiritualist speakers like Cora regularly giving
Speaker 1: addresses on Indian rights, and government officials like Samuel Tapin
Speaker 1: publishing in the spiritualist newspapers, spiritualists continue to find themselves
Speaker 1: criticizing violence that was widely accepted in white communities across
Speaker 1: the nation. Spiritualists are in an odd position in my view,
Speaker 1: where they are espousing Indian rights, but they are all
Speaker 1: so perpetrating stereotypes that place Indians in the past, in
Speaker 1: a romantic past where Indians are appropriately living in the
Speaker 1: spirit world and providing support for spirit mediums, rather than
Speaker 1: exercising sovereignty in the present. But if the early seances
Speaker 1: portrayed Native spirits as guides and healers for white spiritualists,
Speaker 1: the tone changed as reports of more violence reached seance
Speaker 1: circles in the East. When murdered leaders arrived to speak
Speaker 1: at seance tables. During the reports of genocide and dispossession
Speaker 1: of the eighteen sixties and seventies, Indian blessings on spiritualists
Speaker 1: were replaced by Indian curses, curses on a nation whose
Speaker 1: soldiers and citizens had murdered them. But as other newspapers
Speaker 1: fell in line with the white supremacist rhetoric of writers
Speaker 1: who pushed the idea of manifest destin the banner of light,
Speaker 1: continued to print criticisms of that message. It was their
Speaker 1: responsibility to heed the voices of the spirits, after all,
Speaker 1: and report their messages to the reading public. Something was happening.
Speaker 1: Spiritualists who had viewed slavery as a sin that left
Speaker 1: a stain on the nation had begun to see America's
Speaker 1: westward advancement into the territory of the Native Americans as
Speaker 1: just more of the same. Their editorials called u S
Speaker 1: policy a fraud and a swindle at a time when
Speaker 1: few other voices would as violence piled on violence. Cora
Speaker 1: and the radical politicians who heeded her spirits were sure
Speaker 1: that this was just one more way that the nation
Speaker 1: needed to be knocked down and made new again. But
Speaker 1: to take those stains away, they needed more than hope.
Speaker 1: The letters burned so bright that they lit up the
Speaker 1: whole room. They were right there, scrawled into the very
Speaker 1: surface of the table. Too many spirits had spoken through
Speaker 1: so many tables over the years to even count, but
Speaker 1: this marble surface looked like it was inscribed with fire.
Speaker 1: The word was a single Greek name, Demosthenes. It glowed
Speaker 1: as a calling card for the stately figure dressed in
Speaker 1: a tunic, solemn and graceful, who stood before Victoria wood Hall.
Speaker 1: She recognized him, of course. It was one of the
Speaker 1: spirits who had appeared to her from time to time
Speaker 1: over the years, and he'd always told her that she
Speaker 1: would rise to great distinction in a city of ships.
Speaker 1: At last, he had arrived to reveal his identity to her,
Speaker 1: because the time had come for her to lead her
Speaker 1: people just as he had the ancient Athenians. Journey to
Speaker 1: New York. The spirit told her there was a house
Speaker 1: waiting for her there, along with the future he'd always promised.
Speaker 1: At least that's how Victoria told the story that Marble
Speaker 1: Table had been in a Pittsburgh apartment where Victoria had
Speaker 1: been staying after years of traveling with James Blood. She
Speaker 1: had even been to disease stricken New Orleans, arriving just
Speaker 1: as Cora left and shortly before Christmas. In eighteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: Victoria and James had published an advertisement for their powers
Speaker 1: of healing to the city's alien residents. They had been
Speaker 1: to Memphis, Tennessee, which had also been plagued by white
Speaker 1: supremacist violence that year. Then they returned to St. Louis
Speaker 1: before moving on to Chicago, where the courts were more
Speaker 1: willing to hand out divorce papers than anywhere else in
Speaker 1: the Midwest. But now in eighteen sixty eight, those trips
Speaker 1: were coming to an end. It was time for Victoria
Speaker 1: and James to build something. They weighed their options. Following
Speaker 1: the Spirit of Demosthenes to New York was one, but
Speaker 1: there was another leading light that they considered. Victoria reached
Speaker 1: out to some friends in high places. She traveled to Galena,
Speaker 1: Illinois and visited one of the officers who had come
Speaker 1: man died James Blood's troops during the war. Since then,
Speaker 1: Victoria and James had spent time with that officer's father
Speaker 1: in Cincinnati and become friends with his family. And Victoria
Speaker 1: thought it would be nice if he took on James
Speaker 1: Blood as his personal secretary. Because you see, that man
Speaker 1: was Ulysses S. Grant, and he had just won the
Speaker 1: presidential election. He was headed to Washington. We can't blame
Speaker 1: him if he didn't want to bring Blood with him
Speaker 1: to the White House. Though you see, his escapades with
Speaker 1: Victoria had already hit the papers where they were saying
Speaker 1: that the gallant colonel had abandoned his family and thrown
Speaker 1: away his money to travel the world with and I
Speaker 1: quote the Witch of Washington Avenue. When Grant decided against
Speaker 1: taking James Blood with him, it settled the matter. James
Speaker 1: and Victoria set out for New York instead, But the
Speaker 1: choices that Grant would make while in office would still
Speaker 1: prove crucial to lifting Victoria's fortunes. First, though, there were
Speaker 1: connections to be made in Manhattan. Here's author Mary Gabriel.
Speaker 1: When they arrived in New York, you know, they had
Speaker 1: no connections there, and it was, as you say, the
Speaker 1: entire Clafland clan followed. And so Victoria and Tenny got
Speaker 1: to work doing what they did best, their only sure
Speaker 1: way of making money, which was working as spiritualists. And
Speaker 1: Tenney was an expert of laying out of hands, and
Speaker 1: Victoria was the spiritualist advisor. And Buck Claflin did what
Speaker 1: he did, which would go out and try to recruit clients.
Speaker 1: New York had plenty of possible subjects. Spiritualism was strong
Speaker 1: in the city after all. But it wasn't just spiritualism
Speaker 1: that interested Victoria. She didn't want to spend her days
Speaker 1: entertaining a line of tourists. She wanted to finally put
Speaker 1: her political vision into practice. For that she needed a patron,
Speaker 1: a dedicated supporter with money. And there was one person
Speaker 1: whose name was floating around the city with the echoes
Speaker 1: of cash following after it, Cornelius Vanderbilt. His is a
Speaker 1: name that many of us have heard before. His shipping
Speaker 1: empire had brought him mounts of cash, but in the
Speaker 1: years before Victoria arrived, he had felt the sting of
Speaker 1: personal losses. His wife Sophia had recently died, and he
Speaker 1: had lost a fortune in a battle with a fellow
Speaker 1: Wall Street speculator over control of Western railroads. All of
Speaker 1: this was well known, but Victoria's father, Buck Claflin, and
Speaker 1: the rest of the clan that was settling in New
Speaker 1: York learned something else. Through their spiritualist network. Cornelius Vanderbilt
Speaker 1: was willing to hear from the spirits. Spiritualism may have
Speaker 1: come into Vanderbilt's life through his daughter, who had been
Speaker 1: a believer for years. By eighteen sixty four, Cornelius was
Speaker 1: trying to contact the spirit of his dead father through
Speaker 1: New York City mediums. By eighteen sixty eight, he was
Speaker 1: feeling old himself and had already been turning to magnetizers
Speaker 1: and spiritualist healers for relief from his aches and pains.
Speaker 1: So when Victoria and her sister Tenny arrived in New York,
Speaker 1: the wealthy industrialist found comforts in a young woman who
Speaker 1: mode of healing was the laying on of hands. Soon
Speaker 1: the sisters were spending a lot of time with Cornelius.
Speaker 1: He often invited Tenney to his office and called her
Speaker 1: his little sparrow, while she joked with them, read to him,
Speaker 1: and laid on hands in Victoria, he got a personal medium,
Speaker 1: and as their conversations multiplied, he found in her an
Speaker 1: unusual and inspiring energy and intelligence. He also started to
Speaker 1: hear investment advice from the spirits, and he would give
Speaker 1: it in turn, along with hefty fees for their services.
Speaker 1: Here's more from Mary Gabriel. And so they became confidence
Speaker 1: of Cornelia's Vanderbilt, one of the most important and wealthiest
Speaker 1: man in America. And you know, it's one of these
Speaker 1: incredible American stories that you know, they went literally overnight
Speaker 1: from being no one in New York to being within
Speaker 1: the circle where all the powerful decisions are made. Demosthenes
Speaker 1: hadn't steered her wrong, and neither had Cornelius. James Blood
Speaker 1: took the money Victoria made from Vanderbilt and invested it
Speaker 1: according to his advice. And as those investments blossomed, James
Speaker 1: and Victoria put their heads together to decide how they
Speaker 1: could put this growing fortune to use. The spirits, it seems,
Speaker 1: weren't just ghostly visitors from another world. They also knew
Speaker 1: just what made this world go round. Trouble was brewing.
Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty eight, The Banner of Light published a
Speaker 1: report from the third Annual Convention of the Illinois State
Speaker 1: Spiritual Association with a foreboding warning. They said that there
Speaker 1: was and I quote lack of harmony among spiritualists for
Speaker 1: a movement built on the foundation of Andrew Jackson Davis's
Speaker 1: harmonial philosophy, this was a dangerous thing to hear. Every
Speaker 1: seance required harmony among the participants in order for the
Speaker 1: spirits to be heard, and if they hope to keep
Speaker 1: growing into an enduring cultural force, they would need that harmony.
Speaker 1: The Reformers might have seemed to win the day and
Speaker 1: motivate the victorious army through four long years of war.
Speaker 1: They might even have been able to claim legions of
Speaker 1: new converts as the widows and mourning mothers found their
Speaker 1: way to the seance table, but their new world had
Speaker 1: not yet clicked into place. In fact, cities all across
Speaker 1: the country were still filled with conflict, and that included
Speaker 1: the capital. But with President Grant in office, there were
Speaker 1: some among the reformers who saw a clearer path into
Speaker 1: the future. In eighteen sixty nine, sojourn nerd Truth was
Speaker 1: headed back to Washington, d C. To be present for
Speaker 1: the ratification of the fifteenth Amendment, finally ensuring that black
Speaker 1: men had the right to vote to cross the entire nation.
Speaker 1: On the way there, she stopped in New York City,
Speaker 1: where she stayed with friends, including a visit to Leah
Speaker 1: Underhill's Street, Brownstone. Although she had retreated from the public stage,
Speaker 1: Leah had lost no stature among spiritualists and would still
Speaker 1: give private sittings to friendly visitors, especially when that visitor
Speaker 1: was so journal truth. She also stayed with Theodore Tilton,
Speaker 1: the editor of a powerful liberal religious newspaper. Tilton was
Speaker 1: well known for printing the power of God and the
Speaker 1: rhetoric of reform. He was a natural friend to Sojourner,
Speaker 1: but he and his wife Elizabeth were going to become
Speaker 1: very familiar with Victoria Woodhall in the coming years. Also
Speaker 1: while in the city, Sojourner spoke at one of the
Speaker 1: most popular pulpits in the nation, Plymouth Church, where the
Speaker 1: preacher Henry Ward Beecher held court. But Sojourner wasn't the
Speaker 1: only one on the road to Washington that year. In January,
Speaker 1: the city played host to the first national female Suffrage Convention.
Speaker 1: With money in her pockets and a determination to join
Speaker 1: the cause, Victoria Woodhall was one of the many to arrive.
Speaker 1: There was hope in the air with the War one
Speaker 1: and Grant elected. Surely it was time for every reformer
Speaker 1: who had served in the cause of abolition to now
Speaker 1: turn their interests towards the cause of women. Organizers who
Speaker 1: expected it to be that easy, though, we're deeply disappointed.
Speaker 1: Some leaders, like Elizabeth Katie Stanton and Susan B. Anthony
Speaker 1: wanted to push for a sixteenth Amendment that would give
Speaker 1: women the right to vote, but others thought a more
Speaker 1: gradual approach that pushed for suffrage state by state was
Speaker 1: the only way to achieve that goal, and this difference
Speaker 1: in approach led to some ferocious arguments. It seems that
Speaker 1: advocates for women's rights were no more united than the
Speaker 1: spiritualists were, and no surprise, they were often one and
Speaker 1: the same. Victoria made her way back to New York
Speaker 1: thoroughly unimpressed. To her the battles between the reformers were
Speaker 1: what she called teacup hurricanes. Women needed to gain real
Speaker 1: ground and fast, so she decided that at the first
Speaker 1: opportunity she would lead by example, an opportunity that swiftly
Speaker 1: came thanks to Cornelius Vanderbilt and Ulysses S. Grant. Here's
Speaker 1: more from Mary Gabriel. Two of the big traders on
Speaker 1: Wall Street, Jim Fiskin and Jay Gould, knew that every
Speaker 1: week Grant sold a lot of gold on the market
Speaker 1: to try to keep kind of keep the coffers, the
Speaker 1: United States Conference government coffers full, and it was a
Speaker 1: weekly sort of release of precious metals to enrich the government.
Speaker 1: Through an acquaintance, they decided to try to convince Grant
Speaker 1: not to sell, and so that would drive up the
Speaker 1: price of gold and it would become even more precious,
Speaker 1: and it normally was well. That happened, but then Grant
Speaker 1: learned of the scheme, and so in a counter move,
Speaker 1: he opened the flood again and the gold started pouring
Speaker 1: out onto the market. Vanderbilt had been privy to all
Speaker 1: of this, and so he told Tenney and Victoria that
Speaker 1: this was going to happen. And so on the day
Speaker 1: this Black Friday in occurred, Victoria was there eyeing up gold.
Speaker 1: It was dropping in price, dropping like a stone, and
Speaker 1: in that day she amassed a sizeable fortune. By the
Speaker 1: end of the day, Victoria and Tenny had made a
Speaker 1: stunning seven hundred thousand dollars in profit. Their names were
Speaker 1: splashed across the pages Queens of Finance, Vanderbilt's protegees. With
Speaker 1: their new fortune as ballast, Victoria and Tenny threw open
Speaker 1: the doors of Woodhull, Claflin and Co. The first woman
Speaker 1: owned brokerage in the city. Victoria would later write, we
Speaker 1: had been instructed by the spirits in the administration of
Speaker 1: public affairs. Now it was time to apply that knowledge, though,
Speaker 1: and when it came to striking a claim for the
Speaker 1: place of women in society, she said, there could have
Speaker 1: been nothing else in legitimate business that would attract the
Speaker 1: comments of the press more than the establishment of a
Speaker 1: banking house by two women. Victoria Woodhull had begun the
Speaker 1: year as the Witch of Washington Avenue, and now she
Speaker 1: was something more. She was the Witch of Wall Street.
Speaker 1: Gold was good, but Victoria's vision for the future wasn't
Speaker 1: the only way. The spirits were putting flesh on the
Speaker 1: bones of the movement. In eighteen seventy, Emma Harding would
Speaker 1: put spiritualism on paper with a landmark history She called
Speaker 1: modern American spiritualism a twenty years record of a communion
Speaker 1: between Earth and the world of the spirits. It was
Speaker 1: a sweeping history that collected stories from across spiritualist networks.
Speaker 1: Newspapers telling local stories had hit the public from the
Speaker 1: moment's first days, but this was a project with much
Speaker 1: larger ambitions. Here's historian Kathy Gutierrez. Emma started off with
Speaker 1: doing trance lectors, and she was very erudite and very
Speaker 1: articulate it, and she over time became what I consider
Speaker 1: to be probably still the most important historian of spiritualism.
Speaker 1: And she wrote this massive compendium using primary sources, which
Speaker 1: how she collected all of that in the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: I have no idea, and put it together in what
Speaker 1: sort of created a coherent narrative of spiritualism. She laid
Speaker 1: out a picture of the movement from its first steps
Speaker 1: to its full strength. It was a play for legitimacy,
Speaker 1: but it was also a play for authority. If Emma's
Speaker 1: book was a landmark in driving home the history of
Speaker 1: spiritualism for scholars, the year it was published was also
Speaker 1: a landmark in Emma's life. She married a man whose
Speaker 1: name might sound familiar from the years before the Civil War,
Speaker 1: William Britain. He was the spiritualist whose kindness had made
Speaker 1: him stand out from the crowd when he helped Cora
Speaker 1: to escape the clutches of Benjamin Hatch. And it was
Speaker 1: as Emma Harding Britain that the English pianist turned trance
Speaker 1: medium turned religious historian would go down in the record books.
Speaker 1: But she wasn't the only one making a bid to
Speaker 1: put themselves in the author's chair. When it came to
Speaker 1: the story of spiritualism in the books of one Boston
Speaker 1: writer who wanted palpable proof of immortality, the question of
Speaker 1: testing the spirits took on more weight, sometimes quite literally.
Speaker 1: In fact, when it came to the evolution of spiritualism,
Speaker 1: the eighteen seventies were the decade of materialization. More and
Speaker 1: more seances weren't just filled with tapping sounds, turning tables,
Speaker 1: and flickering lights. Instead, mediums were bringing something more into being.
Speaker 1: Physical objects called up ports were arriving in the room.
Speaker 1: And then the ghostly hands that had so often been
Speaker 1: invisible to previous sitters began to take on material form.
Speaker 1: But if a hand, why not more. Here's Emily Clark
Speaker 1: once again. You'd find these descriptions from people who are
Speaker 1: out of materialization seance and they might notice by their
Speaker 1: feet what looks like a small white handkerchief has appeared,
Speaker 1: and very slowly the handkerchief grows and it turns into
Speaker 1: something bigger and bigger and bigger. In the next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, the spirit of your deceased wife has materialized
Speaker 1: right next to you, and then she hugs you, or
Speaker 1: she kisses you, she grabs you. You can feel her
Speaker 1: material body. It was spiritualism's second wave, and it upended
Speaker 1: what people expected to see when they went to a seance.
Speaker 1: Here's historian John Busher. I think about that as part
Speaker 1: of this notion that the process that was going on
Speaker 1: in this new era was the elevation of Earth to
Speaker 1: heaven and the drawing down of Heaven to earth. Tapping
Speaker 1: sounds could be misinterpreted, trans lectures could be explained away.
Speaker 1: But when a medium con you're a gauzy object into
Speaker 1: the room that could be seen, that could be felt, Well,
Speaker 1: what could explain away something so tangible. In eighteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: the reformer Robert Dale Owen published a book on spiritualism
Speaker 1: that hit the shelves, just as new waves of materialization seance,
Speaker 1: as we're putting the movement back into the headlines. It
Speaker 1: was published by a big non spiritualist publishing house, too,
Speaker 1: and it was a smash hit. That's because Robert wasn't
Speaker 1: just some unknown He was the son of the Scottish
Speaker 1: reformer whose utopian towns had inspired so many spiritualist communities
Speaker 1: in the eighteen forties, and he had spent the eighteen
Speaker 1: sixties in Washington, d C. Where he had served on
Speaker 1: the Commission for Establishing Government aid to the newly free
Speaker 1: Black Americans. Working alongside Nathan Daniels, he helped lay the
Speaker 1: foundation for the Freedman's Bureau that would oversee efforts like
Speaker 1: sojourn or Truth's work on the Freedman's Hospital. In his
Speaker 1: new book, though, he was stepping deeper into the world
Speaker 1: of spiritualism by publishing fascinating stories about his experiences with
Speaker 1: a medium who had been off limits to the public
Speaker 1: for years. In fact, he had participated in private, dramatic
Speaker 1: sittings with her right inside her fancy New York home,
Speaker 1: and the medium's name the Oldest Fox Sister, Leah Underhill.
Speaker 1: They answered the questions on his mind. In the very
Speaker 1: first seance, Robert remembered seeing lights that floated around the room.
Speaker 1: As they did, though they also slowly grew larger, and
Speaker 1: at the same time they took on the distinct shape
Speaker 1: of hands. One of those hand shaped lights, he later explained,
Speaker 1: grew as large as a human head before it lowered
Speaker 1: itself to the floor and began to pound out those
Speaker 1: infamous knocking sounds that had become so commonplace in the movement. Finally,
Speaker 1: that which had been invisible had now been revealed to
Speaker 1: his eyes. At a smaller, more intimate seance the following summer,
Speaker 1: Robert had an even closer encounter. They had retreated to
Speaker 1: Leah's bedroom for the seance, Robert, Leah, her husband Daniel,
Speaker 1: and one other close friend. Everyone took a seat around
Speaker 1: a small, intimate, rectangular table, and the knocking started almost immediately,
Speaker 1: so they turned on the lights and started to sing again.
Speaker 1: A light appeared. Robert said it took the form of
Speaker 1: a small hand, but covered with a shimmering veil. He
Speaker 1: watched it approach him and then felt a light touch
Speaker 1: like fingers on his shoulder. When he asked the spirit
Speaker 1: to move to the door and knock on it. The
Speaker 1: light wandered off, knocked, and caused, in response, a lapdog
Speaker 1: outside in the hall to start barking at the sound.
Speaker 1: The light returned and brushed Owen's hand and then caressed
Speaker 1: his head. He later wrote that it felt as if
Speaker 1: a soft and fine piece of gauze were pressed gently
Speaker 1: against the back of my head and neck. Not once, however,
Speaker 1: did Robert detect the footfalls or rustle of clothing that
Speaker 1: might have been caused by a body moving around the room.
Speaker 1: No one in the small group before ever moved or
Speaker 1: let go of each other's hand around the table, and
Speaker 1: Robert was convinced the spirits were bringing Heaven to Earth,
Speaker 1: one material body at a time. They were literally reaching
Speaker 1: out to be touched. Publishing this story made Robert Dale
Speaker 1: Owen the darling of the spiritualist world, so much so,
Speaker 1: in fact, that he decided to lean in. He wanted
Speaker 1: evidence of eternal life that was irrefutable, so when he
Speaker 1: heard that a spirit whose whole body had materialized in
Speaker 1: a Philadelphia seance had asked for him by name, well,
Speaker 1: he couldn't refuse. The seances were enchanting. He sat with
Speaker 1: two mediums, a husband and wife for a series of
Speaker 1: meetings with the spirit. As they lowered the lights and
Speaker 1: went into their trance, the promised specter would appear. She
Speaker 1: seemed to grow out of nothing like the spectral hands.
Speaker 1: She would start out as a faint light loading through
Speaker 1: space until it took form and strode into his presence.
Speaker 1: The spirit called herself Katie King and gave Robert everything
Speaker 1: he was hoping for. She audibly spoke with him, calling
Speaker 1: him father Owen, and then kissed him. Over the course
Speaker 1: of their meetings, they even traded gifts. He would eventually
Speaker 1: possess a lock of her hair he cut from her head,
Speaker 1: pieces of fabric cut from her dress and veil, a
Speaker 1: bouquet of flowers, and a small tortoise shell box. Owen
Speaker 1: rushed to write a report to the encounters. The medium's
Speaker 1: never moved. He said there was no chance that one
Speaker 1: of them was impersonating the spirit of Katie King. While
Speaker 1: she was manifest in the room. He had explored its
Speaker 1: corners and the spirit cabinet from which she had emerged,
Speaker 1: and determined that everything was as it seemed. With his
Speaker 1: book flying into hands around the country, the Atlantic Magazine
Speaker 1: agreed to publish his account he sent it to the
Speaker 1: editors under the title Touching Spiritual Visitants from a Higher Life.
Speaker 1: But that's when things went south. Before his article could
Speaker 1: be published, Robert had a shocking revelation. A young woman
Speaker 1: went public with the confession that she was the person
Speaker 1: who had been Katie King in that darkened room. He
Speaker 1: had given her gifts during the seance. Eventually, Owen met
Speaker 1: with her in the light of day, and she gave
Speaker 1: those gifts back. She was, in fact an actor who
Speaker 1: conspired with the mediums to trick their visitors. Robert even
Speaker 1: had some help digging up the evidence of the fraud.
Speaker 1: His agent and pulling together the facts of the case
Speaker 1: was none other than Henry Steele Alcott, the man who
Speaker 1: had helped solve Lincoln's murder. Alcott questioned how reliable the
Speaker 1: woman actually was because plenty about her story didn't add up.
Speaker 1: Even so, her confession was devastating. Robert's article was eventually published.
Speaker 1: Alongside it was a note that made it clear that
Speaker 1: it was all humbug, and it turned Owen and spiritualism
Speaker 1: by association into a laughing stock. Too many spiritualists, though
Speaker 1: the events only served as evidence that materializations were fraudulent.
Speaker 1: They remained convinced that it was the result of predators
Speaker 1: taking on what was good and true about spiritualism and
Speaker 1: exploiting it for their personal gain. Things didn't end well
Speaker 1: for Robert dale Owen I'm afraid. In the aftermath of
Speaker 1: the ordeal, his own family demanded that he turned away
Speaker 1: from the beliefs that had led to such a public humiliation,
Speaker 1: but he refused, leaving them with the difficult choice of
Speaker 1: having him declared insane. When his children were through with him,
Speaker 1: his life was effectively over. They had him placed against
Speaker 1: his will in an asylum. Her gallery opened in the
Speaker 1: heart of London. That might not sound unusual at first,
Speaker 1: After all, it was full of bright pieces of artwork, watercolors, acrylics, pencils,
Speaker 1: all of which are familiar mediums, but there was another
Speaker 1: layer to the display. All one hundred and fifty five
Speaker 1: works were created by the woman who had opened the gallery,
Speaker 1: a middle aged spinster named Georgiana Houghton. In the previous
Speaker 1: decades of spiritualism in London, most spirit communication was the
Speaker 1: kind we know. There was plenty of table tapping, table tilting,
Speaker 1: trans lectures and spirit writing, but every one of these
Speaker 1: modes had become old hat now, though, mediums and their
Speaker 1: followers were looking for new manifestations of spirit power, and
Speaker 1: Georgiana gave it to them. Her wild swirls of color,
Speaker 1: she said, were the physical representations of spirits through her,
Speaker 1: the invisible world took on vibrant form. Georgiana didn't start
Speaker 1: out as a public medium, though, when the British press
Speaker 1: was still calling out mediums as frauds for the simplest
Speaker 1: table wrappings, she had gone with her cousin to a
Speaker 1: seance so that she could judge for herself if any
Speaker 1: of it was true. At the first seance, one spirit
Speaker 1: singled her out, claiming to be her dead sister Zillah.
Speaker 1: The things it said apparently shot Georgiana into belief. Soon after,
Speaker 1: she started to read spiritualist books. She talked with her
Speaker 1: mother about the possibility of eternal life and spirit communication,
Speaker 1: and then together they started their own seances at home.
Speaker 1: One historian called Georgiana sincere and reverent. She seems to
Speaker 1: have held her seances in an attitude of quiet prayer,
Speaker 1: like the Sir Harmonique in New Orleans. Her seances were private, devotional,
Speaker 1: and deeply felt. This was far from the stagey showmanship
Speaker 1: of town hall demonstrations or the red carpet rolled out
Speaker 1: at the entrance of a Claflind hospital house. After one
Speaker 1: seance held at Pentecost, Georgiana wrote that the experience of
Speaker 1: spirit contact was simply a new outpouring of God's spirit,
Speaker 1: rather than being a means of raking in cash. Her
Speaker 1: spiritualist practice almost became her ruin, as the spirits became
Speaker 1: her muse. Rather than just received messages through taps on
Speaker 1: the table. She began to paint, and soon the spectral
Speaker 1: hands of masters, lectician and Correggio were guiding her. Once
Speaker 1: she even claimed to fall under the control of Joseph,
Speaker 1: the husband of the Virgin Mary. With him, she said,
Speaker 1: the colors were laid on with much more strength. When
Speaker 1: others started to see her art, she got some of
Speaker 1: the same unwanted attention that hit Robert dale Owen. There
Speaker 1: were whispers that she was mentally disturbed. The weird shapes
Speaker 1: that filled her paintings were unsettling to some. They wanted
Speaker 1: to get her medical attention. Fortunately for Georgiana, she avoided
Speaker 1: one's fate. That eight seventy one exhibition in London was
Speaker 1: put on at Georgiana's own expense. Her ambition was to
Speaker 1: make spirit drawings more popular, to spread her work as
Speaker 1: an example for others to follow. By that measure, it
Speaker 1: was a complete failure, but there were a few newspaper
Speaker 1: reviews that urged people to go and see her work
Speaker 1: and to be astonished. But there was also plenty of
Speaker 1: contempt too, and even horror at the hallucinations that she produced.
Speaker 1: And while many visited, almost none came to buy. Before
Speaker 1: it was over, she was nearly bankrupt, and seeing the
Speaker 1: lengths that she went to to advertise the exhibition to
Speaker 1: Victorian high society, it's no wonder she created an elaborate
Speaker 1: catalog and distributed it to notable names. What's more, she
Speaker 1: even created a special edition for Queen Victoria, made of
Speaker 1: pink satin, white calf skin and gold. She distributed all
Speaker 1: kinds of advertisements and hired an army to help her
Speaker 1: with the exhibition. Heavy was the loss, she later wrote,
Speaker 1: but never for one moment have I experienced a shadow
Speaker 1: of regret for having undertaken it. I threw myself and
Speaker 1: my substance, heart and soul into God's treasury, and not
Speaker 1: one fraction what I wished to withdraw. There was one
Speaker 1: bright spot, though, all that advertising spread that even reached America,
Speaker 1: and it caught the attention of a few dignitaries from
Speaker 1: the spiritualist realm, perhaps none more significant than the woman
Speaker 1: who had helped give birth to the very movement. Georgiana's
Speaker 1: painting celebrated Leah Fox Underhill. Leah arrived in London just
Speaker 1: before the exhibition began. In fact, it was her very
Speaker 1: first stop in the city. As she and her husband, Daniel,
Speaker 1: strode into the gallery, Daniel found Georgiana and told her,
Speaker 1: motioning towards his wife, there goes the first medium in
Speaker 1: the world. Georgiana later wrote that the two women spoke,
Speaker 1: although she didn't record what it is they discussed. As
Speaker 1: other amy it can streamed in. They told her that
Speaker 1: news of her new manifestations had been printed as far
Speaker 1: away as California. The exhibition might have been a financial failure,
Speaker 1: but it brought a wave of spiritualist seekers to England
Speaker 1: from the troubled United States, and it was just one
Speaker 1: of the many attractions that would make the trip across
Speaker 1: the Atlantic so popular in the coming years. After all,
Speaker 1: if spiritualism truly was for everyone, and there was no
Speaker 1: chance it was going to stay put. That's it for
Speaker 1: this week's episode of Unobscured. Stick around after this short
Speaker 1: sponsor break for a preview of what's in store for
Speaker 1: next week. Next time on Unobscured Once, the spirit of
Speaker 1: a woman arrived at a seance and simply said that
Speaker 1: she was one who suffered the explanation of that suffering
Speaker 1: could have been printed by Victoria Woodhull. This nameless woman
Speaker 1: was born to a wealthy family, she told the circle,
Speaker 1: but she married a predator. He scooped up her inheritance
Speaker 1: and then abandoned her. In the years that followed, she
Speaker 1: had supported herself through sex work, but found no one
Speaker 1: to help her until she crossed into death. Now, she
Speaker 1: said she was comforted by Mary Magdalen the New Orleans
Speaker 1: at the seance table of men. Her radical message came
Speaker 1: across clearly. A society that would judge and punish women
Speaker 1: for surviving abuse was unjust. A society in harmony, however,
Speaker 1: would look like something new, Not a hierarchy, but a
Speaker 1: circle where the poor were lifted up and men and
Speaker 1: women joined hands to seek out the wisdom of the
Speaker 1: past and map out the future. And it was a
Speaker 1: future Henri and the others we're still willing to fight for.
Speaker 1: Unobscured was created by me Aaron Manky and produced by
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Josh Thane in partnership with
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Research and writing for this season is
Speaker 1: all the work of my right hand man Carl Nellis
Speaker 1: and the brilliant Chad Lawson composed the brand new soundtrack.
Speaker 1: Learn more about our contributing historians, source material and links
Speaker 1: to our other shows over at history unobscured dot com,
Speaker 1: and until next time, thanks for listening. Unobscured is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Monkey. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit i heeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.