Speaker 1: Welcomed, unobscured a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky.
Speaker 1: Kate Fox was in London in love and the first
Speaker 1: in line. The brilliant chemist William Crooks was investigating spiritualism,
Speaker 1: and where better to begin than with a girl who
Speaker 1: started it all. After Leah's celebrity appearance at the London
Speaker 1: Art Gathery, her wealthy friends put their heads together and
Speaker 1: determined that Kate needed to be pulled away from Maggie's influence.
Speaker 1: They agreed there could be no better change of scene
Speaker 1: for her than British high society. Their money rolled out
Speaker 1: the red carpet for Kate. Traveling companions and pocket money
Speaker 1: were hers to command. She arrived dressed in fine new clothing.
Speaker 1: Her parting from Maggie might have been painful, but the
Speaker 1: optimism of her friends lifted Kate's spirits, and the sensation
Speaker 1: that greeted her only raised them higher. Society receptions brought
Speaker 1: with them some very welcome attention. Foremost among Kate's new
Speaker 1: admirers was the British lawyer Henry Yunkan strikingly handsome and
Speaker 1: an accomplished spiritualist writer. He had a magnetism that Kate
Speaker 1: couldn't deny. But even as she held seances, appeared in
Speaker 1: London spiritualist newspapers and saw more of Henry Well. Kate
Speaker 1: also found a glass back in her hand. That was
Speaker 1: the brandy. There was always the brandy, but there was
Speaker 1: no time to fight it. Kate began a series of
Speaker 1: tests with the scientist William Crooks. He had once hired
Speaker 1: Henry for legal advice on some of his business ventures,
Speaker 1: and the two men were friends. Now William Crooks was
Speaker 1: on a hunt to identify the spectral energies that flowed
Speaker 1: through a seance. Soon enough, Kate was navigating not only
Speaker 1: Henry Yunkin's overtures but also William's prime. The scientist tried
Speaker 1: to stop her from giving any seances without him. He
Speaker 1: didn't mind that she was an alcoholic. He may have
Speaker 1: even agreed with her opinion that when the alcohol shattered
Speaker 1: her conscious mind, it made her more open to the spirits.
Speaker 1: The results, as he would record them, were astounding for
Speaker 1: power and certainty. I have met with no one who
Speaker 1: at all approached Miss Kate Fox, he wrote, in a
Speaker 1: rush of enthusiasm. It seems only necessary for her to
Speaker 1: place her hand on any substance for loud thuds to
Speaker 1: be heard. I have heard them in a living tree,
Speaker 1: on a sheet of glass, on stretched iron wire, on
Speaker 1: a stretched membrane, a tambourine, on the roof of a cab,
Speaker 1: and on the floor of a theater. I have heard
Speaker 1: them on a glass harmonicon. I have felt them on
Speaker 1: my shoulder and under my own hands. Things came to
Speaker 1: a head though, when Crooks tried to push Henry away
Speaker 1: from Kate, because it forced her to choose. Did she
Speaker 1: want to continue submitting to the chemist's badgering and drink
Speaker 1: away her frustrations, or did she want to choose a
Speaker 1: life with Henry, who offered her his arms and his
Speaker 1: opulent townhouse as refuge. One spring afternoon, Kate and Henry
Speaker 1: were walking together through a friend's manicured gardens. He dropped
Speaker 1: to a knee and took her hand. He asked her
Speaker 1: to marry him. In response, Kate burst into tears. She
Speaker 1: confessed her addiction and the cycles of recovery and relapse
Speaker 1: that had kept her going back to the Swedish Movement
Speaker 1: Cure Hospital for as long as she had lived in
Speaker 1: New York. But Henry was insistent Kate followed in Leah's footsteps.
Speaker 1: The New York Herald reported that at Kate's wedding, joyful
Speaker 1: spirits raised the banquet table from the floor in salute.
Speaker 1: Kate sat with William Crooks for a few more tests,
Speaker 1: but not long after her marriage, Kate had a good
Speaker 1: reason to finally cut them all off together. She was pregnant,
Speaker 1: so William Crooks had to turn his investigations to others.
Speaker 1: Fortunately for him, there were plenty of other mediums with
Speaker 1: wealthy benefactors willing to fund his experiments. In eighteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: Cora a fived in England and she began to appear
Speaker 1: in the chemist records assisting with his experiments. Assisting, that is,
Speaker 1: because William Crooks had already focused his attentions on another medium,
Speaker 1: Daniel Hume. He had been the favorite of the wealthy
Speaker 1: and powerful for years, and his displays had gone from
Speaker 1: eye catching the downright astonishing. Daniel had been examined by
Speaker 1: a slew of professionals. He had lost court cases and
Speaker 1: fortunes with them. He'd been ridiculed by the poet Robert Browning,
Speaker 1: and performed seances in France for Napoleon the Third. He
Speaker 1: had even married into the Russian nobility before losing his
Speaker 1: wife to tuberculosis. In eighteen seventy three. The Earl of
Speaker 1: Dunraven had just published a celebration of Daniel's mediumship. Now
Speaker 1: Crooks was publishing astonishing reports about measuring Daniel's psychic force.
Speaker 1: Claims and counterclaims that rose up in response kept London buzzing.
Speaker 1: Those debates went on even after Daniel Hume left England.
Speaker 1: He returned to Russia, where he married a second heiress, and,
Speaker 1: like so many others, he retired from mediumship. Storms, contests,
Speaker 1: arguments and investigations would go on, stirring the public interest.
Speaker 1: But Daniel had risen into the upper echelons of European nobility.
Speaker 1: Now he considered himself above spiritualism as well. His last
Speaker 1: years in Russia, France and Italy were spent in comfort,
Speaker 1: and that final retirement into a life of ease was
Speaker 1: just one more reason that Daniel Hume was remarkable. This
Speaker 1: is unobscured. I'm Aaron manky H. New York City was
Speaker 1: a boiling cauldron. Victoria Woodhall had beaten the Wall Street
Speaker 1: casino when she made her run on Gold at the
Speaker 1: end of eighteen sixty nine, but she didn't take her
Speaker 1: fortune and withdraw from the public debate. The public had
Speaker 1: tested spiritualist mediums for decades now, she wanted to turn
Speaker 1: the tables. So when the New York Herald, excited by
Speaker 1: the novelty of the first woman stockbroker, offered Victoria a
Speaker 1: weekly column, she accepted. In her first article, she wrote,
Speaker 1: while others of my sex devoted themselves to crusade against
Speaker 1: the laws that shackle women in this country, I asserted
Speaker 1: my individual into pendance, believing as I do, that the
Speaker 1: prejudices which still exist against women in public life will
Speaker 1: soon disappear. I now announced myself as candidate for the presidency.
Speaker 1: That's right, Victoria Woodhull was running for president. She decided
Speaker 1: to live the part too. Victoria left the house where
Speaker 1: the spirit of Demosthenes has sent her. She took her
Speaker 1: family and moved into a mansion in New York's Murray Hill,
Speaker 1: just off Fifth Avenue. It was a massive and luxurious
Speaker 1: home with columns and high windows. But if it all
Speaker 1: made Victoria feel more legitimate, it didn't sway the opinion
Speaker 1: of New Yorker's most still thought. Her announcement was only
Speaker 1: a joke, as the pages of the New York newspapers testified.
Speaker 1: Soon Victoria realized she needed to do more than just
Speaker 1: make money and make pronouncements. She needed to make friends
Speaker 1: and build power, and she needed a newspaper of her
Speaker 1: own to do that. So in May, Victoria and her
Speaker 1: sister Tenny launched a new magazine. They called it wood
Speaker 1: Hole in Claughland's Weekly. Raising a banner like that brought allies.
Speaker 1: One in particular, whose wild writing was just victorious style.
Speaker 1: He considered himself a planetary grand master of all the Freemasons,
Speaker 1: his words, not mine. He wanted to bring down the
Speaker 1: powers that be and install himself as pantarch, benevolent ruler
Speaker 1: of the world. Most people, though, just called him Stephen
Speaker 1: Pearl Andrews. Here's author Mary Gabriel. He was one of
Speaker 1: these fringe figures in the United States who had dabbled
Speaker 1: in everything philosophy, journalism, academics, a bit of politics. And
Speaker 1: so he came to her as a journalist and said,
Speaker 1: you know, I can help you edit this paper. And
Speaker 1: in fact, she was so busy launching her political career
Speaker 1: and juggling so many things that she handed it off
Speaker 1: to him with Blood supervising and Stephen Pearl Andrews under
Speaker 1: his direction, the Woodhull and Claughland's Weekly became an incredible,
Speaker 1: creaking Oregon. He was afraid of no one. No one
Speaker 1: else was publishing articles attacking marriage as the shoals that
Speaker 1: wrecked American women. No one else in polite society was
Speaker 1: publishing articles about the New York Police working as hired
Speaker 1: guns for its brothels. No one else was perceptively exposing
Speaker 1: the frauds and hijinks of Wall Streets capitalists. After all,
Speaker 1: what other papers were helmed by Cornelius Vanderbilt's personal medium.
Speaker 1: Victoria had the inside scoop on the predatory schemes of
Speaker 1: the insurance company boardrooms and the railroad tycoons. So Stephen
Speaker 1: and Victoria came out swinging. By the fall of eighteen seventy,
Speaker 1: the paper was flying out to twenty thousand readers. Still,
Speaker 1: Victoria was a candidate without a party. She was an
Speaker 1: outsider to spiritualist circles and a newcomer to the cause
Speaker 1: of women's rights. But with Stephen Pearl Andrews guiding the magazine,
Speaker 1: Victoria could set her mind on Washington, and she finally
Speaker 1: found an ally there as well. Soon enough, Massachusetts Congressman
Speaker 1: Beast Butler strolled into Victoria's luxurious mansion to make her acquaintance.
Speaker 1: He had seized New Orleans with the Union Army, he
Speaker 1: had impeached a president with his radical congress. Now he'd
Speaker 1: heard a new call, one that demanded votes for women,
Speaker 1: and he came to lend his aid. Victoria and Butler
Speaker 1: plotted ways to put her in front of a Congressional
Speaker 1: committee to read an argument for women's suffrage. The newly
Speaker 1: past fourteenth Amendment recognized the rights of all people born
Speaker 1: or naturalized in the United States, and because women were people,
Speaker 1: they had the right to vote as well. It was
Speaker 1: that simple. When Butler introduced Victoria to the House Judiciary
Speaker 1: Committee in January of eighteen seventy one, she was joined
Speaker 1: by Susan B. Anthony, and she was the first woman
Speaker 1: to address a Congressional committee in American history, and that
Speaker 1: success brought others. The first invitations came from women's rights groups.
Speaker 1: Victoria started speaking to gatherings around New York. Soon some
Speaker 1: newspapers were calling women's rights activists wood holds women, much
Speaker 1: to the frustration of longtime leaders like Elizabeth Katie Stanton,
Speaker 1: but others wanted Victoria's novel and inspiring presence. She spoke
Speaker 1: at the Cooper Institute to a labor meeting in that spring,
Speaker 1: and as she made circuits through various reform groups who
Speaker 1: saw her new prominence as a sign of hope, Victoria
Speaker 1: started to imagine a new political party that could unite
Speaker 1: them into something real. In fact, Victoria was elected president
Speaker 1: that fall. When she arrived at a meeting of the
Speaker 1: American Association of Spiritualists, she found a group that was
Speaker 1: hardly as large as their name promised. It seemed that
Speaker 1: battles between trance speakers and materialization mediums throughout the eighteen
Speaker 1: sixties had whittled down their numbers, but Victoria spoke anyway. Eventually,
Speaker 1: her lecture brought her to her favorite subject, the toxic
Speaker 1: institution of marriage and the double standard that crushed women
Speaker 1: for things their husbands did without shame. A heated debate
Speaker 1: followed at the meeting, both over changing the meaning of
Speaker 1: marriage and about Victoria herself. Was she the spiritualist whispered
Speaker 1: a free lover? Still, despite the controversy, and despite Victoria's
Speaker 1: visit among them being her first, they decided she was
Speaker 1: now the right person to lead them. When their votes
Speaker 1: came in, Victoria was president of the American Association of Spiritualists.
Speaker 1: The choice sent ripples of concern through spirit circles around
Speaker 1: the country. Victoria traveled to speak across Pennsylvania, Ohio, and
Speaker 1: Michigan in the fall of eighte She was met with
Speaker 1: and trailed by hushed voices. She gained followers along the way, too,
Speaker 1: but the rumors also grew. The word had gone round
Speaker 1: that Victoria was living in her New York mansion with
Speaker 1: both of her husband's James Blood and Kenning Woodhall. A
Speaker 1: fight between James and her mother had reached the court,
Speaker 1: and the press had published the revelations of their unusual
Speaker 1: home life. For decades, concerns over free love ism had
Speaker 1: kept some women's rights activists from embracing spiritualism and its
Speaker 1: radical impulses. The fever came to a head that November
Speaker 1: when Victoria took the stage at New York's Steinway Hall
Speaker 1: and gave a talk she advertised as Principles of Social Freedom.
Speaker 1: The hall was packed, thousands more milled outside. Victoria took
Speaker 1: the stage and began to lay out in stark terms
Speaker 1: that women needed the same freedoms as men, the freedom
Speaker 1: to end a bad marriage, the freedom to start over
Speaker 1: without being condemned by society. In fact, she said marriages
Speaker 1: without love were adultery and marriage laws should be repealed.
Speaker 1: This message shocked the crowd into an angry upheaval, but
Speaker 1: that's because it wasn't direct enough. They wanted something more.
Speaker 1: Someone in the crowd shouted the question they all wanted, answered,
Speaker 1: are you a free lover? Here's Mary Gabriel. Once again,
Speaker 1: Victoria flat and read, Hi, Yes, I'm a free lover.
Speaker 1: I have an inalienable, constitutional, and natural right to love
Speaker 1: whom I may to love as long or short a
Speaker 1: period as I can, to change that love every day
Speaker 1: if I please, And with that right, neither you nor
Speaker 1: any law you can frame have any right to interfere.
Speaker 1: So with that statement, Victoria became, really, I would say,
Speaker 1: without doubt, the most notorious woman on the speaking circuit
Speaker 1: in the United States. Victoria's words dropped like a hammer
Speaker 1: on her political aspirations. The New York Herald called her
Speaker 1: speech the most astonishing doctrine to ever be heard in America.
Speaker 1: Victoria had admitted to being the thing her accusers shouted
Speaker 1: about the loudest. The president of the Spiritualists, who wanted
Speaker 1: to be the president of the nation, was a free
Speaker 1: lover for the women of her world. This was a
Speaker 1: radical liberty. But the question now hung in the air.
Speaker 1: Could Victoria continue building power or would this public confession
Speaker 1: of something so hated shatter her life into pieces. The
Speaker 1: land of the free, Sojourner Truth still saw that vision
Speaker 1: of a future held out to Black Americans. The political
Speaker 1: radicalism of the Spiritualists in New York was shaking its
Speaker 1: lecture halls and printing presses. That was Sojourner Truth style,
Speaker 1: just as she had done decades before. By now, though,
Speaker 1: Sojourner couldn't keep the same pace of lecturing and, as
Speaker 1: she called it, agitating. But she had lived long enough
Speaker 1: to see emancipation still following the voices of the spirits
Speaker 1: and the voice of God, she knew the work wasn't
Speaker 1: finished quite yet. Like so many Spiritualists, she supported the
Speaker 1: work now to get women the vote and something else
Speaker 1: that was just as close to her heart. She wanted
Speaker 1: to see a place in the United States where Black
Speaker 1: Americans could live in peace. Sojourner had found places for
Speaker 1: herself in the American landscape. She had purchased land in Rochester,
Speaker 1: New York, as well as in Battle Creek, Michigan. They
Speaker 1: were homes where her daughters now lived. Ever since the
Speaker 1: end of the Civil War, when she worked with Amy
Speaker 1: Post to shelter freed people around Rochester, she had kept
Speaker 1: up that search in the eighteen seventies, even as she
Speaker 1: approached the threshold of her own death. She pressed on
Speaker 1: in her work. Here's historian Margaret Washington. I think that
Speaker 1: is the culminating point of her life, although she continues
Speaker 1: to be active. She's very active in the anti capital
Speaker 1: punishment movement and the temperance movement. But I think that
Speaker 1: in terms of her service to African Americans, it is
Speaker 1: the petition movement to create a black homeland in the West,
Speaker 1: because black homeland is the mantra right. It first starts
Speaker 1: with trying to get them settled in the West. And
Speaker 1: there's no question that she saw the need. On a
Speaker 1: visit to Washington in eighteen seventies, she saw how many
Speaker 1: freed people were still without homes and jobs in the capital.
Speaker 1: Elsewhere across the country, the government was carving open land
Speaker 1: for the railroad magnates and offering ownership to white homesteaders.
Speaker 1: The government has given land to the railroads in the West,
Speaker 1: she told one audience, so why couldn't it do so
Speaker 1: much for the people whose labor had built the country's wealth.
Speaker 1: With that in mind, she traveled throughout New England, selling
Speaker 1: photographs of herself and asking her fellow reformers to add
Speaker 1: their names to her request that Congress should provide homes
Speaker 1: for black Americans on federal land. After being invited to
Speaker 1: a meeting of the American Women's Suffrage Association in Boston,
Speaker 1: Sojourner gave a fiery speech defending women's right to vote
Speaker 1: and included a call for land and education for the
Speaker 1: freed people. When one of the leaders of the meeting
Speaker 1: asked so journal to be brief, she shot back that
Speaker 1: she would speak when the spirit moved her, not when
Speaker 1: people moved her, which, in her defense, had always been
Speaker 1: so journals way. The spirit moved Sojourner into the halls
Speaker 1: of Congress to see her petition brought up for discussion,
Speaker 1: but despite the number of people who had signed it,
Speaker 1: she was let down. Benjamin beast Butler, her trusted radical,
Speaker 1: never even brought the motion to the floor, even without
Speaker 1: a bill to support them. Though black Southerners were leaving
Speaker 1: the South to settle in the Western States in the
Speaker 1: years that followed, Sojourner said she traveled to greet them
Speaker 1: in the Land of John Brown, as she called it,
Speaker 1: and it was in Topeka, Kansas, that Sojourner found a
Speaker 1: movement of people arriving to start over. They had begun
Speaker 1: their move in Louisiana. The years after the Mechanics Institute
Speaker 1: massacre in eighteen sixty six had not been easy in
Speaker 1: New Orleans. But while some Black Southerners marched north and
Speaker 1: west to settle at a distance from the trials of
Speaker 1: the city, others, like the Sir Carmonique, stayed put, and
Speaker 1: the spirit moved them as well, to continue remaking their
Speaker 1: city itself into the land of the free. When JB.
Speaker 1: Valmore died in eighteen sixty nine, the Sir Carmonique shrank
Speaker 1: by one member, but of course he didn't leave them. Henri,
Speaker 1: who brought the cirque together before the war and reunited
Speaker 1: it after it was over, recorded messages from his dead friend.
Speaker 1: He wrote that Valmore came back in part to forgive
Speaker 1: on re for any tensions in their partnership and to
Speaker 1: urge the circle to continue their work so no. Losing
Speaker 1: one of their leaders didn't slow the Sircarmonique down. In fact,
Speaker 1: it was in the first years of the eighteen seventies
Speaker 1: that Henri and the other spiritualists in the circle were
Speaker 1: at their most active. One of their members, who owned
Speaker 1: a cigar shop, began hosting their seances, and the fate
Speaker 1: of the city again came to the four in the
Speaker 1: messages they received from spirit visitors. While the spirits of
Speaker 1: loved ones like Henri's father and now JB. Valmore continued
Speaker 1: to visit their seance tables, it was the warnings against
Speaker 1: the greed of materialism that rose to the top of
Speaker 1: their concerns. Over and over, the spirits emphasized politics of
Speaker 1: greed created unfair divisions between the rich and the poor.
Speaker 1: As the spirit of JB. Valmore reminded the circle he
Speaker 1: had been a humble blacksmith, but in the Circle of Harmony,
Speaker 1: his love and charity paved the way for him to
Speaker 1: be a true apostle. He was a reminder that Henri
Speaker 1: would take to heart as his position in the city
Speaker 1: continued to rise in eighteen seventy, he was appointed to
Speaker 1: be the tax assessor for the city's third district and
Speaker 1: then director of a parish school board. While Sojourner worked
Speaker 1: a secure education for the freed people of the West,
Speaker 1: Henri did the same for the black community in New Orleans.
Speaker 1: Here's historian Emily Clark. He serves a term in the
Speaker 1: Louisiana legislature. He serves on a school board, not the
Speaker 1: school board of his father, but for public schools. They've
Speaker 1: got a pretty respectable home in the Tremain neighborhood, kind
Speaker 1: of living a New Orleans middle class what we might
Speaker 1: call middle class for the re contry Auction period life.
Speaker 1: As un resettled into the city's public life, the spirits
Speaker 1: continued to urge him and the other members of the
Speaker 1: cirque to remember the poor. The message came from them
Speaker 1: from the spirit of Senator Daniel Webster, who inspired Unrea's ambitions,
Speaker 1: but it also came from anonymous spirits who drew his sympathy.
Speaker 1: Once the spirit of a woman arrived at a seance
Speaker 1: and simply said that she was one who suffered. The
Speaker 1: explanation of that suffering could have been printed by Victoria Woodhall.
Speaker 1: This nameless woman was born to a wealthy family, she
Speaker 1: told the circle, but she married a predator. He scooped
Speaker 1: up her inheritance and then abandoned her. In the years
Speaker 1: that followed, she had supported herself through sex work, but
Speaker 1: found no one to help her until she crossed into death.
Speaker 1: Now she said she was comforted by Mary Magdalen the
Speaker 1: New Orleans at the seance table of men. Her radical
Speaker 1: message came across clearly. A society that would judge and
Speaker 1: punish women for reviving 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: Theodore Tilton knew what the future looked like. He had
Speaker 1: fallen in love, first with the writings of Karl Marx,
Speaker 1: who inspired his belief in a democracy that could overthrow
Speaker 1: the rich and powerful, and second with a fierce woman
Speaker 1: who was determined to do the same, a woman by
Speaker 1: the name of Victoria Woodhull. Through seventy one, while Victoria
Speaker 1: was campaigning for president and publishing the dirt on her
Speaker 1: enemies among the rich and powerful, she was also spending
Speaker 1: a lot of time with Tilton. Still then had flown
Speaker 1: into the public eye as a journalist and as a
Speaker 1: protege of Henry Ward Beecher, New York City's celebrity pastor,
Speaker 1: and that year his journalistic eye turned toward a conflict
Speaker 1: that would grow more important over the coming decade. Here's
Speaker 1: Mary Gabriel once again. The kind of conversations that were
Speaker 1: murmured before the Civil War in the eighteen forties, and
Speaker 1: the kind of revolutions that occurred in eighteen forty eight,
Speaker 1: and the discussions and the political arguments that began to
Speaker 1: heat up erupted in the Civil War in the United States,
Speaker 1: But afterwards they didn't die down. In fact, groups coalesced,
Speaker 1: and two of the most powerful groups to call us
Speaker 1: were labor unions. And this was something that was happening
Speaker 1: in Europe. And in fact, once again, when we can
Speaker 1: talk about Carl Marks, because he had formed in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty four something called the International working Men's Association, and
Speaker 1: the International working Men's Association had already made its mark
Speaker 1: on history. Mars was in London, but some of the
Speaker 1: group's French members had joined a revolution in France. They
Speaker 1: had seized Paris and ruled for two months in the
Speaker 1: spring of eighteen seventy one. They called their government the Commune.
Speaker 1: Anxiety about the same thing happening in the United States
Speaker 1: bubbled from the New York newspapers, but the Spiritualists weren't worried.
Speaker 1: In fact, the Banner of Light proclaimed to its readers
Speaker 1: that the principles of the Commune were the same as
Speaker 1: the principles of spiritualist seedbeds like Hopedale. To a reformer
Speaker 1: like Tilton, their argument was extremely convincing. With Tilton now
Speaker 1: on their team, Victoria and Tenny decided to make their
Speaker 1: newspaper a mouthpiece for the International. As their publicist, Victoria
Speaker 1: became an organizer for the International in New York. She
Speaker 1: gathered workers to her meetings and sent word to Marx
Speaker 1: that he had followers in New York City. Soon enough,
Speaker 1: Victoria's cohorts were recognized as Section twelve of the International
Speaker 1: working Men's Association. And if they were going to turn
Speaker 1: their weekly newspaper into the mouthpiece of the Working man's movement.
Speaker 1: They were going to go all the way. Victoria had
Speaker 1: never done anything less, So on December eighteen seven, he
Speaker 1: one Woodhall and Clafland's Weekly published the Communist Manifesto in
Speaker 1: English for the first time. At first, Tilton was introducing
Speaker 1: Victoria at lectures, then he was defending her in his articles,
Speaker 1: and he was there by her side when Victoria's kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: of radical allies announced that they were forming a new
Speaker 1: political movement, the Equal Rights Party. They took Victoria as
Speaker 1: their presidential nominee and invited Frederick Douglas to run as
Speaker 1: her vice president. Tilton even wrote a glowing biography of
Speaker 1: her that was rushed to press to support her presidential run.
Speaker 1: It was very good for Victoria. It may even have
Speaker 1: been the main reason she was elected president of the
Speaker 1: Association of Spiritualists. But even as Tilton was learning the
Speaker 1: story of victorious life, she was learning his as well.
Speaker 1: And this is where gossip turned to scandal. Because Theodore
Speaker 1: Tilton was rowing with Victoria on the river, He was
Speaker 1: eating late dinners of chicken cake and champagne inside her bedroom.
Speaker 1: He was spending nights alone with her on her mansion's
Speaker 1: roof and what she learned, well, it made her angry
Speaker 1: because among Tilton's stories was the revelation that for years
Speaker 1: Henry Ward beach Her had carried on an affair with
Speaker 1: Tilton's wife. In fact, it was one of the events
Speaker 1: that had driven Tilton into Victoria's arms. And I hope
Speaker 1: you can see why she was so enraged. Victoria had
Speaker 1: declared to the world that she was a free lover,
Speaker 1: and it had sent a storm of hate and judgment
Speaker 1: to rain down upon her. Heck, political cartoonist Thomas Nast
Speaker 1: even published a cartoon about her that called her Mrs Satan.
Speaker 1: But now she had learned that New York's darling minister,
Speaker 1: the man who could do no wrong in the public eye,
Speaker 1: had actually committed a much bigger sin. Naturally, she was livid,
Speaker 1: and so she did the only thing she knew. She
Speaker 1: published Here's Mary Gabriel once again. And so in her
Speaker 1: newspaper in October in eighteen seventy two, she decided to
Speaker 1: tell the story of the Beach Your Tilton affair, and
Speaker 1: in black and white. In this newspaper she went into
Speaker 1: all the gory details and exposed him for who he
Speaker 1: was and brought down this house of cards, which was
Speaker 1: the Beecher family, the Congregational Church in Brooklyn, the religious
Speaker 1: pillar upon which so much of the moral American myth
Speaker 1: was built. She brought it down in that article, and
Speaker 1: the issue flew off the stands. In response, the Beecher family,
Speaker 1: especially Henry's sister Harriet Beecher Stow, went into overdrive to
Speaker 1: defend him. Court battles and published attacks racked Victoria and
Speaker 1: eventually drained her fortune. Worst of all, Cornelius Vanderbilt withdrew
Speaker 1: his support. She had become a liability to the women's
Speaker 1: movement too. In the months that followed, Victoria was set adrift.
Speaker 1: And so Victoria, in taking that rash step, basically ended
Speaker 1: her political career. Ironically, it was the month before she
Speaker 1: was on the ballot as a presidential candidate that she
Speaker 1: at this piece, or that she allowed this piece to
Speaker 1: be published in her newspaper, and on the morning of
Speaker 1: the election day she was in jail for having distributed
Speaker 1: that newspaper through the mail, thereby violating u S obsanity laws.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just the political support in the United
Speaker 1: States that was pulled out from under her. When Karl
Speaker 1: Marx called a meeting of the International working Man's Association
Speaker 1: later that year, they looked right at Section twelve in
Speaker 1: New York and made a decision any section of their
Speaker 1: organization had to be strictly materialist. Not only was Victoria's
Speaker 1: New York chapter awash and scandal and fighting for women's rights,
Speaker 1: but it was also heated by the fires of spiritualism
Speaker 1: and guided by the voices of the dead. As far
Speaker 1: as Marx was concerned, Section twelve was an embarrassment. As
Speaker 1: a result, the leadership of the working Men's Association kicked
Speaker 1: them to the curb. Looking back, it was more than
Speaker 1: a little i run. After a seemingly endless run of success,
Speaker 1: Victoria Woodhall had been defeated by the one enemy she
Speaker 1: had never thought to prepare for herself. In September of
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy three, another panic swept Wall Street over drafts
Speaker 1: on railroad credit led to a spring of bankruptcies, and
Speaker 1: the domino effect of a crash followed. Five thousand businesses closed,
Speaker 1: a quarter of New Yorkers were unemployed. That was also
Speaker 1: the month of Victoria closed the doors on her own
Speaker 1: brokerage firm, but it didn't extinguish any of the fierceness
Speaker 1: in her voice. She took to the stage at the
Speaker 1: Cooper Union in fury, railing against the banks on behalf
Speaker 1: of the lower million, as she called them, who were
Speaker 1: always exploited by the upper ten. In the months that
Speaker 1: followed her historic address to Congress, one of Victoria's most
Speaker 1: prominent followers had been Isabella Beecher hook Her. Isabella went
Speaker 1: so far as to call her new friend an inspiration,
Speaker 1: no longer a banker or businesswoman, but a prospective queen. Now, though,
Speaker 1: that kind of talk was gone, and not just for
Speaker 1: Victoria but also for other people whose stories had been
Speaker 1: at the heart of spiritualism. In eighteen seventy two, Isaac
Speaker 1: Post passed away, and for a while his widow, Amy
Speaker 1: left her home in Rochester to find comfort with an
Speaker 1: old friend. She visited Maggie in New York. The two
Speaker 1: women were both bereft. Maggie was missing her sister Kate,
Speaker 1: hanging on the news about her nephews that would travel
Speaker 1: across the ocean from England. Organizing support for suffrage was
Speaker 1: still at the top of Amy's mind, but the loss
Speaker 1: of Isaac had cut her loose again, leaving her to
Speaker 1: search for where she might belong, and after her dramatic
Speaker 1: public fall from grace, so was Victoria. Amy Post arrived
Speaker 1: in New York just as Victoria was leaving in eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy four. She traveled west, lecturing as she went. She
Speaker 1: had to return frequently to New York, though, to face
Speaker 1: a series of snarls in court charges of libel and
Speaker 1: public obscenity, but also to provide testimony in the case
Speaker 1: launched between Tilton and Beecher. In the wake of the scandal,
Speaker 1: the respectable circles of wealth and prominent families no longer
Speaker 1: wanted to have anything to do with Victoria. But for
Speaker 1: a traveling speaker, a bad reputation is a great advertisement.
Speaker 1: In fact, the widespread hatred of her ideas was exactly
Speaker 1: what made her popular, and it provided just the right
Speaker 1: amount of cover for anyone who did want to come
Speaker 1: and listen to what she had to say. But there
Speaker 1: was one group who didn't cut their ties with Victoria.
Speaker 1: They were used to be in the outside force that
Speaker 1: put pressure on American life from the margins. They were
Speaker 1: used to being mocked by conservative moralizers while they offered
Speaker 1: their own alternative moral vision for the nation. So in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy five, the Universal Association of Spiritualists re elected
Speaker 1: Victoria as their president for the fifth time in a row.
Speaker 1: But even that connection to the Spiritualists wasn't enough to
Speaker 1: keep Victoria moored to the nation where she lived and
Speaker 1: fought for and had tried to change. It had chewed
Speaker 1: her up, but it had also given her a platform
Speaker 1: and a fortune, which she had won and lost. And
Speaker 1: after all of that, one last mountain came her way
Speaker 1: that needed to be overcome. Cornelius Vanderbilt was dead. His
Speaker 1: son had taken over, and he was determined that his
Speaker 1: father's disgraceful connections would be out of the way. When
Speaker 1: it came time to settle Vanderbilt's will, according to one report,
Speaker 1: he came to Victoria and Tenny with one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in hand. The money was theirs if they would disappear.
Speaker 1: With a brokerage firm, newspaper, and her political aspirations all
Speaker 1: at an end. Victoria said goodbye to James Blood and
Speaker 1: the life they'd had together. Then she climbed aboard a
Speaker 1: steamer with her two children, along with Tenny and their mother,
Speaker 1: and then set off for England. In eighteen seventy five,
Speaker 1: Cora Taypin gave a trance lecture on the topic of
Speaker 1: spirit materializations. Heaven, she said, was coming to earth, and
Speaker 1: the spirit who spoke through her was one of her
Speaker 1: oldest guides, Augustus Blew. He was still remembered as the
Speaker 1: bright flower of the Hopedale community who had been cut
Speaker 1: down in his youth. After Victoria's fall from grace, Augustus
Speaker 1: came back to Cora. He wanted to encourage spiritualists that
Speaker 1: the world they were working toward was just around the corner.
Speaker 1: The marvelous new manifestations of power, he told them, were
Speaker 1: an indication of a new golden age. They were sure
Speaker 1: signs that Heaven was coming to earth, that justice would
Speaker 1: be done, and the power of that justice would be
Speaker 1: made manifest. But two years later, after Victoria had been
Speaker 1: toppled from her lofty perch and chased from the country,
Speaker 1: the tone was different. Spiritualists were beginning to ask if
Speaker 1: the fight for the future might be lost, and when
Speaker 1: Cora and Samuel Tapin divorced in eighteen seventy six, it
Speaker 1: only added one more name to the list of disgraced mediums.
Speaker 1: After all, Samuel had been her third husband and the
Speaker 1: second she had divorced. But there were other problems on
Speaker 1: the horizon. It seems that Victoria's escaped to England wasn't
Speaker 1: the only exit that mattered for the nation. In the South,
Speaker 1: federal troops who had been part of reconstruction began to
Speaker 1: return north, and the newly elected president was already wheeling
Speaker 1: and dealing with the Southern powers to keep political control
Speaker 1: in white hands. Then, after waves of wage cuts hit
Speaker 1: railroad workers in eighteen seventy seven, the largest American labor
Speaker 1: uprising of the nineteenth century began. The U s Secretary
Speaker 1: of War viewed the strikes as insurrection. In response, army
Speaker 1: units in the South, including the troops that were guarding
Speaker 1: the Louisiana State House, were withdrawn. Everywhere that the railroad
Speaker 1: workers put down their tools and held up their fists,
Speaker 1: Their neighbors showed up to help them. Craftsmen, shopkeepers, and
Speaker 1: farmers along the rail lines fed their families and cheered
Speaker 1: on their fights with the robber, barons and tycoons who
Speaker 1: were gobbling up so much of the American landscape and
Speaker 1: the profits of enterprise. In Pittsburgh, miners and steel workers
Speaker 1: followed suit striking to show support for the rail workers
Speaker 1: who refused to make men like the Vanderbilts any richer.
Speaker 1: More amazingly, the militia often supported the striking workers they
Speaker 1: had been sent to aim their guns at, turning their
Speaker 1: anger back on the tycoons instead. When the militia and
Speaker 1: hired guns did attack the striking workers, though, things spiraled
Speaker 1: out of control. When hired gunmen killed twenty strikers in Pittsburgh,
Speaker 1: the rail yards were set on fire. Over one locomotives
Speaker 1: and two thousand rail cars were torched. Strikes in Chicago
Speaker 1: and St. Louis only added fuel to the fire. And
Speaker 1: what did these angry workers want? Nothing more than an
Speaker 1: eight hour work day, an end to child labor, and
Speaker 1: for the government to take control of the railroads. Samuel
Speaker 1: Tapan's view of railroad monopolies was finally taking a hold
Speaker 1: among working people. The New York Tribune wrote that public
Speaker 1: opinion is almost everywhere in sympathy with the insurrection. To
Speaker 1: fight that threat and to defend practices like child labor
Speaker 1: that made the railroad tycoons obscenely rich, the project to
Speaker 1: defend black freedom in the South was abandoned. Other changes
Speaker 1: came as well too. In the North, militias were disbanded.
Speaker 1: In their place, cities began to recruit an armed police
Speaker 1: forces in greater number. They traded out unreliable citizen militias
Speaker 1: for well trained professionals, people who wouldn't blink at using
Speaker 1: force to put down a labor strike. From Europe, where
Speaker 1: he was resting after leaving office, former President Ulysses S.
Speaker 1: Grant wrote words that seemed to echo sojourn or truth.
Speaker 1: He wrote about how strange it was that officials who
Speaker 1: hated him for using the army to defend black Americans
Speaker 1: in the South now showed and I quote no hesitation
Speaker 1: about exhausting the whole power of the government to suppress
Speaker 1: a strike. It was hypocrisy, plain and simple, and a
Speaker 1: sign that there was one spirit more powerful and most
Speaker 1: in control of America, the spirit of greed. William Crooks
Speaker 1: satisfied none of Spiritualism's critics back in America. His defense
Speaker 1: of British sciences didn't even satisfy Spiritualists themselves. As far
Speaker 1: as believers were concerned, there was so much more work
Speaker 1: to be done, and that included Henry Seibert, a wealthy
Speaker 1: Philadelphia industrialist who knew just what he wanted to do
Speaker 1: with his money. You see, the police were professionalizing, so
Speaker 1: we're doctors who were now working to purge the public
Speaker 1: of counterfeit practitioners like the Canning Woodhalls and Buck Laughlands
Speaker 1: of the eighteen fifties. After so many tumultuous years, all
Speaker 1: kinds of groups were organizing themselves into stable societies with training,
Speaker 1: guidelines and rules. Here's historian Molly McGarry. That was very
Speaker 1: much an impulse of the era, and historians have described
Speaker 1: that there as an age of corporation, incorporation, and when
Speaker 1: Americans become more likely to build institutions and to move
Speaker 1: away from the kind of anti authoritarian communal impulses of
Speaker 1: the fervent of the Antebellum years. Henry Seybert had a
Speaker 1: vision of that impulse sweeping in to clean up the
Speaker 1: anarchy of spiritualism. He had actually been curious about spiritualism
Speaker 1: for years back when Robert Dale Owen published his Seances
Speaker 1: with Leah. Henry realized that someone needed to create a
Speaker 1: center for spiritualism in Philadelphia, a home base, if you will.
Speaker 1: So he made an offer to a medium the city
Speaker 1: knew all too well, Maggie Fox, she should come down
Speaker 1: and live in his spiritual mansion. He said. Once there
Speaker 1: she would hold seances for him and his clients, and
Speaker 1: he promised that her salary would be generous, too, something
Speaker 1: that made the deal hard to resist. It seemed like
Speaker 1: the perfect retreat from the public seances she had been
Speaker 1: holding in New York City. So Maggie agreed she would
Speaker 1: be the high priestess of his new temple. But she
Speaker 1: didn't day long. That's because his request quickly moved from
Speaker 1: the mundane to the downright awkward. You see, he had
Speaker 1: been a spiritualist long enough to know that pious mediums
Speaker 1: could hold conversations with just about anyone, so he started
Speaker 1: to ask for others. George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were
Speaker 1: one thing, but Henry Cybert had his mindset on the eternal.
Speaker 1: Soon he was asking for conversations with every murtyr and
Speaker 1: saint in the Protestant calendar. And he didn't just want
Speaker 1: American leaders either, but famous sages and rulers of the
Speaker 1: ancient world. He asked to talk to St. Paul about
Speaker 1: the way the Bible had been written. He even asked
Speaker 1: to talk with the old Testament prophet Elijah. When he
Speaker 1: insisted that he talked with the angel Gabriel, Maggie said
Speaker 1: it was too much. She was still a Catholic believer,
Speaker 1: after all. She wanted Cybert's money, sure, but not at
Speaker 1: the cost of her soul. But if Maggie thought a
Speaker 1: retreat back to New York could give Cybert the slip,
Speaker 1: she was sorely mistaken. Neither did his death, because when
Speaker 1: his will was read in eighteen eight for the University
Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania found itself with two gifts of sixty dollars
Speaker 1: on their hands. The first went toward the University hospital,
Speaker 1: while the second, well, it had some conditions attached to it.
Speaker 1: I know, a large donation with strings attached sounds very
Speaker 1: very unusual. These strings insisted that the university appoints a
Speaker 1: new professor to investigate spiritualism. But if Cybert had an
Speaker 1: agenda for giving his money to establish the commission, the
Speaker 1: investigators on the commission had an agenda of their own.
Speaker 1: It seems the chair of the Cybert Commission was a
Speaker 1: man who resented being told what to believe for cash publicly.
Speaker 1: He followed Cybert's instructions privately, though well Let's just say
Speaker 1: they didn't exactly apply the scientific method, and that became
Speaker 1: only too obvious when the Commission decided to investigate a
Speaker 1: series of mediums who had already been exposed as frauds.
Speaker 1: In his private letters, the chair of the Commission didn't
Speaker 1: bother to pretend. He wrote that he was a viper
Speaker 1: warmed by the spiritual nonsense. He said that he wanted
Speaker 1: to use the Cybert Commission to poison spiritualism's lifeblood and
Speaker 1: then strike it dead. Sometime during the first year of
Speaker 1: the Commission, he decided just where to sink his fings.
Speaker 1: In November eight eighty three, he invited Maggie Fox to
Speaker 1: travel back to Philadelphia once more. She agreed to have
Speaker 1: her spirit rapping tested by a committee. The things didn't
Speaker 1: quite turn out as planned. That's because Maggie came with
Speaker 1: her own agenda. Her opinion of Cybert had soured over
Speaker 1: the years, and she'd had enough of trying to prove
Speaker 1: herself to others. Now her only goal was to confound
Speaker 1: the Commission. She arrived at the chairman's house and settled
Speaker 1: in for the investigation in his dining room. The Cybert
Speaker 1: Commission began with a few tests that produced the knocking
Speaker 1: sounds they all expected. But then Maggie suggested a test
Speaker 1: she had never passed before. She should stand on glass tumblers,
Speaker 1: she said, and then produce the raps on the floor.
Speaker 1: When they lined up four glass tumblers for her to use,
Speaker 1: Maggie climbed on board. She stood there holding the hands
Speaker 1: of two of the men, but were met with only silence.
Speaker 1: The men moved the glasses and try it again, but failed.
Speaker 1: Just as before, the Commission published their report to little fanfare.
Speaker 1: The problems with their methods were obvious, but they weren't
Speaker 1: the only prestigious investigators taking on mediums that decade. In fact,
Speaker 1: the British Society of Psychical Research, which took on not
Speaker 1: just spiritualism but also claims of telepathy, uncanny dreams, and hauntings,
Speaker 1: had also spread to the United States. Here's historian Kathy Gutierrez.
Speaker 1: So there's an American offshoot that begins, and William James
Speaker 1: is its most famous investigator believer. And James does not
Speaker 1: buy into spiritualism wholesale at all, but he does think
Speaker 1: that the unconscious can communicate with spirits greater than they
Speaker 1: and he finds this one woman who he secks this
Speaker 1: detective on for years, and she's just infallible, and so
Speaker 1: he thinks it's possible. But he also concedes that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of chicken ring going on. But he's this
Speaker 1: amazing name and his dad was the Swedenborgian mystic, so
Speaker 1: they clearly come from this very religious family. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so he gives a real intellectual impromoter to the entire
Speaker 1: spiritualist cause. In fact, William James was one of the
Speaker 1: observers who took the Cyber Commission to task for its
Speaker 1: mishandling of their obligation to study spiritualism with a serious
Speaker 1: objective attitude. But there was something else. When the chair
Speaker 1: of the Commission had faced off with Maggie, he had
Speaker 1: asked her whether she claimed the knocking sounds were independent
Speaker 1: of herself. She said she never made that claim. He
Speaker 1: asked her how she influenced the sounds that had followed
Speaker 1: her throughout her adult life. Her only answer was, I
Speaker 1: cannot tell, but that it turns out it wasn't quite true.
Speaker 1: They had birthed the religion at the edge of science.
Speaker 1: They had crafted their beliefs from communal impulses. They had
Speaker 1: given rise to a kaleidoscope of ideas, beliefs, newspapers, communities,
Speaker 1: and visions of the world, and as the end of
Speaker 1: the century drew near, the mediums were finally professionalizing too.
Speaker 1: In eighteen eighty three, Andrew Jackson Davis graduated from the
Speaker 1: United States Medical College with his m d. He would
Speaker 1: go on healing visitors, now with the proper credentials to
Speaker 1: justify himself to others. At least that was the hope,
Speaker 1: but rather than give his reputation to boost, he ended
Speaker 1: up making it worse. Just two years later, he announced
Speaker 1: to his wife Mary that he had been wrong all
Speaker 1: these years. She was not, in fact his spirits affinity.
Speaker 1: He had eyes on a clas mate from his medical school,
Speaker 1: fifteen years younger than Mary. They would have confirmed all
Speaker 1: the worst estimations that any outsider had about spiritualists and
Speaker 1: free love. But it even took his own people by surprise.
Speaker 1: Here's historian and browdie spiritualists were shocked by this, and
Speaker 1: it really it was very detrimental to Andrew Jackson Davis's
Speaker 1: standing in the community. And it gives you some of
Speaker 1: the irony of these ideas that sexual liberation in the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century was a much more complicated idea, given the
Speaker 1: legal climate regarding divorce, regarding child custody, and the lack
Speaker 1: of birth control. It was not what we think of
Speaker 1: as the sexual freedoms of the nineteen sixties and seventies.
Speaker 1: Now sixty years old, the Seer of Poughkeepsie had witnessed
Speaker 1: decades of Spiritualism. He'd watched the movement rise blossom a
Speaker 1: thousand different colors, and also weather the storms of accusation, opposition,
Speaker 1: and in fighting. But now it seemed too many that
Speaker 1: he had abandoned it, just as he had his wife,
Speaker 1: and sure he would continue to practice medicine and sell
Speaker 1: books into his twilight years. He had always wanted others
Speaker 1: to believe that he was a man of peace and
Speaker 1: vision after all, but the sour cord he struck after
Speaker 1: medical school disrupted the legacy of his harmonial philosophy. Unfortunately
Speaker 1: for Spiritualism, he wouldn't be the only one. By eighty eight,
Speaker 1: Kate and Maggie had switched places. Kate's marriage brought her
Speaker 1: two children and ten years of happiness, but when Henry
Speaker 1: Yenkin died in eighteen eighty one, he left her with
Speaker 1: little to go on. Here's author Nancy Stewart. She's still drinking,
Speaker 1: but it's not terrible, and they seemed to be happy.
Speaker 1: And then suddenly he dies, and then she discovers that
Speaker 1: his lego his money. He's originally from Germany. I mean
Speaker 1: it has to go back there. She's not going to
Speaker 1: get me money for it. Despite her time in the limelight,
Speaker 1: it had really been Henry who had been her home
Speaker 1: in Britain. His death sent her back to New York City,
Speaker 1: back to the tailor's and the Swedish movement cure. Here's
Speaker 1: Nancy Stewart once again. Katie has come back with these children,
Speaker 1: and she's drinking again, and the children neglected, or at
Speaker 1: least they're seized by the authorities, and she's accused of
Speaker 1: being a mother. And Maggie Nemo has gone to England
Speaker 1: and is doing seances there and she is extremely upset
Speaker 1: about Katie, and she decides that she is got to confess.
Speaker 1: She started with announcements in the newspaper. Word began to
Speaker 1: spread that in the wisdom of her maturity, Maggie Fox,
Speaker 1: the woman who had given spiritualism to the world, was
Speaker 1: about to take it back again. And New York eagerly
Speaker 1: awaited her arrival. On October twenty one, at the New
Speaker 1: York Academy of Music, she took the stage before an
Speaker 1: audience of over three thousand people. She had helped start
Speaker 1: a movement that had given so many people a feeling
Speaker 1: of purpose and hope. It had given them life. But
Speaker 1: her message that night from the stage in New York
Speaker 1: would be different this time because her next words would
Speaker 1: deliver spiritualism a fatal blow. That's it for this week's
Speaker 1: episode of Unobscured. Stick around after this short sponsor break
Speaker 1: for a preview of what's in store for next week.
Speaker 1: Next time on Unobscured, Spiritualism had always threatened the priest, politicians,
Speaker 1: and profiteers who benefited from the status quo. It had
Speaker 1: given spiritual and moral authority to people who had been
Speaker 1: stripped of their rights, pushed to the margins, and burdened
Speaker 1: with work while others reaped the rewards. The last thing
Speaker 1: spiritualists wanted to do, even in the nineties, was to
Speaker 1: give up on their labors and return to a world
Speaker 1: of the strong crushing the week. But in the coming decades,
Speaker 1: Cora and the Chicago Spiritualists weren't the only ones who
Speaker 1: saw a spiritualist future finally taking shape. It just wasn't
Speaker 1: the future they'd expected. Loun Obscured was created by me,
Speaker 1: Aaron Manky and produced by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and
Speaker 1: Josh Thane in partnership with I Heart Radio. Research and
Speaker 1: writing for this season is all the work of my
Speaker 1: right hand man Carl Nellis and the brilliant Chad Lawson
Speaker 1: composed the brand new soundtrack. Learn more about our contributing historians,
Speaker 1: source material and links to our other shows over at
Speaker 1: history unobscured dot com, and until next time, thanks for
Speaker 1: listening Unobscured as a production of I Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: Aaron Minkey. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1: I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.