WEBVTT - S2 – INTERVIEW 5: Mary Gabriel 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:06.840 Welcomed Unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minkey. 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:12.600 Today's guest interview is author and journalist Mary Gabriel. Her 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:15.520 books have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, the National 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:18.560 Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. For 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:21.840 nearly two decades, she worked in Washington and London as 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:26.320 an editor for Reuter's. Her biography of Victoria Woodhall Notorious 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:29.600 Victoria isn't the only book that sent Mary Gabriel into 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:32.400 the past, though. She also wrote a dual biography on 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:35.920 Carl and Jenny Marks, and when researcher Carl Nellis talked 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:39.160 with Mary, they explored beyond the life of Victoria Woodhall's 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:43.320 radical comrades to discuss how Mrs Satan's political career fits 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:46.720 into the bigger picture. It's a fascinating interview and I 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:49.760 can't wait to share it with you. So without further ado, 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:54.840 here's Mary Gabriel. This is the Unobscured Interview series for 0:00:54.920 --> 0:01:20.080 season two. I'm Aaron Mankey as spiritualist. You know, I 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:22.040 think from our point of view, you think of someone 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:25.000 raising tables and sitting in a darkened room with a 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:27.840 group of people communing with the dead, and that was 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:31.520 part of it. But really interestingly, spiritualism in the nineteenth 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:35.479 century was away for people who didn't have a political 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:38.960 or a social voice i e. Women to have one 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:42.679 and um, so that's in the case of Victoria Woodhall, 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:48.000 that that's what spiritual spiritualism was for her, and what 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:51.240 that meant was that she could almost act as a 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:54.240 therapist or any of the spiritualist healers who were traveling 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.559 around the country almost acted as spiritualists I mean sorry, 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:01.600 as as therapists to the word working class or the poor, 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:05.120 or the the itinerant farm farm worker who they would 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:07.680 roll up in a caravan and say, you know, would 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:11.040 you like to speak to your dead mother? Well, everyone 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:12.959 wants to talk to their dead mother about the problems 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:15.720 they're currently having. In so in the course of that dialogue, 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:19.880 someone like Victoria would hear the concerns of these people 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:24.320 and then not necessarily having tapped into the dead mother's 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:28.280 ideas or the dead mother's advice, but she herself with 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:32.120 an offer her own advice, which would be um based 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:35.120 on her own experience which was troubled, um, but also 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:38.120 based on the people she she'd met along the way. 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:42.600 So so basically spiritualism was a big communications network, not 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:46.760 necessarily with people from the beyond, but very much among 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:51.800 a desperate crowd within the United States at that time. 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:57.880 And it's really it was probably one of the colonels 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:01.520 or one of those seeds for the entire US women's 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:06.760 rights movement because these women started talking among themselves about 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:10.320 themselves and discovered that they all sort of had similar 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:12.920 problems and that those similar problems were all based in 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:18.960 in repressive or oppressive social situations i e. Marriage. So 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:22.080 you've already touched on this a little bit, but um, 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:25.360 when people were coming to a science, what kinds of 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:27.960 questions were they asking? What were they looking for to 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:30.919 get out of it? There are all kinds of varieties there, 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:32.720 But what are the things that you really picked up 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:35.520 on is you read these documents and the periodicals and 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:39.680 the things that were recording spiritualist experiences. Yeah, it was 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:41.600 really you know, there were two kinds. There were the 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:45.800 seances and in spiritualism had the literally the Barnum and 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.640 Bailey kind of aspect where you know, you had a 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:51.120 woman or a woman with a group of people in 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:54.080 a room and they'd hear tappings and um and the 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:58.520 tappings would indicate um um, a communication with a spirit, 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:00.520 you know, a spirit with a bizarre name like Mr. 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:04.000 Split Foot was one, and and he would offer advice 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:07.160 on you know, our our dead family members happy? Now 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:09.640 are they? Are they still with you? Do they approve 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.520 of what you're doing? But the kind of spiritualism that 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:16.200 a woman like Victoria Woodholl would practice as she traveled 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:20.880 around the country um hearing people's troubles was a much 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:25.320 more basic kind of almost like a advice columnists that 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:28.359 you might have in a newspaper today. Um. You know. 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:30.960 She she would set up in a hotel and she 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:33.640 didn't have seances per se. She had one and one 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:36.360 one on one encounters with people who would come in 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:41.920 with maybe physical maladies or um problems in their marriage, 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.560 problems with their children's financial problems, you know, just the 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:48.520 basic things that that a person would go to a 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:53.479 priest or a a therapist or uh, you know, a 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:56.839 politician if they so dared and and and you know, 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:01.719 describe their situation and ask for help. These people knew 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:06.800 Victoria wasn't equipped to provide them with actual help, but 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:09.320 in many cases it was just enough for just to 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:11.360 have someone to listen to what they had to say, 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:14.480 and that in itself was empowering both for them and 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:20.280 for her. And uh for spiritualists, Um, that kind of conversation, 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:26.200 you can imagine the the the experience that they would 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:29.240 after a few years, the experience they would build, you know, 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:31.760 and the kind of advice that they could then offer, 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:36.200 and how it became very social and very political because 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:38.960 they knew so many people were suffering from the same 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:44.039 problems and so um, it was very much the kind 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:46.960 of thing that you see in films where people, you know, 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.640 go in and expect miracles and have apparitions and appear 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:53.560 and you know, a lot of kind of smoke and 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:57.120 mirrors literally was crystal balls, etcetera. But but there was 0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:00.479 also a very basic and very human and of very 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:04.680 warm and generous spirit um behind the kind of spirituals 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:07.560 and that would haul practice and that was one person 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:11.520 helping another person. Now, the reason it was called spiritualism, 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:13.719 and the reason why a woman would have to resort 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:18.240 to something as as kind of outlandish as that rather 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:20.480 than just say tell me what your problems are and 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:22.880 I'll tell you what I think, was because women weren't 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:26.400 supposed to have a political voice or a social voice. 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:30.039 They weren't supposed to extend themselves to that extent. And 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:32.000 for a woman to set up a shop in a 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:35.520 darkened room in a hotel and have strangers come in 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.800 and give her a dollar and then she would offer advice, 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.000 if she said that that advice was coming from her 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:45.680 without the guidance of a spirit, it would really be 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:49.680 um it would be outrageous, it would be it would 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:53.880 be it would be more than society could bear, because 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:56.560 that was not the role of a woman. But if 0:06:56.600 --> 0:07:00.320 she said, I'm hearing the voices you know, from your mother, 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:02.560 and she's telling me to tell you, you know, your 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:04.920 husband is a drunk, you have to leave him. It's 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:08.520 good for the children, it's good for you, then society 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:11.400 could could have a sanction that and the woman who 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:14.160 was hearing the advice could then say, you know, okay, 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:15.960 and act on it if she wished to. So it's 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:19.120 really interesting, isn't it that it was. It was kind 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:22.120 of a charade that was allowed to play out that 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:26.640 a woman like Victoria could give advice who just about 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:29.880 everybody knew was giving advice based on her own experience. 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:33.840 Um As woman to woman, but they but people would 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:36.400 pretend that this voice was that this that this advice 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:40.680 was coming from you know, another world, another another kind 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:45.000 of um, a spirit world beyond one that we could see, 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:48.520 and that this charade was allowed to play, was allowed 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:51.280 to play out so that she could have a voice 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:53.440 and that women could hear it. So it was a 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:56.800 fascinating period. And one of the other you mentioned the 0:07:56.800 --> 0:08:00.320 priesthood and some of the roles that a traditional religious 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.800 figures would would play in this kind of almost a 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:07.680 therapeutic kind of mode for for people who would come. 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:10.480 But one of the other kind of movements that was 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:13.200 happening at the time and leading up to the eighteen 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:19.280 forties was the practice of animal magnetism mesmerism. Uh, some 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:22.960 of those um discourses that were considered to be kind 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:26.320 of horizons of science about the mind and the person 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:30.640 that also were practiced and often demonstrated publicly in a 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:32.960 kind of a therapeutic mode. Can you talk a little 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:36.520 bit about how those practices set up a foundation for 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:40.280 what became spiritualism. Yeah, that's very interesting because it was 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.600 It's one of the fascinating, fascinating aspects of what you're 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:47.040 talking about and also the spiritualism I was speaking of 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:50.640 with Victoria is that this all occurred in an in 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:55.600 a climate of technological and industrial advancement and change. You know, suddenly, 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:59.880 you know, trains were speeding through virgin countryside at unheard 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.079 of speeds, and a telegraph could be sent from one 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:07.880 place to another, you know, without anyone actually physically carrying it. 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:12.800 And it was it was a time when um people 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:15.600 didn't quite understand what was happening to them, that the 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:19.720 society and the the the industry and the manufacturing and 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:24.160 the way of life was changing so radically that people 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:30.000 sought explanations for that through either through either spiritualism or 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:32.160 through the sort of laying on of hands and things 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:35.800 that you describe. And and so one actually was a 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:40.840 physical manifestation of these these social and industrial changes and 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:43.600 the technological changes that were occurring, which was the lilying 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:46.920 out of hands the mesmerism, and the other was just 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.040 actually helping people cope with the changes that the massive 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:53.000 changes in their lives. And one of the reasons why 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:57.160 both of those were more readily accepted than perhaps they 0:09:57.160 --> 0:09:59.720 would have been thirty y years, you know, thirty years previously, 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:04.960 was because people could see in their everyday lives changes, 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:09.199 massive changes that that amountages speed and ways of communication 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:11.480 that had never existed before. And and and so if that 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:14.880 could happen, then maybe it was actually possible for for 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:17.760 people to heal by just touching you, or for someone 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.840 to give advice from a figure who existed outside a 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:25.120 realm you could see. M hmm. And one of the 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:30.240 technologies that was so crucial to the spread of all 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:37.280 these ideas was, um, the explosion of cheap fast printing, 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:41.280 and there's all these periodicals that just kind of burst 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:45.200 onto the scene, and they were crucial to mesmerism, to 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.199 those sciences, but also to spiritualism. Can you talk a 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:51.200 little bit about the role that periodicals played kind of 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:54.200 in American life, um in the in the middle of 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:57.720 the nineteenth century, but kind of across that period. Yeah, 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.880 it was really fascinating, and um, it wasn't just in 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:03.600 the United States, it was in Europe as well. Suddenly, 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:06.880 you know, trains would could carry periodicals from one place 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:09.120 to another end so you and carry news. So you 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:13.240 could you could assemble a periodical and Dayton Ohio that 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:15.880 would have news from New York City or news from London. 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:20.040 Or news from Cologne, Germany, and it wouldn't be that old, 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:22.600 you know, it might be two weeks old. And um, 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:27.800 people were learning. Their horizons were literally expanding. And every organization, 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:32.640 every political party, um, every group, the farmers groups, the 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:36.200 coal group, you know, coal miners, everyone had a periodical 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.960 So it was almost, I guess a little bit. I mean, 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:43.240 I suppose it's a little bit like our blogosphere now 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:46.000 that there were new there was this new way of 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:50.280 communicating through technology and through the printed page that allowed 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:52.400 people to speak to each other and learn about each 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:54.800 other and learn about what was happening in the world 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:58.240 much more quickly, um than they ever had before. And 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:00.840 it was during the Civil War in fact, in the 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:07.160 United States, the the newspapers were an absolutely crucial way 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:11.079 for you know, the country to stay as the country 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:15.120 was splitting physically, you know, through war. It was actually 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:17.160 kind of the thread that was keeping it together was 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:23.160 the exchange of newspapers and that information. And also um 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:29.920 into the seventies, when when into the seventies, when the 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:34.800 kind of later industrialization occurred, when there were more serious 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:38.079 class divisions, and when the labor market and the labor 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:42.599 union movement was heating up. The role of newspapers and 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:46.400 those in the radicalization of workers was immense, and um, 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:48.280 you know, people would joke Europeans would come to the 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:51.200 United States and joke that if you were a prisoner 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:53.720 in being held in a jail in New York City, 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:56.240 you may not have anything. You may not have food, 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:58.640 you may not have water, you may not have proper clothing, 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:01.600 but every morning you'll have your newspaper. It was considered 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:05.120 an absolutely essential tool to being alive in the in 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:07.760 the nineteenth century, which is, you know, kind of fun 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:12.200 considering that newspapers in our world are are going the 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:17.000 way of well the normal telephone, the dial telephone. Right. 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:20.000 You know, as I've been as I've been spending time 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:24.400 making this podcast, i haven't been able to avoid making 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:27.840 these connections between periodicals then kind of podcasts now with 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:29.760 the way that they're growing in and like you said, 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:33.360 everyone is starting one, every interest group, every political party 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:40.880 are yeah. Um, so as you have have researched and written, 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:43.560 You've worked in journalism for for a long long time, 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:49.000 you've at times turned two books, and you've written a 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:51.160 book on Victoria Woodhol which I'm so glad We're gonna 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:53.360 be talking about today. You've also written books on the 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:56.720 Cones Sisters, on Karl Marx and his wife Jenny, which 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:59.320 was a finalist from the Politicer Prize, the National Book Award, 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.600 the National Book a Circle Award. UM, and you recently 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:05.120 published a book on the Ninth Street Women. Before we 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:09.440 really dive into Victoria's story, UM, I'd love to hear 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:12.000 is there a kind of a common thread between the 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:14.080 kinds of people that you take as the subjects of 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:18.080 your books. I think what I try to do is, UM, 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:22.920 I take periods of history UM, that most people would 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:26.320 say have been written about to death. You know. For example, UM, 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:28.600 with Karl Marks. You know, I remember when I said 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:30.120 I wanted to do a book on him. A neighbor 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:31.800 I was living in Italy at the time, in an old, 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:35.040 older British woman said to me, you know who on earth? 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:36.960 You know, why on earth do we need another book 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:40.600 on Karl Marks. The point is that the parts of 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:43.080 history that have been told so far, that have been 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:46.640 told and retold actually are usually only half the story. 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:49.040 It's sort of the man's point of view, that's the 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:51.760 it's been the man's story. So what I try to 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:55.800 do is I go into areas where um and luckily, 0:14:55.880 --> 0:15:00.440 you know, for a writer or researcher today, the numbers 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:03.520 of neglected women out there in history are vast, and 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:06.200 so there are many, many stories to be told. And 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:08.680 so with Victoria, I tried to look at the nineteenth 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:11.920 century through her perspective. I mean, how many people know 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:14.080 growing up in the United States, how many people learn 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:17.640 that a woman actually ran for president in eighteen seventy two. 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:19.640 You know, she was written out of history. So I 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:22.760 tried to resurrect her, you know, place her where she belonged. 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:26.640 With the Cones Sisters. They were among the most important 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:29.400 modern art collectors in the world at the turn of 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:32.080 the century, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, I'm sorry, 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:35.520 at the beginning of the twentieth century. And their story 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:38.640 was written out of history because of a personal peak 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:42.600 when Alice Toklas wrote the story of Gertrude Stein. I'm 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:44.880 sorry when Gergis John wrote the story of L. S. B. Toklis. 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:48.800 But um, the Cone Sisters were written out of history 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:53.880 because collecting became something that men did. Women shopped for paintings, 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:56.680 but men collected them. And so I wanted to show 0:15:57.040 --> 0:15:58.960 what the Cones had done, which was build one of 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:02.800 the major materi eston h collections in the world, not 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:05.400 just in the United States. Um. They were these two 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:10.840 eccentric Victorian sisters. Um. And then with Marx, you know, 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:13.920 the Marks story has been told primarily as a story 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:15.960 of a man from his neck up, in other words, 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:19.040 the brain of Marks. And I wanted to describe the 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:21.160 man Marks, and to do that, I thought it was 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:23.840 best to put him in the environment of his family, 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:26.800 with his wife and children. And so I started by 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:28.960 thinking I would tell just their story. But you know, 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:30.760 Marx was the elephant in the room, and I needed 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:33.880 to tell his story if I could describe their story. 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:36.800 And so and then with the Ninth Street Women, it's 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:40.000 the story of five abstract expressionists women painters. And and 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:43.240 again you know that the biggest revolution in American art 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:47.280 history occurred in the forties and fifties in New York, 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:50.560 and that has been the story of a handful of men, 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:53.440 when in fact it was a teeming group of people, 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:56.400 and among them were some really important women who with 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:59.680 out without home, the movement would wouldn't have occurred. So 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:02.400 what I try to do is go back into history 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:05.639 and and kind of if if we've seen, you know, 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:08.200 fill the cup, We've got half the cup so far. 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:10.119 Let's get the rest of the coup. Let's fill it up. 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:12.760 And that's usually the story of women. So that's kind 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:14.720 of the thread that runs through all of these books. 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:20.080 So let's on that note, let's dive in to Victoria 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:24.560 Woodhole story and just start with, how would you answer 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:29.919 the question who was Victoria Woodhall? M Victoria Woodhall was 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:34.640 really one of the bravest American women to surface UM 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:38.000 in the nineteenth century, and one of the women who 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:42.000 we know least about who we've studied the least. She 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:48.960 was the product of a Ohio family fairly dirt poor. 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:53.879 Her father was a h petty criminal, her mother was 0:17:54.280 --> 0:18:00.000 probably certifiably insane and had had children every two years 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:03.679 for a twenty year period. In Victoria was her sixth daughter. 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:06.800 And the story was one you know, sort of that's 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:11.520 been It could have been repeated throughout the country, UM 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:15.919 by hundreds, if not thousands of families, UM struggling to 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:20.760 make ends meet, UM, no true prospects, no property, they 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:25.679 didn't own any property, they had no future. And this child, Victoria, 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:30.800 through a vivid imagination and an incredible drive created one. 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:33.520 She created her own opportunity, and she carried this family 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:37.639 with her. And so what she did was um go 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:41.600 from absolutely zero. And I talked about the where she 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:43.199 was born, which was a shack on the side of 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:46.120 a hill and a small town in Ohio. She went 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:49.800 from there to to a series of first that were 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:53.080 truly remarkable. She was the first woman to have a 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:55.240 Wall Street brokerage firm. She was the first woman to 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:58.879 address a congressional committee in Washington. She was the first 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:05.760 woman to run for president, and she was completely neglected 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:09.280 historically because she was literally too hot to handle. She 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:11.640 was so far advanced of her time. She would still 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:14.560 be considered radical today. She would have kind of fit 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:18.560 more comfortably in the nineteen seventies feminist period than she 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:22.760 did in the nineteenth century. So Victoria Woodhall is quite 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:25.600 quite simply someone we should all know about because the 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:29.240 issue she spoke to and about in those days were 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:34.080 ones we're still dealing with today. M hm. So in 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:37.000 that early life that you've started to touch on, what 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:41.840 kind of a religious background or upbringing did she have 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:46.640 in this struggling family. Yeah, her mother was a religious 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:49.359 Zealot and um, I would imagine based on where they 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:52.160 were in Ohio. I could never pin down what exactly 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:55.360 congregation they were part of, but it would have been 0:19:55.440 --> 0:20:01.520 some sort of um no doubt Protestant, probably loose and tradition, 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:05.600 and but it was bordered, but it bordered always on 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:10.200 the always on spiritualism. Not that her mother ever practiced spiritualism, 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:12.160 where she did later in life, but not when when 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:14.840 Victoria was growing up. Although the mother always thought she 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:17.760 could commune with spirits, and so that's where Victoria got 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:21.280 that idea. Basically, the mother would go out and kind 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.720 of have hallucinations, um and you know, shout to the 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:27.879 skies her problems about her husband and called her, you know, 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:30.680 said what she was doing was speaking to to to 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:33.959 spirits from another world of her dead relatives or her 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:39.960 dead children. And Victoria absorbed that idea. But uh so 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:45.320 that so the family was not traditionally religious. It was 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:48.400 a very eccentric clan as far as that goes. But 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:52.320 but Victoria absorbed those ideas and and built on them. 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:56.359 And she had a real flair for drama. So she 0:20:56.480 --> 0:21:01.239 would regale the local children in the town with with 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:06.600 her ability to speak to spirits and orate on profound matters. 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:09.359 And then uh, as I described the book, when she 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:12.680 when her her crowd started getting restless, she would change 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:15.119 the subject and start talking about cowboys and Indians. But 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:17.560 in other way she she always knew how to play 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:23.320 to the crowd. Um. But the family was mainly Buckland. 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:28.320 Her father was a notorious thief arsonist. Uh He called 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:31.720 himself a lawyer, but his main his main connection to 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:34.760 the law was breaking it. And they were always they 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:37.560 from the time she was a little girl. They would 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:41.520 have to escape the law for various reasons, and usually 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:44.919 buck was behind whatever scheme was illegal, and whatever scheme 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:49.280 Um forced them to leave. So I wouldn't say that 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:53.720 Victoria was ever a religious person in the traditional sense 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:58.920 as impious, but she had a great respect for surprisingly. 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:00.639 Growing up with the father she did and in the 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:04.120 household she did, she had a very great respect for morality, 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:07.600 which is also very ironic because later in life what 0:22:07.760 --> 0:22:11.920 did her in was charges of immorality. But she had 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:15.720 this real um from the time she was a young girl. 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:21.399 She had a very strong sense of justice, and that's 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:25.879 what actually was the start of her political life. Some 0:22:25.960 --> 0:22:29.119 of your work has been kind of on transatlantic connections 0:22:29.160 --> 0:22:35.000 between radical groups. And when Victoria's ten, we come to 0:22:35.040 --> 0:22:39.880 the year eight which historians of spiritualism, uh look at 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:43.320 for what happened in Hydesville, New York with the Fox Sisters, 0:22:43.359 --> 0:22:50.360 but it's a year of ferment across nations, borders, oceans. Um, 0:22:50.400 --> 0:22:53.520 can you talk a little bit about transatlantic context for 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:55.639 what was going on in Europe in that year? What 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:59.200 else was going on in the United States? M hmm. Yeah. 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:02.520 Eighteen forty was one of those years in history where 0:23:03.080 --> 0:23:06.679 it would be difficult to find a place on the planet, Uh, 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:11.080 that that something major wasn't happening. Europe was on fire. 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:14.440 It was the only eighteen forty It was a movement 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:17.879 called Springtime of the People, and the people in Europe 0:23:17.920 --> 0:23:23.080 actually revolted against their kings, their governments, and uh, it 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:26.280 was the first and only European wide revolt of the 0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:31.560 people against their rulers. And this was the result um 0:23:31.680 --> 0:23:36.280 of again this idea that society was changing fundamentally under 0:23:36.320 --> 0:23:41.160 people's feet, and yet the rulers, the kings, couldn't see that, 0:23:41.200 --> 0:23:43.840 They couldn't or didn't want to see see it, chose 0:23:43.880 --> 0:23:45.480 not to see it. They were happy enough to fill 0:23:45.520 --> 0:23:48.960 their coffers with the proceeds of industrialization, but they didn't 0:23:49.000 --> 0:23:51.760 want to make the social changes that were required. They 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:54.640 didn't want to allow business people into government, for example, 0:23:54.720 --> 0:23:59.600 in order to legislate UM what the terms industrialists needed 0:24:00.040 --> 0:24:04.600 to to to expand, to do cross border trade UM 0:24:04.720 --> 0:24:08.160 and and in the United States, part of the background 0:24:08.240 --> 0:24:11.240 to this what would become the Civil War UM in 0:24:12.680 --> 0:24:16.359