WEBVTT - The Invisible Lady 0:00:15.396 --> 0:00:20.516 Pushkin. Imagine there's a place in our world where the 0:00:20.676 --> 0:00:25.676 known things go, a quarter of the mind, an endless 0:00:25.796 --> 0:00:31.396 vault crammed with evidence, proof clues me. I like to 0:00:31.396 --> 0:00:37.196 go there and poke around. A book of poems by 0:00:37.196 --> 0:00:44.676 Emily Dickinson, flowers pressed between its pages. Oh, I wonder 0:00:44.676 --> 0:00:47.996 if this old radio still works. I must ended up 0:00:48.036 --> 0:00:50.196 the downs music for a moment. I have an urgent 0:00:50.276 --> 0:00:54.876 message when police had called griefy. Imagine that this place, 0:00:54.956 --> 0:00:57.756 this chamber of knowledge, is all that stands between a 0:00:57.796 --> 0:01:02.356 reasonable doubt and the chaos of uncertainty. That it lies 0:01:02.436 --> 0:01:09.476 somewhere in a time between now and then. Sign on 0:01:09.476 --> 0:01:16.356 the door reads the last archive. I'm Jill Lapoor. Step 0:01:16.356 --> 0:01:20.036 outside to a noisy street in the bustling, rowdy city 0:01:20.036 --> 0:01:22.796 of New York in the year this time, we don't 0:01:22.836 --> 0:01:27.956 have to go very far, the year two thousand and nineteen, 0:01:29.716 --> 0:01:38.396 fifteen twenty five. Maybe we could get in behind. Maybe 0:01:38.396 --> 0:01:43.756 there's an alley on one side. Sarria's under constant videotape 0:01:43.756 --> 0:01:46.916 surreals just in case she comes back. That's nineteen. On 0:01:47.036 --> 0:01:49.876 a sweltering day in July, my producer Ben and I 0:01:50.036 --> 0:01:54.116 went to New York to find an invisible woman. She 0:01:54.276 --> 0:01:57.396 was invisible, and she was also dead, long dead, so 0:01:57.916 --> 0:02:00.556 not an easy search. But I have a rule about 0:02:00.596 --> 0:02:03.556 doing historical research, which is that you should always go 0:02:03.716 --> 0:02:05.956 to the scene of the crime, even if it wasn't 0:02:05.956 --> 0:02:08.956 her crime, the spot where it happened the thing you're 0:02:08.996 --> 0:02:12.916 interested in, even if there's nothing there anymore, because people 0:02:13.036 --> 0:02:14.916 lived and died, and if you're going to try to 0:02:14.996 --> 0:02:17.756 understand them, you owe it to them to breathe their air. 0:02:18.756 --> 0:02:20.796 We're looking for twenty one park Row, or what used 0:02:20.796 --> 0:02:22.396 to be twenty one would it be in that This 0:02:22.556 --> 0:02:25.716 is one peak right here. We had an address on 0:02:25.916 --> 0:02:28.796 Park Row. It's in Lower Manhattan, near the New World 0:02:28.796 --> 0:02:31.676 Trade Center. A long time ago, this part of town 0:02:31.796 --> 0:02:34.476 used to be the theater district, but now twenty one 0:02:34.556 --> 0:02:41.596 Park Row is a construction site. Ben and I were 0:02:41.676 --> 0:02:43.716 on the hunt for whatever might remain of a place 0:02:43.796 --> 0:02:47.036 called the Shakespeare Gallery. The Shakespeare Gallery was a sort 0:02:47.036 --> 0:02:50.236 of exhibit space where in the year eighteen o four, 0:02:50.756 --> 0:02:54.516 an invisible lady was put on display. Visitors could come 0:02:54.916 --> 0:02:57.316 see her, if you could call it that, in a 0:02:57.396 --> 0:03:00.476 glass box, the way you'd pay a penny to see 0:03:00.516 --> 0:03:03.676 a two headed calf or a bearded lady or the 0:03:03.756 --> 0:03:08.196 tiniest man a freak show. Come see the Invisible Lady 0:03:10.636 --> 0:03:16.796 somewhere beneath that construction site. The Shakespeare Gallery is long gone, demolished, forgotten, buried. 0:03:17.636 --> 0:03:19.916 So we went to a park across the street to 0:03:20.036 --> 0:03:23.596 see what we could see. We could not confirm or deny, 0:03:24.116 --> 0:03:28.316 but she could be in the construction site. And then 0:03:28.396 --> 0:03:33.956 she just vanished again. It was lunch hour a work day, 0:03:34.556 --> 0:03:38.316 and the park was crowded. All around us, people had 0:03:38.356 --> 0:03:43.516 their phones out, taking selfies, streaming video, uploading whatever to wherever, 0:03:44.156 --> 0:03:50.716 trying to make themselves visible to someone somewhere. On this 0:03:50.836 --> 0:03:53.516 season of The Last Archive, we're trying to solve a crime. 0:03:53.996 --> 0:03:57.276 Who killed Truth? I had a hunched that the Invisible Lady, 0:03:57.596 --> 0:04:00.436 the invisible lady we were looking for, that she had 0:04:00.556 --> 0:04:04.316 something to do with the answer. We started in episode 0:04:04.396 --> 0:04:07.636 one asking what is a fact that took us all 0:04:07.716 --> 0:04:11.236 the way back to the year twelve? Then we asked, 0:04:11.516 --> 0:04:14.116 how can you tell if someone's telling the truth? That 0:04:14.276 --> 0:04:16.516 took us to the nutty history of the lie Detector. 0:04:17.836 --> 0:04:20.796 This episode, we're asking can you believe stuff that you 0:04:20.876 --> 0:04:25.156 can't see? People want to know things, But people also 0:04:25.236 --> 0:04:28.636 like to hide things. The search for knowledge, then, is 0:04:28.716 --> 0:04:32.556 always bumping up against the right to privacy. That's what 0:04:32.676 --> 0:04:35.476 interests me most about the strange story of the Invisible 0:04:35.556 --> 0:04:40.116 Lady from the year eighteen o four. After all, how 0:04:40.196 --> 0:04:44.516 often do you meet an invisible lady? Hello, I'm Sirie, 0:04:44.756 --> 0:04:49.356 your virtual assistant. Okay, maybe pretty often. I don't know 0:04:49.396 --> 0:04:52.116 about you, but I hear from invisible ladies all the time. 0:04:52.716 --> 0:04:56.356 Invisible ladies who seem to know everything. They're all over 0:04:56.436 --> 0:05:00.156 the place. But why why can women know things only 0:05:00.236 --> 0:05:13.236 when they're disembodied? It was cold when she got to 0:05:13.356 --> 0:05:18.596 New York the winter of eighteen oh four. Notices of 0:05:18.676 --> 0:05:23.236 her arrival appeared all over the city, and newsboys shouted 0:05:23.276 --> 0:05:27.556 from street corners get jarred and posts. Get your chronicle 0:05:27.636 --> 0:05:30.916 express here on Monday, will commence an exhibition in the 0:05:30.956 --> 0:05:36.156 Shakespeare Gallery near the Theater. That extraordinary phenomenon, the Invisible Lady. 0:05:36.636 --> 0:05:38.596 She has come to the city to see, if not 0:05:38.756 --> 0:05:43.916 to be seen, to visit the Invisible Lady. The Invisible 0:05:43.996 --> 0:05:46.036 Lady didn't turn up in New York and stay for 0:05:46.116 --> 0:05:48.956 only a day or a week. No, she stayed for 0:05:49.036 --> 0:05:52.516 a long time, for months, then she went on tour 0:05:53.116 --> 0:05:56.356 all over the country. Before Barnum and his museum and 0:05:56.436 --> 0:05:59.636 his freak shows, the Invisible Lady was just about the 0:05:59.796 --> 0:06:03.716 most popular attraction in the United States. You'd get your 0:06:03.756 --> 0:06:06.556 ticket good anytime from nine in the morning till nine 0:06:06.596 --> 0:06:09.476 at night, except for a lunch hour, and then you'd 0:06:09.516 --> 0:06:12.116 go into the gallery, a small room by the theater 0:06:12.716 --> 0:06:16.276 where they choke exhibits and spectacles. It was a bit 0:06:16.356 --> 0:06:19.876 like a peep show and a little porny in that way. 0:06:21.356 --> 0:06:23.516 What you'd see when you walked into the room was 0:06:23.636 --> 0:06:28.116 an eerily beautiful glass box about the size of a coffin, 0:06:29.036 --> 0:06:33.676 suspended from the ceiling by four golden chords. It looked empty, 0:06:34.516 --> 0:06:37.156 but if you bent close to the speaking trumpets made 0:06:37.156 --> 0:06:40.236 of brass that poked out of the corners, you could 0:06:40.316 --> 0:06:48.196 hear her voice. Probably it sounded something like this. I 0:06:48.276 --> 0:06:50.676 don't know, but you could hear her breathing. You can 0:06:50.716 --> 0:06:54.476 see her, of course, I'm in the room right now. 0:06:55.396 --> 0:07:03.116 I can smell Wisher. My astonishment was extreme. I thought 0:07:03.196 --> 0:07:07.156 at first this voice was that of a ventriloquist. But 0:07:07.316 --> 0:07:09.956 there couldn't have been a ventriloquist, because even if the 0:07:10.076 --> 0:07:12.956 room was empty except for you. You could still talk 0:07:13.036 --> 0:07:18.196 with her. Scholars, reporters, ordinary people. They all tried to 0:07:18.236 --> 0:07:20.556 figure it out. What can be the cause of a 0:07:20.636 --> 0:07:25.116 phenomenon so astonishing It was incredibly fun. The thing to 0:07:25.236 --> 0:07:28.476 do was to ask her questions, all sorts of questions, 0:07:28.916 --> 0:07:32.316 as if she were an oracle or a psychic fortune teller. 0:07:33.836 --> 0:07:36.756 Have you been to heaven? Is there a God? What 0:07:36.916 --> 0:07:39.996 am I thinking about right now? Who will be our 0:07:40.076 --> 0:07:44.076 next president? She was super chatty. If you were lucky, 0:07:44.556 --> 0:07:53.956 she might even sing to you. People came up with 0:07:54.036 --> 0:07:57.116 all kinds of theories about how this lady could be invisible. 0:07:57.956 --> 0:08:01.476 If there wasn't a ventriloquist, maybe there was some sort 0:08:01.516 --> 0:08:06.636 of contraption involved. Either way, she was a mystery. She 0:08:06.836 --> 0:08:11.076 defied facts. It is hoped by some of our cognisanti 0:08:11.316 --> 0:08:15.716 that the mystery will be here unveiled. Okay, So no 0:08:15.836 --> 0:08:18.956 one actually believed that the Invisible Lady was a mystery 0:08:19.116 --> 0:08:22.076 in the sense of being a miracle. They thought she 0:08:22.196 --> 0:08:25.956 was a mystery in the newer modern secular sense, a 0:08:26.156 --> 0:08:30.796 secret to be discovered the secret of this wonderful machine 0:08:30.956 --> 0:08:35.356 appears to me well worthy of exciting public curiosity, and 0:08:35.516 --> 0:08:38.276 will not fail to give occasion for the researches of 0:08:38.356 --> 0:08:44.716 those who wish to comprehend and explain everything. People really 0:08:44.756 --> 0:08:46.996 wanted to know how the schimmick worked, and they couldn't 0:08:46.996 --> 0:08:49.036 figure it out, or if they figured it out, they 0:08:49.156 --> 0:08:52.436 kept quiet. So honestly, I didn't want to spill the 0:08:52.516 --> 0:08:55.196 beans either. But Ben and I back in that park 0:08:55.436 --> 0:08:58.116 had been sweating it out empty handed for a long time, 0:08:58.556 --> 0:09:03.436 lazy ghostbuster style, and Ben really wanted to know how 0:09:03.476 --> 0:09:06.356 did it actual work? So how I actually worked is 0:09:06.636 --> 0:09:09.436 and this is lifting the magician's veil and viole leading 0:09:09.516 --> 0:09:14.676 the one pledge of all mysticism. How it worked is 0:09:14.756 --> 0:09:17.716 that the building was adjusted before the Invisible Lady came 0:09:17.756 --> 0:09:22.236 to town to make a place in the ceiling between 0:09:22.276 --> 0:09:24.876 the ceiling and the floor above the room where the 0:09:24.956 --> 0:09:29.036 Invisible Lady's box was, where a very small woman would 0:09:29.076 --> 0:09:32.076 be hidden so she could witness everything that was going on. 0:09:32.316 --> 0:09:39.716 And the audio was essentially delivered via a system of 0:09:39.836 --> 0:09:44.236 tubes from her little crawl space above the ceiling and 0:09:44.316 --> 0:09:48.916 below the upper floorboards down into a little hole in 0:09:48.996 --> 0:09:52.796 the box. So when she spoke from that crawl space 0:09:52.996 --> 0:09:57.516 into the tube, her voice came out of the box. 0:09:57.596 --> 0:10:00.956 It really did seem like she was inhabiting the box. 0:10:01.036 --> 0:10:04.956 It was really about the particular kind of plumbing, right right, 0:10:06.956 --> 0:10:09.476 people are just looking at an empty box. But she 0:10:09.516 --> 0:10:11.436 could be really responsive because she could see them and 0:10:11.476 --> 0:10:14.396 she could hear everything. If you could ask the Invisible 0:10:14.436 --> 0:10:19.756 Lady anything, or would you ask her what's it like 0:10:19.876 --> 0:10:22.716 to be invisible? I mean, the thing that's so funny 0:10:22.716 --> 0:10:25.116 about it to me, like if you were invisible in 0:10:25.236 --> 0:10:28.996 New York City in the nineteenth century, Like, would you 0:10:29.036 --> 0:10:30.916 go put yourself on display in a box and be 0:10:30.996 --> 0:10:32.876 like stuck in her? You'd be so cool. You could 0:10:32.876 --> 0:10:35.236 go anywhere and see anything, do anything, and get away 0:10:35.276 --> 0:10:42.316 with anything. Ever since I first came across the story 0:10:42.356 --> 0:10:45.316 of the Invisible Lady, I figured the whole attraction had 0:10:45.356 --> 0:10:48.196 to do with privacy and the thrill of invading a 0:10:48.316 --> 0:10:52.276 woman's privacy. I liked this theory of mine. I got 0:10:52.316 --> 0:10:55.796 pretty committed to it. Sometimes when you do research, you're 0:10:55.876 --> 0:10:59.716 chronicling a person's life or reconstructing an event, but sometimes 0:10:59.876 --> 0:11:02.876 you follow a theme. And once I got interested in 0:11:02.916 --> 0:11:06.236 the Invisible Lady, I started seeing invisible ladies, or I 0:11:06.316 --> 0:11:11.636 guess not seeing them everywhere, and then I started taking 0:11:11.716 --> 0:11:15.196 my theory about them more seriously when one day, poking 0:11:15.276 --> 0:11:18.276 around in the last archive, I came across an essay 0:11:18.556 --> 0:11:22.716 written by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Higginson was the editor of 0:11:22.836 --> 0:11:27.516 the famously private poet Emily Dickinson. He'd almost certainly seen 0:11:27.556 --> 0:11:30.356 the Invisible Lady when he was a kid. Everyone did, 0:11:31.116 --> 0:11:35.036 and then years later, in eighteen eighty one, he wrote 0:11:35.076 --> 0:11:40.036 an essay called Yes, the Invisible Lady. The Invisible Lady, 0:11:40.236 --> 0:11:43.836 as advertised in all Our Cities a good many years ago, 0:11:44.116 --> 0:11:49.396 was a mysterious individual who remained unseen. Higginson thought that 0:11:49.476 --> 0:11:53.716 the Invisible Lady was a big fat metaphor. She lived 0:11:53.756 --> 0:11:55.676 on in the minds of men who believed that a 0:11:55.756 --> 0:11:59.276 woman is best off when least visible. He was talking 0:11:59.316 --> 0:12:03.236 about the Victorian fetish for privacy, which he thought was 0:12:03.356 --> 0:12:07.716 mostly about keeping women out of you. I agree. I 0:12:07.796 --> 0:12:10.836 think it's mainly about political oppression. Keep women out of 0:12:10.916 --> 0:12:14.836 sight and say you're protecting their delicate nature, their chastity, 0:12:15.236 --> 0:12:17.396 as a way to deny them a role in public life, 0:12:17.676 --> 0:12:21.476 including denying them the right to vote. To many men, doubtless, 0:12:21.556 --> 0:12:24.156 she would have seemed the ideal of her sex. Could 0:12:24.196 --> 0:12:27.236 only her brain and tongue have disappeared, like the rest 0:12:27.316 --> 0:12:31.076 of her faculties. These appeals which still meet us for 0:12:31.236 --> 0:12:35.116 the sacred privacy of women are only the invisible lady 0:12:35.236 --> 0:12:40.156 on a larger scale. Higginson was a radical, a militant abolitionist, 0:12:40.356 --> 0:12:44.076 and a women's rights activist, a suffragist. He'd met Emily 0:12:44.156 --> 0:12:46.876 Dickinson when, almost out of the blue, she'd written them 0:12:46.956 --> 0:12:50.276 a letter in eighteen sixty two, unsigned, and she'd enclosed 0:12:50.316 --> 0:12:55.436 a poem, mister Higginson, are you too deeply occupied to say? 0:12:55.636 --> 0:12:59.556 If my verse is alive? Emily Dickinson comes across as 0:12:59.636 --> 0:13:02.796 more than a little intense in this note. But Higginson 0:13:02.876 --> 0:13:05.036 took her on as a writer, and I like to 0:13:05.116 --> 0:13:07.516 think that when he got upset about the ridiculous Victorian 0:13:07.596 --> 0:13:10.716 cult of the invisible lady, he was worrying about Dickinson, 0:13:11.276 --> 0:13:13.316 and about how tired he was of this kind of 0:13:13.356 --> 0:13:16.676 invisible woman swishing around in her skirts, trapped in her house. 0:13:17.916 --> 0:13:20.916 Dickinson was an obscure and unknown poet her whole life. 0:13:21.876 --> 0:13:25.716 She hardly ever left her house. The cult of privacy, 0:13:25.876 --> 0:13:28.796 the idea that women should not be seen. She'd taken 0:13:28.876 --> 0:13:35.796 it very seriously. I'm nobody. Who are you? Are you 0:13:35.956 --> 0:13:40.356 nobody too? When I read Dickinson's poems, it's as if 0:13:40.396 --> 0:13:42.556 I can hear her speak to me from her box 0:13:42.676 --> 0:13:46.636 of glass through a trumpet of brass. How dreary to 0:13:46.756 --> 0:13:52.196 be somebody how public, like a frog? And it is 0:13:52.316 --> 0:13:56.476 dreary to be somebody public like a frog. But it's 0:13:56.476 --> 0:13:59.836 also dreary to be private, invisible, and locked in a box. 0:14:00.876 --> 0:14:03.716 Higginson knew that once woman got out of that box, 0:14:04.476 --> 0:14:07.436 there was no going back. Before you know it, women 0:14:07.476 --> 0:14:10.636 would be casting ballots and run for office, and lord 0:14:10.716 --> 0:14:13.436 knows what else. You might as well try to stop 0:14:13.516 --> 0:14:16.596 the air in its escape from a punctured balloon, as 0:14:16.636 --> 0:14:19.396 to try, when woman is once out of the harem, 0:14:19.476 --> 0:14:22.756 to put her back there. Ceasing to be an invisible lady, 0:14:22.836 --> 0:14:26.596 she must become a visible force. There is no middle ground. 0:14:28.836 --> 0:14:31.676 I closed my book of Emily Dickinson poems and put 0:14:31.716 --> 0:14:34.636 it back on the shelf, and then I resumed my 0:14:34.796 --> 0:14:38.516 hunt for the invisible lady, chasing her across the passage 0:14:38.556 --> 0:14:42.156 of time. I turned over boxes, I unlocked ancient trunks. 0:14:42.716 --> 0:14:45.476 I pursued her through the musty pages of old newspapers. 0:14:46.716 --> 0:14:50.676 At last I found her. She was lying in a 0:14:50.756 --> 0:14:55.396 casket covered in flowers, swarmed by reporters at a funeral 0:14:55.436 --> 0:14:58.796 in Delaware in the year eighteen eighty six. You can 0:14:58.916 --> 0:15:04.076 visit the churchyard just around the corner from the last archive. 0:15:20.716 --> 0:15:24.716 Emily Dickinson died in eighteen eighty six. That same year, 0:15:25.236 --> 0:15:28.716 another lady who wished to remain unseen, was also laid 0:15:28.796 --> 0:15:34.116 to rest, Louisa Bayard. Her funeral took place in Wilmington, Delaware, 0:15:34.436 --> 0:15:39.116 on a winter's day. God the Father, have mercy on us, 0:15:40.076 --> 0:15:45.716 God the Son, have mercy on us. You'd think this 0:15:45.796 --> 0:15:50.396 would be a very private occasion, a funeral, But Louisa Bayard, 0:15:50.596 --> 0:15:53.516 this particular invisible lady, had been the wife of the 0:15:53.636 --> 0:15:58.356 Secretary of State, and reporters flooded the church. The boye 0:15:58.396 --> 0:16:01.236 of Missus Bayard was consigned to the family vault today 0:16:01.516 --> 0:16:04.596 in old Sweets churchyard, while the sun shone brightly on 0:16:04.676 --> 0:16:11.076 the crisp but slowly falling snow. All funerals are tragedies, 0:16:11.196 --> 0:16:14.556 but this one, this one was a melodrama. And let 0:16:14.596 --> 0:16:16.636 me add here that just about everything I'm telling you 0:16:16.716 --> 0:16:19.956 about this funeral comes from an ingenious law journal article 0:16:20.196 --> 0:16:23.436 written by the legal scholar Amy Gaya. She teaches at 0:16:23.516 --> 0:16:26.236 Tulane Law School, and she's writing a book called The 0:16:26.356 --> 0:16:29.356 Secret History of the Right to Privacy. I can't wait 0:16:29.436 --> 0:16:32.996 to read it. Anyway, as Gaia discovered, Bayard's funeral had 0:16:33.036 --> 0:16:35.836 been a melodrama, not only because Louisa Bayard was the 0:16:35.876 --> 0:16:39.476 wife of a famous politician, but also because hers was 0:16:39.556 --> 0:16:43.076 the second of two funerals that this family had endured 0:16:43.156 --> 0:16:48.836 that month. The Secretary of State's wife died two weeks 0:16:48.916 --> 0:16:52.476 after her daughter, and it's a long story. She blamed 0:16:52.516 --> 0:16:57.076 herself for her daughter's death, so did the public. Newspaper 0:16:57.196 --> 0:17:01.876 reporters speculated hinted obliquely that Missus Bayard had taken her 0:17:01.956 --> 0:17:05.836 own life one way or another after her daughter she 0:17:06.116 --> 0:17:10.476 died of grief. Missus Bayard, though she was the wife 0:17:10.516 --> 0:17:13.676 of the Secretary of State, had been a particularly private person, 0:17:14.436 --> 0:17:17.916 an invisible lady, an invalid who had not left her 0:17:17.956 --> 0:17:21.516 house for years. For the funeral, the Bayards wanted privacy, 0:17:21.676 --> 0:17:26.556 begged for privacy, no such luck. The family had deliberately 0:17:26.636 --> 0:17:30.636 concealed her casket, hidden it in flowers, but instead of 0:17:30.716 --> 0:17:35.076 taking the hint. Reporters just described the flowers. At the 0:17:35.156 --> 0:17:38.676 head rested a pillow of Camelia's interwoven with maidenhair fern, 0:17:39.036 --> 0:17:41.996 an offering from the president. There were also a massive 0:17:42.036 --> 0:17:44.956 cross of purple violets with a bunch of Kali lilies 0:17:45.156 --> 0:17:47.356 bursting from the center. From the ladies of the cabinet, 0:17:47.636 --> 0:17:51.076 crosses of white roses and tulips, wreaths of white flowers, 0:17:51.236 --> 0:17:54.556 an anchor cross in wreath combined in white roses with 0:17:54.716 --> 0:17:57.836 sprays of green, a pillow of violets bordered with lilies 0:17:57.916 --> 0:18:01.156 of the valley, and wreaths of paul I mean, geez, 0:18:01.556 --> 0:18:04.436 it was a lot. This kind of reporting was called 0:18:04.436 --> 0:18:08.156 at the time keyhole journalism. Photographers did the same thing. 0:18:08.636 --> 0:18:12.476 They came to the funeral. One newspaper described the order 0:18:12.516 --> 0:18:17.116 of the funeral procession. The secretary, accompanied by his three 0:18:17.196 --> 0:18:20.236 unmarried daughters, were followed by mister and Missus Warren of 0:18:20.276 --> 0:18:23.596 Boston and Philip I and Thomas. Mister Warren and Missus 0:18:23.636 --> 0:18:27.796 Warren of Boston. Missus Warren was another Bayard daughter, the 0:18:27.916 --> 0:18:31.996 former Mabel Bayard, now married to mister Samuel Warren, a 0:18:32.116 --> 0:18:34.836 Boston lawyer and the fact that they were at this funeral, 0:18:34.956 --> 0:18:37.996 that Samuel Warren was there, became central to something you 0:18:38.156 --> 0:18:46.756 probably hold very dear. The right to privacy. Marrying into 0:18:46.796 --> 0:18:51.076 the Bayard family had nearly driven Samuel Warren nuts. Warren 0:18:51.156 --> 0:18:54.756 didn't like his family, especially his wife, being in the limelight, 0:18:55.716 --> 0:18:58.196 and the newspaper coverage of his mother in law's funeral 0:18:58.516 --> 0:19:02.156 was the last straw. He was appalled at the reporters, 0:19:02.596 --> 0:19:06.836 at the news stories. The family felt so exposed, so 0:19:07.476 --> 0:19:10.956 violated his poor life, her sister dead and now her 0:19:11.036 --> 0:19:14.316 mother did from grief on display as if she were 0:19:14.396 --> 0:19:18.556 trapped in a glass box placed on a stage. Warren 0:19:18.716 --> 0:19:22.276 nourished his rage. How could they and he got an 0:19:22.356 --> 0:19:24.716 idea for a way that the law could stop this 0:19:24.876 --> 0:19:29.516 sort of thing. He began drafting an essay with his 0:19:29.676 --> 0:19:33.796 law partner, a young man named Lewis Brandeis. Warren and 0:19:33.916 --> 0:19:37.316 Brandeis had graduated first and second in their law school class. 0:19:38.116 --> 0:19:41.076 They decided to write an essay about privacy, partly because 0:19:41.116 --> 0:19:44.716 Warren was so upset about publicity, and partly to advertise 0:19:44.796 --> 0:19:48.596 the services of their law firm. The article appeared in 0:19:48.716 --> 0:19:52.836 eighteen ninety. It's been described as the single most influential 0:19:52.916 --> 0:19:57.116 law review article ever published. It was titled the Right 0:19:57.316 --> 0:20:00.436 to Privacy. When you hear about a right to privacy, 0:20:01.036 --> 0:20:03.356 every time you talk about a right to privacy, like 0:20:03.556 --> 0:20:05.756 you don't think your employers should be reading your email, 0:20:06.036 --> 0:20:07.996 you don't think the government should decide whether or not 0:20:08.116 --> 0:20:10.436 you can have an abortion, and you don't think Facebook 0:20:10.436 --> 0:20:13.316 should sell your data. Every time you even think about 0:20:13.316 --> 0:20:16.596 a right deprivacy, you're pulling on an idea that originated 0:20:16.636 --> 0:20:19.716 with Samuel Warren and Lewis Brandeis in this essay they 0:20:19.756 --> 0:20:23.156 wrote in eighteen ninety because they were upset over the 0:20:23.236 --> 0:20:28.836 press coverage of Missus Bayart's funeral. Historically, the right deprivacy 0:20:28.916 --> 0:20:31.556 has to do with women. A couple of years before 0:20:31.596 --> 0:20:34.476 Missus Bayart's funeral, Congress had actually entertained a piece of 0:20:34.596 --> 0:20:38.756 legislation called a Bill to Protect Ladies. It would have 0:20:38.796 --> 0:20:45.116 prohibited the circulation or publication of unauthorized photographs of the wife, daughter, mother, 0:20:45.356 --> 0:20:49.196 or sister of any citizen of the United States. Believe me, 0:20:49.756 --> 0:20:58.316 the right deprivacy is about keeping women unseen. Instantaneous photographs 0:20:58.356 --> 0:21:02.756 and newspaper enterprise have invaded the sacred precincts of private 0:21:02.996 --> 0:21:07.196 and domestic life. The right to privacy, Warren and brand 0:21:07.236 --> 0:21:09.076 I said, was a lot like the right to property, 0:21:09.316 --> 0:21:12.356 like owning a house. Violating that right was like breaking 0:21:12.396 --> 0:21:16.276 into your house peeping through keyholes. But it was also worse, 0:21:16.956 --> 0:21:20.756 because the violation of privacy, peering through keyholes, peeping through 0:21:20.796 --> 0:21:24.796 curtains constitutes a kind of wound, a puncturing of your soul, 0:21:24.876 --> 0:21:27.596 of the walls of your very self, and that kind 0:21:27.676 --> 0:21:30.796 of wound might in the end deprive you of your reason. 0:21:31.756 --> 0:21:35.316 Numerous mechanical devices threatened to make good the prediction that 0:21:35.796 --> 0:21:39.076 what is whispered in the closet shall be proclaimed from 0:21:39.116 --> 0:21:43.156 the housetops. The right to privacy, when you think about it, 0:21:43.276 --> 0:21:45.316 is a right to hide, a right to have both 0:21:45.356 --> 0:21:47.996 a public self, a self that people can see, and 0:21:48.156 --> 0:21:53.556 a privateself, a self that remains unseen. Warren and Brandais 0:21:53.556 --> 0:21:56.596 weren't just trying to hide women, or one particular woman, 0:21:56.636 --> 0:21:59.596 like Louisa Bayard. They were now terrified that all these 0:21:59.676 --> 0:22:03.476 new machines could expose each and every man and woman, 0:22:03.596 --> 0:22:06.796 every person. Their idea had a lot in common with 0:22:07.036 --> 0:22:10.716 William James the same year, in eighteen ninety called The 0:22:10.836 --> 0:22:15.196 Hidden Self. James is the philosopher who trained as a physician. 0:22:15.756 --> 0:22:19.676 He was a founder of modern American psychology. Psychology, if 0:22:19.716 --> 0:22:21.796 you think about it, is the study of what's invisible, 0:22:22.116 --> 0:22:24.556 This whole field of inquiry whose scope is the stuff 0:22:24.636 --> 0:22:28.276 most of us consider private, the inside of your own head, 0:22:28.956 --> 0:22:31.956 the stuff you hide the way I say Doctor Jekyll 0:22:32.076 --> 0:22:37.036 hides mister Hyde. But psychologists believed science could penetrate the 0:22:37.116 --> 0:22:41.276 mind and expose your hidden self. This is a very 0:22:41.396 --> 0:22:44.596 scary idea. That's why Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde is 0:22:44.596 --> 0:22:49.716 a thriller. It was written in eighteen eighty six, the 0:22:49.876 --> 0:22:54.356 very year Missus Bayard died. Another wildly popular thriller from 0:22:54.396 --> 0:22:58.196 that very same moment is even scarier. A novel written 0:22:58.236 --> 0:23:05.476 by H. G. Wells. It's called The Invisible Man. Later 0:23:05.636 --> 0:23:09.196 it became a film. I watched it dimly projected in 0:23:09.276 --> 0:23:23.716 the dark recesses of the last archive. I left off 0:23:23.796 --> 0:23:27.076 in eighteen ninety seven when H. G. Wells wrote a novel, 0:23:27.716 --> 0:23:36.196 and that's when the Invisible Lady I met the Invisible Man. H. G. 0:23:36.316 --> 0:23:39.556 Wells's book The Invisible Man was made into a movie 0:23:39.596 --> 0:23:42.396 in nineteen thirty three. I saw it when I was 0:23:42.476 --> 0:23:45.716 a kid. I saw it a lot. There used to 0:23:45.796 --> 0:23:48.516 be every Saturday afternoon on Channel thirty eight, my local 0:23:48.556 --> 0:23:52.156 TV station, creature double feature back to back black and 0:23:52.236 --> 0:23:55.516 white horror films. I watched him every week with my 0:23:55.556 --> 0:24:00.196 favorite snack, which I somehow thought was glamorous ketchup mayonnaise 0:24:00.396 --> 0:24:04.116 and cucumbers. But Invisible Man was my favorite. And I 0:24:04.196 --> 0:24:07.596 made a costume. I dressed up just like him, and 0:24:07.756 --> 0:24:11.156 I thought, okay, I was five when I was wearing it, 0:24:11.836 --> 0:24:14.676 I was invisible. All I wi is to say this 0:24:14.876 --> 0:24:17.196 is a vitally important film, not because it's on some 0:24:17.316 --> 0:24:20.996 list of greatest films, but because of those cucumbers. I 0:24:21.116 --> 0:24:26.916 want a room and a fire, Jenny. And now here's 0:24:26.956 --> 0:24:30.036 a genial or wants a room and a fire? What 0:24:30.276 --> 0:24:35.556 a boom. The Invisible Man stars Claude Rains as a 0:24:35.596 --> 0:24:40.356 chemist who's made himself invisible sort of accidentally. Bumm deal 0:24:40.436 --> 0:24:43.996 for the chemist. Really bad role for Claude Rains. You 0:24:44.076 --> 0:24:46.916 don't ever see him except for about two seconds. He 0:24:47.116 --> 0:24:50.836 was cast for his incredible voice. When the movie begins, 0:24:50.956 --> 0:24:54.596 he's struggling through a snowstorm, bundled up in an overcoat 0:24:54.636 --> 0:24:58.476 and hat until he finally arrives at an inn. I 0:24:58.676 --> 0:25:02.916 say it a room we ain't gotten unready, not at 0:25:02.956 --> 0:25:05.836 this time a year. Don't you really have a film 0:25:05.876 --> 0:25:10.276 stopping check in the summer, you can get one. The 0:25:10.356 --> 0:25:12.996 innkeepers are freaked out because his face is wrapped in 0:25:13.076 --> 0:25:18.196 surgical bandages and dark glasses hide his eyes. I want 0:25:18.236 --> 0:25:21.756 a private sitting room too. They make up a room 0:25:21.836 --> 0:25:24.076 for him, and he hides out in there for days 0:25:24.756 --> 0:25:28.516 with his beakers and elixirs, trying to devise a potion 0:25:28.716 --> 0:25:31.396 that could reverse the process that led to his invisibility. 0:25:32.196 --> 0:25:36.676 I want to be left alone and undisturbed. He isn't 0:25:36.676 --> 0:25:40.956 exactly the best guest, mainly because he's very slowly going insane. 0:25:41.716 --> 0:25:43.916 After a while, the innkeeper tries to throw him out, 0:25:44.236 --> 0:25:46.756 but the Invisible Man attacks him, and then the police 0:25:46.836 --> 0:25:48.996 arrive and break into his room, and they want to 0:25:49.036 --> 0:25:51.676 know who he is. This is the best part. This 0:25:51.876 --> 0:25:54.316 is my favorite part of this whole movie. This is 0:25:54.396 --> 0:26:03.236 where he really loses it. You're he starts taking off 0:26:03.276 --> 0:26:05.956 his clothes one by one, throwing them at the police, 0:26:06.476 --> 0:26:09.836 doing a sort of Madman's strip tease. I'll show you 0:26:09.916 --> 0:26:15.956 who I am, but what I am? Finally, he unwinds 0:26:16.036 --> 0:26:22.316 the bandages covering his face to reveal nothing. What is he? 0:26:22.796 --> 0:26:27.196 Who is he? He is nothing, He's nobody. We cannot 0:26:27.356 --> 0:26:30.756 ever know him, because after what science has done to him, 0:26:31.436 --> 0:26:36.596 there is no him. You're no worry. How do you 0:26:36.676 --> 0:26:39.836 like that? He chases everyone out of his room and 0:26:39.916 --> 0:26:42.436 into the town, and then the Invisible Man spends the 0:26:42.516 --> 0:26:46.156 rest of the movie on a mad crime spree. He 0:26:46.316 --> 0:26:51.396 strangles people invisibly Darth Vader style. He sends trains careening 0:26:51.476 --> 0:26:54.716 off tracks by messing up the switches. He rides a 0:26:54.756 --> 0:26:57.916 bicycle while invisible, quite a feat, both for him and 0:26:58.076 --> 0:27:00.596 mainly for a special effects crew in the nineteen thirties. 0:27:01.036 --> 0:27:04.156 After he goes bananas and starts killing people, a warning 0:27:04.236 --> 0:27:08.836