The law doesn't interest me much, the newspaper was changing each day as the miraculous, flying new century threw new sparks, and the people were mercurial as you and me.
In some sense I think 1909 is no more lost or found to us than, say, 2004: for if you access the web-archives of certain blogs and newsites, or if you were to watch video-tapes of NBC Nightly News from 2004, you will have the sensation of witnessing something mishappened, under-developed and even meaningless. The tragedy may be that what we witness will never be in its right context. "Hold everything!" is the judicious shout to the heavens. "Let's get this straight."
Mr. Gould Responsible
I don’t mean to knock “source material” too hard, and my general view is that as each new history book is written our confabulation of memory becomes worse, if only due to changing “P.C.” attitudes, but also because historians rely on one another and their parents’ work. (What’s the latest word on the veracity of Sandburg’s 'Lincoln'? I’ve heard people think better of it lately.) But if you are blessed to retrieve your history from contemporaneous sources, like these 1909 New York Times articles, you can’t keep yourself fooled for very long about the importance or even the truth of certain events. And in this case everything became water under the bridge almost as fast as it would today.
I've learned just about nothing from Henry Gould’s trial for abandoning his wife, so I've been trying to remember what first surprised me about this sad case, that I wanted to share.
Most of the early articles, with the most startling accusations against Mrs. Gould, were on the front page of the Times, in the prime space for the day's most important news--- traditionally, the upper right hand corner article. I don't attribute this to slow news days, although a startling murder case finally put the Gould articles on the very back page (which seems to be the prime spot for entertainment) just as Mrs. Gould's defense was presented.
Genocide continued in Armenia during this time period, and armies were still in battle after the 2nd Constitutional Crisis in Turkey, which resulted in the over-throw of the Sultan and further weakening of the Ottoman Empire. In Washington, after a lot of surprisingly brave shenanigans regarding a new Tariff schedule, President Taft was spading the ground for a federal income tax, which would involve amending the constitution.
In short, I expected The Times to be more dignified, and not cater so well to my unseemly interest in public stonings and the details of peoples’ private lives.
To think, now. She wore the same style black dress each of these hot summer days of the trial, when people could only fan themselves for relief from the heat (finally one day the judge did apparently order some electric fans).
To think, now. She was there to save her reputation and of course to save herself from poverty. It was an imbroglio, a trial that ought to have been played out in a circus tent (in evening time, rather than a stifling court room).
Mr. Gould had offered to 'return' to Mrs. Gould (or at least allow her the same social station and same allowance of funds) if she'd only agreed to sign a pledge not to drink. Paraphrasing her now: 'I would sign myself away as a drunkard? Never!'
Instead, the details of her apparently drunken behavior (including an incident where she cameoed at a luncheon, to scratch or somehow bloody one woman and give another woman a black eye) ended up in the worst public record of all: the newspaper and then peoples' faulty memories.
And a hundred years later here I am with from 'The Times Machine', making hay.
The other surprise for me (and therefore a learning experience, for what it's worth) was not so much the falling away of masks, but the lack of protection afforded to the proverbial, pre-suffrage 'Woman On The Pedestal'. If you factor in the mores of 1909, Mrs. Gould’s public humiliation may have been as stunning as Jennifer Wilbanks’, the runaway bride in 2005 (something that still takes my breath away).
I think the worst moment was when the actor Farnum testified that he’d first met Mrs. Gould when he was a boy of eight, and she was on the stage. (He was the man they alleged may have spent the night with Mrs. Gould 20 years later). This was after many failed attempts to reveal Mrs. Gould’s age, which she clearly held as a useful secret, a secret which ought to be permitted her. You didn’t ask a woman’s age then, nor even now as it simply invites unreasonable prejudice.
Maybe my surprise is at myself: for still having some undisturbed if childish belief about the innocence of this day and age. But we should remember that the upper classes had more freedom than royalty, and the lower classes of every age could be as criminal or immoral as today. Middle class families and their ministers must have been scandalized (to their credit) or else the New York Times would not have pedaled this story (and with such excellently detailed reporting too). So maybe my belief in that innocence can remain intact.
My Grandmother had two pretty portraits of idealized Edwardian Era women in her living room. As I read these articles I couldn't get these two idealized figures out of my mind. Remember, in this newspaper, which boasted that it would only print what was fit to print, it was suggested that Mrs. Gould not only slept with Farnum but they’d also had lunch together at a road-house!!
I found it interesting, but not surprising, that the defense wanted to make sure the judge understood Mrs. Gould had once been 'on stage'. An actress can marry above her station, and become a lady, but the way to put her back in her place is to remind people of her back-ground.
I remember that under cross-examination, Mrs. Gould was pressed about her different stage names, as if they were criminal aliases. She had to change her first stage name after her step-father objected. So, acting was not a respectable occupation, and I think we know why. Only a few women could ever stand out as remarkably talented, to be admired and adored, while hundreds of others were mere props, part of an entertainment. They were a vulnerable group of women whose virtues would always be questioned because it was well known they were always being preyed upon.
Maybe with source material, we don’t discover facts so much as we do our prejudices about certain times in history. This is why I ask myself, not what I learned, but what surprised me.
I think my aim was to find a developing story to share in serial style and allow to unfold here at nearly the same pace it unfolded in real time.
This is what 1909 has offered so far: The Gould’s Summer headliner, then sideshow.
Take heed: my scroll-blog here is mostly horse-feathers. I should quote myself on that in the header. Also I should repeat that I’m no historian, but only someone who is haunted by the black and white photographs of my long dead ancestors, which my grandmother showed me when I was eight years old.
The people in those photographs frightened me, and I felt terrible pity for them being so long gone; fated to dust and now, in fact, probably dust. One becomes increasingly dead as time goes by, it’s sad to say (and these are comforting words: ‘they still live in our hearts’).
I like to remember now, the people of 1909 had God, Jesus and the Bible. They had one another, most of all. (I should have felt pity for their hard work and frequent bereavements more than their human fate. )
Anyway, let me say "meh". And in conclusion, Class of 2009: damnation, but Mrs. Gould should have got a lot more money, if you ask me.
From earlier in the trial of Mr. Gould for abandonment, a representation (fair or not) of Mrs. Gould's spending habits:
Mrs. Gould's Expenses
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