Mrs. Gould's Servants Testify

The Gould divorce was covered on the front page and above the fold. By comparison, the New York Times was more distinguished and proper than its Hearst competitors, so you can imagine what may have appeared in the "New York World".

The Goulds were married for eight years , probably married in 1898. Her acting career began in the 1880's, but the court did not allow Mrs. Gould's age to be put in the record. She is still attractive, I believe, and probably in her 40's? Mrs. Gould may have been famous in her own right before the marriage. Bill Cody was her manager at one time.

Mr. Gould was robber-baron rich (see post below) So, this is a singular artifact, atypical in many ways.

Still, it's true that personal details of divorce cases (and simple marital problems) received great publicity. Mind, I write this merely as a 1909 newspaper junkie/"time traveler", not a historian.

Most surprising to me are instances when news reports revealed the names of third parties who may have been suitors or lovers. Most people would agree---eventually they agreed---that this was a brutal newspaper practice that must stop. (Imagine the family feelings of those third parties. They weren't always mere glancing wounds, but at times certainly mortal.)

1909 was an era of progress and reform, but with many false starts, and so much to consider in the way of unintended consequences. Civilization's victory over 'yellow journalism' , in regard to divorce cases, was nearly complete.

This is before that.
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I plan a series of posts about "Fainting and Swooning in 1909".

When servants testify, it's time to faint.
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Socialists were already accused of targeting 'the family' as an institution, but it would sound like a joke to say they were really culpable in the rising divorce rate. Shame becomes a less fearful prospect once it is witnessed among society's elite. You could blame 'the rich', and competitive newspapers, as reasonably as you would blame New-Age Free-Love types for popularizing Reno.
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Henry James addressed the subject of divorce in his novel What Maisie Knew (1897). (I'm personally acquainted with someone who actually read 'Maisie' all the way through! Jiminy Christmas...but I digress.)

You can find my first post about the Gould's divorce here, with a Times editorial.


Note: it's easy to miss the full article reproduced here. Use toggle button in upper right corner and be sure to scroll all the way down, as there is a break in the print that may fool you. Much of the testimony is produced in the second (bottom half) of this article.

Mrs. Gould Excitable

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Magazines & Newspape gould divorce 1909 news article

I'll post more as the story develops. How things can get any worse for poor Mrs. Gould is hard to imagine, as we approach the tipping point where we start to pity the (apparent) villain.

This is not an era when, as Dylan sang, "what's good is bad, what's bad is good". Fame and infamy were still opposites. There would be no reality TV show, and I'm sure no profitable self-caricature.

If Mrs. Gould wrote a memoir, we'll see if it's from Thomas Nelson Publishers in Nashville. I doubt the Suffragists would have anything to do with her. She could have taken a "Doll's House" defense I suppose.