55 Eggs; Or, The Perpetual Fruit Cake

Another 5 Ways To Save Eggs, Not In This Cookbook:

1. Don't push the eggs off the table with your hand, while posing for cookbook cover.

2. Make fudge or popcorn balls instead of cake.

3. Make a cake that uses only one egg.

4. Have oatmeal for breakfast.

5. Look in icebox, see eggs. Decide not to use any! There you go, eggs saved.

Here's a cake that uses only one of those 55 eggs that you have saved. It is called Mrs. Schulenburg's German Cake and is from Practical Cooking and Dinner Giving by Mrs. Mary F. Henderson, 1876]:

Ingredients: One pound of flour, three-quarters of a cup of butter, six ounces of sugar, one egg, half a cupful of rum. Bake in a pie pan, pressing the cake until it is about one-quarter of an inch high. Before baking, sprinkle sugar and ground cinnamon on top; after it is baked, cut it into squares while it is yet warm. [This sounds more like a big cookie, really - a big cookie full of rum!]

Victorian cakes often had a lavish amount of eggs in them - not quite 55, but six or more. If you wanted a more traditional Victorian cake, Mrs. Henderson's English Pound-cake required ten eggs (for one cake!). And then there was Miss Carpenter's Perpetual Fruit Cake. I have renamed it Perpetual Fruit Cake, in honor of Mrs. Henderson's editorial comment at the end of the recipe:

Perpetual Fruit Cake (Miss Abbie Carpenter, of Saratoga)

Ingredients: One pound of flour, one pound of sugar, one and one-eighth pounds of butter, one half-pound of candied citron, four pounds of currants, four pounds of raisins (stoned and chopped), nine eggs, one table-spoonful each of ground cloves, of cinnamon, of mace, and of nutmeg, and three gills of brandy.

This cake is not perhaps too large, as it will keep for years.

I suspect that Miss Carpenter had had one of these cakes for decades - and it probably really was too large.

The picture above is the cover of a 1917 Royal Baking Powder cookbook, from Duke University's Emergence of Advertising in America. Fruit Cake cigarette card from NYPL Digital Gallery.

The Model Artistes Of Gothic Hall

Last week we were looking at the varied history of a building called Gothic Hall, at 313 Broadway in New York, which was built in 1826 and torn down just 30 years later.
The picture on the left dates from 1840, when it was still a sedate and regal sort of place.

Ten years later, it had changed beyond measure. A man called George Lea was putting on performances at Gothic Hall which starred Model Artistes.

The Model Artistes were men and women mostly women - posing onstage in various tableaux and in various stages of undress. Tableaux vivants or "living statues" were originally of a high artistic quality, but had degenerated by the mid-19th century into Victorian soft porn. The women wore "gauze dresses' and "tights" - which sounds harmless enough by modern standards. But the New York Artistes often wore much less, according to the Times.

There were many theaters and cheap halls in the lower Broadway area which offered this sort of entertainment. One, the Temple of Graces, at 598 Broadway, was regularly raided by the police. They would surround the building, then charge in and arrest everyone - the audience included. Then the actors would be fined, and the audience was let off with a stern warning. At the Temple of Graces, in the early 1850s, one could also see magicians perform "numerous experiments in chemistry, pneumatics, optics, natural philosophy and magic."* The Temple's manager, John St. Luke, publicized the place by distributing "fleshy handbills" at hotels.

George Lea went on from Gothic Hall to other amausement venues. He ran the Franklin Museum on Canal Street, which also featured Model Artistes, in the early 1860s. During the Civil War, he went to Baltimore and ran the "infamous" New Idea saloon. By 1867 he was back in New York, running the "notorious" Oriental Saloon in the basement of 652 Broadway. When the police raided it that year Lea was held on $500 bail.

A look at Google Maps suggests that 313 Broadway, the former site of so many different forms of entertainment, is now a Super Value Store selling discount electronics.

The picture of Masonic Hall (later Gothic Hall) in 1840 is from the NYPL Digital Gallery.

*The wording of this perhaps suggests a coded way of describing the sexual nature of the entertainment. Not knowing 1850s New York slang, though, it is hard to tell.

Sources - all from the New York Times:

"The Police and the Model Artistes," Apr. 10, 1852, p. 2.
"Descent Upon the Model Artistes," Oct. 20, 1856, p. 8. [connects Lea with Gothic Hall]
"Descent Upon A Busy Convert Saloon," Jan. 28, 1867, p. 8.

Doing A Doubletake

About two years ago, when I first started this blog, I used to wrote about non-Victorian things: movies, and slang, and Jack Kerouac and laundry. And I also started a blog called The Doubletake about odd things in the news, and enjoyed writing it very much, though it soon fell by the proverbial wayside as I developed this blog into the Victorian miscellany it is now, and got Kitchen Retro going, too.

But I've missed having a place to write about non-niche things, things that aren't retro ads, or Brooklyn true crime in the 1860s (as much fun as these topics are). So I am pleased to tell you that I have revived The Doubletake. It's going to be a place for - well, the weird news, books, movies, and definitely Jack Kerouac and laundry. And many other things, too. The main criterion will be that it interests me, made me take a second look (hence the name Doubletake, ahem). I hope that it will amuse you, too.

The next few days, until the middle of next week really, are going to be as busy for me as - well, Barnum's American Museum on half-price day. So I apologize in advance to my Entrecard friends, and this Museum's wonderful commenters - I'll be back at it quite soon. And I have a couple of posts lined up here, too. The post about the goings-on at Gothic Hall is written and is coming up next time.

Versatile Gothic Hall

This wonderful engraving of Gothic Hall, at Broadway and Street in New York City, as it could be seen in 1851, is from a periodical called The American Review. In 1851, it was being used as a medical Depot by a Dr. Rogers.

Dr. Rogers was known for his Syrup of Liverwort, Tar and Canchalagua, a cough remedy which he advertised in 1852 with a laudatory poem which begins:

Unnumbered cures! Unrivaled sales! The common cry - "It never fails!" Proclaim North, South, and East and West Of all Cough-curatives - it's the best!

Dr. Rogers and some other doctors also sold, from Gothic Hall, something called the Porous Water Filter, because they felt that Croton water (from the 42nd Street Croton Reservoir, future site of the New York Public Library) was "injurious to health."

The Porous Filter ad lists Dr. J. Kearney Rogers [also seen spelled as Rodgers] (1793-1857) as one of its advocates: this Dr. Rogers was a distinguished physician, one of the founders of the New York Eye and Ear Dispensary. Perhaps the cough-syrup man was his son, or just shared the same name and wished to profit by the association.

Gothic Hall was originally known as Masonic Hall. It was built in 1826, by and for the Freemasons. When its cornerstone was laid in that year, thousands watched. The Freemasons spared no expense - Gothic Hall cost them $50,000 to build, and in the early years it was a grand building indeed. The front was 50' wide and 70' high, made of "eastern gray granite" with a large elaborate Gothic window 22' high and 10' wide. The upper gallery was decorated in the style of the Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Abbey (the Times says it is at Buckingham Palace, but I think they meant Westminster).

When Gothic Hall was torn down in 1856, A.T. Stewart's department store, the "Marble Palace," was built there and on the adjoining lots, with a street address of 280 Broadway (image at right).

Gothic Hall had come down in the world since the Freemasons had left it. It had not only housed Dr. Rogers' Depot, but had housed (at some point) "the biggest bowling alley in the world." Turner's shooting-gallery was there in the early 1850s; in 1852, a man coming out of the gallery let off his gun and accidentally shot a pedestrian. Dr. Rogers must have been one of several tenants, as he was also there at this time.

And by the time Gothic Hall was about to be demolished in 1856, the Times said that a canvas picture (of some unspecified salacious nature) was hung over the facade, in order to attract people "into [the] disgraceful exhibitions, of the free-love order, which of late were held there."

I was curious about this, and did a little delving into the New York Times on-line archives. I'm going to leave you with a little cliffhanger, and tell you what I could find out about scandalous goings-on in Gothic Hall - in Part the Second, later this week.

Sources

"Special Notices," New York Times, Jan. 26, 1852, p. 1. [poetic ad]
"Special Notices," New York Times, Sept. 7, 1852, p. 1. [ad for Porous Glass Filter]
"A Man Shot In Broadway," New York Times, Sept. 25, 1852, p. 6.
[Untitled], New York Times, Oct. 26, 1855, p. 3.
"Gothic Hall," New York Times, May 26, 1856, p. 3.

Image of Henry VII Chapel from Wikipedia, as is the image of Stewart's Marble Palace.

Steam Punk'd

Here we have an advertisement with everything from strange cartoon figures to ultra-modern free verse...the moral of which seems to be that you ought to have the Griffing Iron Company provide you with an Empire Steam Heater.

After all, the First Universalist Church in Jersey City has one and they, presumably, rejoice in heat as well as the fact that the two characters on the left do not belong to their congregation.

So please consider the Empire Steam Heater.

For without it, you will be shouted at by a late-Victorian cartoon gnome with anger management problems. And you will start thinking in bad poetry.

Oh, and you'll be cold, too.

From the Visitors' Guide to New York, New Jersey, and Suburbs (1896) at Internet Archive.

The Boxing Gordon Sisters

It's been awhile since we had any video clips, but I've got a good one for you today. Here are the Gordon Sisters, filmed on May 6, 1901 by Thomas Edison - having a boxing match in frilly dresses accessorized with leather boxing gloves. They are fighting in front of a backdrop of a lovely formal garden, for some reason. Minnie Gordon is the one wearing the white dress, and Bessie - who seems to dominate most of the match - is in the black dress. In 1898 Bessie (billed here as Belle) had made an earlier boxing film for Edison, called "Comedy Set-to," in which her opponent is a man, Billy Curtis.

Bessie/Belle and Minnie Gordon were popular on the East Coast vaudeville circuit at this time. The New York Clipper of November 2, 1902, quoted in the Library of Congress page linked below, stated that Bessie also did a bag-punching act, and that the sisters were playing with the Oriental Burlesquers. In the late 1890s Belle was the Police Gazette Champion Lady Bag Puncher. The National Police Gazette was one of the first men's magazines, founded in New York City in 1845, with an emphasis on sports and vaudeville.

I have not found the Gordons on the census (yet) but suspect that they were New Yorkers. If I can find out more about them - and I would really like to - I will come back and edit this post. They were mentioned in a New York Times account of an accident in Brooklyn in 1904. Among the witnesses who helped the injured were "Miss Bessie Gordon and Miss Freda [possibly another name used by Minnie], her sister, who appear in a vaudeville boxing match at Coney Island." Bessie/Belle was the most famous of the boxing sisters (including at least Belle, Minnie and/or Freda and Alice, see note below).

And now - without further delay - here are the Boxing Gordon Sisters:



The fabulous photo of Belle Gordon is from Chinese Swords Guide, where there are other Belle pictures, too.

Sources

"Horse Killed At Bridge," New York Times, Aug. 26, 1904, p. 1.
Musser, Charles, ed. Edison Motion Pictures 1890-1901 (Smithsonian, 1997), p. 437.
Schrock, Joel. The Gilded Age (Greenwood Press, 2004),, p. 176.
Streible, Dan. Fight Pictures (University of California Press, 2008), p. 300.

Another terrific photograph of "Belle Gordon, Champion Lady Bag Puncher of the World."

The Gordon Sisters at Weird Wild Realm (more on other early boxing films, too)

And more on early women's boxing here.

National Police Gazette - more information here.

Comedy Set-to at IMDB.

The Library of Congress agrees that the two sisters in the film are probably Bessie and Minnie; but Bessie and a third sister Alice, went on the boxing circuit a few years after this.

Invisible Ventilating Heads

This may well be an advertisement for wigs, but I sense that it is something even more mysterious. The hair is definitely invisible in this ad. But the heads are clearly visible, though well ventilated. So this was all rather mysterious.

Luckily, I found a second, more detailed ad James Barber's The Overland Guide Book (1850). The manufacturers, Ross and Sons, seem to have called their line of hair dyes and hair preparations "The Invisible Ventilating Heads of Hair" - and the illustration is supposed to show how Ross and Sons will measure your head.

They also sold Botanic Water, Bears' Grease, Tooth-Picks and Tooth Brushes, and shaving supplies at their shop at 119-120 Bishopsgate Street, London. Which doesn't clarify much. Although these advertisements must have got people's attention, which is something.

From the New York Public Library Digital Gallery; the longer ad is from Google Books, where you can read the text of the ad if you are so inclined.

A Bitterness Beyond Endurance: The Tragedy of Emily Hall

It was April of 1895 when a newspaper reporter walked into Frank Gibbs' undertaker's shop, for reasons that were never made clear later. People were too busy trying to figure out what came of that visit, to wonder why he was there in the first place. The reporter was walking around and in doing so kicked at one of the coffins. Gibbs cried out "Here! Don't kick that coffin, there's a body in it, and I've got $100 for keeping it."

The newspaperman reported this to the Board of Health, and they promptly began to investigate. Inside the coffin was the embalmed body of a girl. She had been in the shop for two months; no one had claimed her. The death certificate was produced. The girl was Myrtle Cook from Bay City, Michigan, and had died in February of pneumonia.

Gibbs, frightened by the Board of Health investigation, had her buried in Potter's Field. He told several different stories about where he had got the body. He knew nothing, he said, except that he had picked it up at a house near the corner of Piquette Avenue and 12th Street (oddly, there does not appear to be a corner where these streets intersect, at least according to Google Maps). The house was the Lanes' residence (the lying-in hospital was located at 630 Lincoln).

Gibbs' former assistant John Jennings was located and he was more helpful. He identified the Lanes as the people who had hired Gibbs. The Lanes didn't want to talk, not did Dr. Seaman, though he had signed the death certificate. The Board of Health ordered her body to be exhumed and put on display for five days in hopes of getting a better ID.

A woman named Jennie Wilson said she had known Emily when they were both patients at the Lanes'. Her name was not Myrtle Cook and she wasn't from Michigan. She was English-born Emily Hall. Emily had arrived in January 1895 and had died "in frightful agony" on the 6th of February "after undergoing an operation." She identified the body conclusively as that of her friend Emily Hall.

Emily Hall was a poor but educated young woman about 25 years old, from Blackheath, Staffordshire. She was a devout Methodist who hoped to become a lay preacher (women were often Methodist lay preachers; my distant cousin Almira Losee was one). She was hired by the Reverend Jonathan* Bell in the spring of 1894. to care for Mrs. Bell, who was ill after childbirth. The Bells lived at Primrose Villa, Blackheath. And Jonathan Bell was none other than Frederick Bell, the Singing Preacher, who was well known for his singing, dramatic preaching and propensity for trouble making.*

Emily soon found herself in what the Victorians liked to call an interesting condition. The most sensible idea might have been to send Emily to London or Leeds, where there were hospitals; or to friends. Instead, Bell contrived to send her alone across the Atlantic. And she, apologetic and humble, agreed. In one letter she wrote to Bell, poor Emily promised to be brave, not to tell - and added that she was sorry. But Bell had a relative near Detroit and seems to have known just what to do (which suggests that perhaps he had employed the Lane Lying-In Hospital before).

Bell told Emily to write to her parents and tell them that she was going to stay with friends in Leeds, in November; in December, she wrote and said she was going abroad to work as a lady's companion. They would ever see Emily again. Sometime in December, Bell went to America to visit his brother in law, Rev. William Pease, in St. Clair, Michigan. He must have contacted the Lanes at this point. Pease must have recommended them: St. Clair is very near Detroit.

Emily sailed for New York, from Liverpool on the Majestic; she arrived on January 23, 1895. She was carrying detailed instructions on how to reach the Lane Lying-In Hospital in Detroit, which she managed to find after some difficulty. Dr. Seaman performed was was probably an abortion gone wrong and she died on February 6.

Letters were found by the police from 'Jonathan' to Emily and Emily to him; and from Emily to her cousin Joseph in England, all mentioning her trouble. The Lanes also gave police a registered letter that Bell wrote to them, enclosing $50, "the price for the work." There was also a letter that the Lanes had written to Bell, saying that Emily had left them and taken the train back to New York on February 6 or 7 - that she had disliked the Lanes' hospitality and "was odd and had a mind and strong will of her own."

The Lanes and Seaman were arrested for manslaughter in March or April 1895, but Bell was nowhere to be found. His wife in England told reporters that she feared he had killed himself. And a body was found in a pit near Blackheath that was rumored to be him. Alice Lane and Dr. Seaman were both sentenced to ten years in prison. And Emily Hall, of course, was sentenced to death. But Bell was to reappear in Brooklyn, New York two years after this, working as a fortune-teller, buoyant as ever. This was not the work Emily Hall had meant for him to carry on. For she wrote to Bell from Leeds, just before her last journey:

You will never be betrayed by me...Don't, dear, be angry with me. The part I played with you has left a bitterness beyond endurance. We were both weak. I cannot look back without a shudder; but I know the Lord has forgiven me. Do exactly what you like; but, come back and go on with your work with fresh help from above. I will do my best to get well and be brave.

******

*Using the name Jonathan was Fred Bell's odd attempt at a pseudonym. He was definitely identified as the same Frederick Bell who had been at the Park Avenue Primitive Methodist Church in Brooklyn (and many other places), in several publications.

The Fred Bell Series

The Singing Preacher
A Plot For A Million
The Case of Mary Morris
The British Ministerial Freak

Sources

"Emily Hall's Fate: An English Clergyman Said To Have Caused Her to Be Sent Here," New York Sun, Apr. 22, 1895, p. 3.
"Jonathan A Supposed Alias," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Apr. 26, 1895, p. 2.
"Confessed Before He Fled: Pastor Bell Acknowledged Complicity With the Detroit Crime," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Apr. 27, 1895, p. 1.
"Has Mr. Bell Killed Himself?" New York Sun, Apr. 28, 1895, Part 1, Image 1.
"Rumor of Jonathan Bell's Death," New York Times, Apr. 28, 1895, p. 5.
"He Was Her Ruin," Syracuse Evening Herald, link here at Fulton History.
"Emily Hall's Friends Active," New York Times, May 1, 1895, p. 5.
"The Murder of Emily Hall," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jul. 12, 1895, p. 1.
[No Title], New York Times, Dec. 12, 1895, p. 5. [Dr. Seaman's second trial for manslaughter, new trial granted "on errors."]
"Dr. D.J. Seaman Again Convicted," New York Times, Feb. 20, 1896, p. 9.
"Sentenced to Ten Years," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Mar. 7, 1896, p. 1.

Detroit City and Wayne County Directory 1893-4, digitized at DistantCousin.com:
D. Joseph Seaman, drugs, 192 Hastings [not listed as a physician]
H.B. and Alice Lane not listed, see here.
Frank Gibbs, undertaker, 25 Miami Ave.

Images from Wikimedia Commons from the series Past and Present (1858) by Augustus Egg.

NOTE: In the interests of not further overwhelming this blog and its readers (!), I have omitted some details, such as the letters quoted at length in the newspapers, and biographical details of minor characters such as the Peases, and Alice Lane's and Dennis J. Seaman's 1900 census enumerations in prison. But I hope to write in greater detail about Frederick/Jonathan Bell in the future, as part of all of a book.

The Hartz of the Mystery

The name of Hartz is famous in the world of Victorian magic. Augustus and Joseph Hartz, born in England to German parents, were well known for their performing skills and innovative tricks. The brothers came to the US to tour in the 1860s. Augustus Hartz settled in the US and opened several magic shops in various parts of the US in the 1870s, including New York City.

Augustus Hartz (1843-1929) was the younger brother of Joseph Hartz (1836-1903), a magician famous for his "Floating Head" trick and also for conjuring many strange things out of hats - such as bottes, ribbons, bones and rabbits. Joseph was also known for what he called "Crystal Magic" - working with transparent objects only, so that he seemed not to be using any special tricks. Joseph patented several of his magic tricks. I wrote about one, the Magic Bon Bon Box, in an earlier post.

Augustus Hartz specialized in making a woman seem to vanish from her chair. He also performed his brother's "Inexhaustible Hat" trick. According to MagicPedia, Joseph and Augustus Hartz had a magic shop in New York City in the 1870s. Augustus settled in Cleveland, Ohio about 1880, and left the stage; though he later managed the Park Theater in that city.

And then there was the rather mysterious George Hartz, of Hartz and Levy in the above ad. George Hartz and Mark A. Levy ran the Magical Bazaar at 1131 Broadway in New York City in the late 1870s. In 1871 they had run the Magical Repository in Boston, at 309 Washington Street. George Hartz was born in England about 1846, like the famous Hartz brothers - just the right age to (perhaps) be a brother of theirs.

I assume that George Hartz was a relative of Augustus and Joseph Hartz. George and Augustus were two separate individuals: Augustus was enumerated in Cleveland in the 1880 census and listed his occupation as "Traveling Showman." Joseph had gone back to Europe by 1880. George Hartz was living with the Levy family (his wife's family - Mark was his brother in law) in New York in 1880 and did not list a profession. In 1880, Mark Levy was listed in the census as a Marble Dealer. The Magical Bazaar was no more.

Perhaps the two Hartz magic shops on Broadway was just a strange - perhaps magical - coincidence. As for the Oriental Trick Ball, the ad does not make it abundantly clear what it did. I am hoping that readers better versed in magic history will illuminate this and anything else about the Hartz family, in the comments.

Advertisement from Guide to N.Y.C. and vicinity (1873) at Internet Archive.

Christopher, Milbourne. Magic: A Picture History. (New York: Dover, 1991), p. 107.
Vacha, John. Showtime in Cleveland (Kent State UP, 2001), p. 56.
An excellent short biography of Joseph Hartz is here at Magicnook.

George Hartz: 1880 US Census, Isabella A. Levy household, New York City Ward 16, see here at FamilySearch.

Augustus Hartz: 1880 US Census, R.M.N. Taylor household, Glenville, Cuyahoga, Ohio, see here at FamilySearch. Augustus states that he was English-born, like George, which strengthens the possibility of their being related.

Seaside Belle and Seaside Medicine

This elegant lady is Miss Helen Dacre, who knows a thing or two about how to make a splash at a costume party. How cunning she looks with a little tin bucket and shovel on her head! I am not sure what she has pinned to her dress, but I'm sure it ties in with the beach in some way.

And when she does stroll on the beach, she can use her bucket to scoop up some medicine and make a nice profit to put towards future costume ideas.

The American Medical Association will explain: there was, around the year 1909, a company in Westchester, New York (just north of New York City) which sold something called Health Grains.

Health Grains came in a nice little tin, and you were to roll a teaspoonful of the grains around in your mouth - don't crunch on them! - and then swallow them. They were supposed to be a digestive aid after meals - rather like Tums, only grainier.

And sandier, too. The AMA analyzed them and found out that Health Grains were actually beach sand, mixed with rock candy syrup.

The Seaside Belle cigarette card is from the NYPL Digital Gallery. The information on Health Grains is from the AMA's book Nostrums and Quackery (Chicago, 1912), pp 690-91.

Fourth of July Upon the Hudson

Happy Fourth of July!

Here are some celebrants in New York in the 1850s, the Puffin family. They are looking forward to some mint juleps and brandy cocktails, with the probable exceptions of Mr. Paul Crayon, the poetic suitor of Miss Puffin (he is under her parasol) and the poodle, who is named Carlo.

Oh, and the ladies will take lemonade instead of brandy, if you please.

Have a wonderful holiday, all of you who are celebrating.

Image from NYPL Digital Gallery, of an 1850s Fourth of July upon the Hudson, from Harper's Magazine.

That Cosmopolitan Girl, 1887

Here is what the well-dressed modern young woman might have been wearing under her fashionable dress in the late 1880s. And these undergarments are both hygienic and artistic - a winning combination indeed!

Mrs Fletcher's rival, Mrs. E.M. Van Brunt, was the subject of an earlier post here (hence the link!).

I am trying to imagine what exactly a Breakfast Corset would have been like. Was it looser, so you could eat pancakes? And Corselettes were to be worn at the seaside under your bathing costume, apparently. Wait at least an hour after breakfast before you change into the Corselette, though.

This advertisement is from an 1887 Cosmopolitan magazine (way before the Helen Gurley Brown era).

Brooklyn's Favorite Palmist

A lady called Mrs. Hicks was "Brooklyn's favorite palmist" according to an 1898 classified ad - and indeed, she had something for everyone. She was a "life reader," reunited loved ones, removed "evil influences," and gave advice of all kinds. In the third week of November 1898, she had a special going in which you could get your future husband's photograph free with a reading.*

The psychic Mrs. Hicks was also a Dermatologist who helped "Ladies Reduce Your Weight, Busts Etc. 5 Lbs Weekly, without medicine" - advocating modern weight-loss hypnosis decades ahead of her time.

She was also an "astro-palmist," an astrologer, and a student of then-famous magician Alexander Herrmann (pictured below), who lived in nearby Whitestone, Queens in the late 19th century (he had just died in 1896). She belonged to the Order of the Magi (see Note below). She predicted election results (she probably meant the 1896 Presidential election - William McKinley won). And she had read 5,000 palms at the 1898 Omaha World's Fair (which she calls the "Omaha Exposition."The Temple of Palmistry at that Fair is shown, above right.

One Eagle ad refers to "Mrs. Hicks Edgar, the celebrated clairvoyant and trance medium of the West," which seems to indicate that she was not originally from New York. She may have been a New Yorker who went out West for awhile, though.

One possible Mrs. Hicks is Catherine (Skidmore) Hicks, who in the late 1890s lived very close to Mrs. Hicks' known address in 1897-98. Catherine Hicks lived at 267 Schermerhorn in 1897, very near Mrs. Hicks Edgar's 1897 address, 359 State St. There was, as you might imagine, a certain tendency for the Brooklyn palmists to move around rather frequently, though in the same general neighborhood.

If I ever find any more clues about the life and identity of Mrs. Hicks, I will let you know. This is exactly the sort of hidden history that I am inspired by - and am sure that somewhere, somehow, more information must exist. It's just a matter of figuring out where it might be...

******
*This made me think of my third great aunt, Lydia (Newell) Hicks, who was a photographer in Brooklyn through the 1870s, whom I have been unable to trace after the mid-1870s. She was an independent, flamboyant woman and I certainly can imagine her reinventing herself as a clairvoyant. But there is no evidence that they were the same person.

Note: The Order of the Magi was an "astrological religion" founded in Chicago in 1889 by Olney H. Richmond, a homeopathic pharmacist (and champion checkers player) who was greatly interested in the occult and in reading the standard (as opposed to Tarot) deck of cards for divination purposes. He wrote several books about divination and Spiritualism. Also see Charles Clifton, Her Hidden Children (2006 ), p. 128, which refers to the Richmond's Order of the Magi as a "magical order." I may write a separate post about Richmond at some point, so have not gone into detail here.

SOURCES

Advertisements for Mrs. Hicks in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

March 21, 1897, p. 28 [Mrs Hicks Edgar, trance medium of the West, address 359 State St]
November 7, 1897, p. 17 [predicted election results - image above]
November 28, 1897, p. 23 [pupil of Herrmann - image above]
May 1, 1898, p. 25 [Mrs. Hicks, Dermatologist]
October 23, 1898 p. 28 [back from Omaha - image above]
November 20, 1898, p. 28 [free photographs]

Lain's Brooklyn City Directory for 1897 has been digitized at the Brooklyn Genealogy Information Page, and the page with the Hicks listings is here. Catherine, at 267 Schermerhorn, is the closest to Mrs. Hicks' known address of this time at 27 Willoughby. There is also a Sherley Hicks at 375 Jay (at Willoughby) whom I have not been able to trace (and might be male or female, as the name was used for both men and women).

The wonderful picture of Alexander Herrmann is from Live Auctioneers (it sold for $24,000!)
The photo of the Temple of Palmistry is from the Omaha Public Library.