Barbara Weisberg

This is a marvelous example of what good history can do: putting bits of things one might (or might not) already know into a useful context.

I've known about the Fox sisters and the rapping they introduced from whence seances and Spiritualism both developed. I knew they were young, that the rapping sound started at night while they were in bed, and that the sounds were eventually credited to knuckle-popping of the toes. Now because of when I first read about them, I pictured them as Laura and show more Mary Ingalls. What I didn't know is everything else in this book: the background of the family, how an older sister would also have a career as a medium, why their mother took them on the road, how many people in early Spiritualism were also involved in other progressive issues such as women's rights and abolition...just so much.

Weisberg does a marvelous job of sifting through all the documentation, all the newspaper reports and books and diaries and letters for the illuminating quote. Altogether she covers fifty or so years (more time spent on the early, rather than the later), and manages to convey both their lives as celebrities and their personal relationships. It's a weird and fascinating story with some odd addenda, well-told.

Gift copy for Kindle. show less

For some reason Talking to the Dead became a slog for me even though I also enjoyed learning more about the rise of Spiritualism generally and the Fox Sisters specifically. I wanted to know more about the history of the movement after my partner and I visited Lily Dale this summer. Although nothing there convinced me that the mediums there hwere channeling the dead, it is a lovely village in which to spend a weekend and they tave the largest collection of Susan B. Anthony objects in the show more world. She spoke there a bunch of times and visited even more. They hosted Women's Suffrage summits for many years and long before women were able to vote. The Lily Dale museum has a good deal of ephemera from those events - buttons, photographs, letters, yearbooks. The connection between the early women's movement and Spiritualism fascinated me. While this book didn't discuss that in too much detail, it described the circumstances of Spiritualism's early days in ways that helped me see how the two things were linked. It also fascinates me how that little part of New York became a hotbed of new religious movements - Spiritualism, Mormonism, the Oenida movement and others I'm forgetting all had their genesis there in a relatively short time period. She discusses that briefly in the beginning of the book, but I'm likely to go looking for something that provides more details about that phenomenon.

The history of the sisters themselves along with all of the 'tests' of their mediumship were detailed and thorough. I can't really say where it stopped holding my interest. Perhaps the people themselves just weren't that interesting. I did like hearing of all of the famous and important people of the era believed in Spiritualism and the ability to contact the dead. I was already familiar with the possibility of the great uprising of belief in the ability to contact the dead was a result of the grief connected to so many people dying. There was a cholera outbreak when the Fox sisters started hearing knocks and, of course, the Civil War and its atrocities began not that long into the increased openness to Spiritualism Weisberg also explores the possibility that their willingness to believe, or at least reserve judgement, was tied to the technological developments at that time - telegraph, electricity - was interesting and thought provoking.

Honestly, if you are interested in the rise of Spiritualism in general and the Fox sisters specifically, this is a fine book to get a thorough look at that history without an underlying agenda of belief or disbelief. My recommendation is that, if you can, you should visit Lily Dale instead. show less

It's certainly probably just me, because so many people gave this book top ratings, but while the subject matter was quite interesting, I thought the presentation of it to be just kind of dull. The book runs along the lines of an introduction to Spiritualism (a phrase coined by Horace Greeley (147-148)) in the United States, starting with the Fox sisters, Kate and Maggie, in the late 1840s. It is the author's thought that starting with these two and their experiences with spirit rapping from show more the time of their childhood, American Spiritualism became a phenomenon. The question is why? I've long been interested in the topic of the Fox Sisters, in fraudulent mediumship and in the growth of the spiritualist movement in general, and although this book is helpful, in hindsight, I probably wouldn't have started with this one (although I certainly would have eventually not missed it) in gaining some knowledge about the subject.

The info between the covers is interesting, and I think I might have enjoyed it more with a better presentation of the story. show less

Strong Passions: A Scandalous Divorce in Old New York
recounts the tumultuous marriage of Peter and Mary Strong and the legal and personal aspects of pursuing divorce in upper crust New York, 1862.

If you check the acknowledgments, notes and bibliography, you will
realize it is far more than a cursory biographical sketch of divorce in "old New York".

It is quite intense reading and would definitely appeal to those interested in New York history.

"Weisberg uses a scandalous divorce to illuminate show more tensions surrounding marriage, gender, and sexuality in Edith Wharton's upper-class New York City." (Clifton Hood)

I would not suggest this biography to those looking for a light read.
It can definitely be appreciated by someone looking for in-depth period material. show less