The Gilded Age Divorce that Scandalized the New York Public (Women Behaving Badly)

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: All Of It
Host: Alison Stewart (WNYC)
Episode Title: The Gilded Age Divorce that Scandalized the New York Public (Women Behaving Badly)
Guest: Barbara Weisberg, author of Strong: A Scandalous Divorce in Old New York
Date: August 16, 2024

This episode explores the explosive 19th-century divorce of Mary Strong and Peter Remsen Strong—a story filled with secret affairs, societal expectations, and a headline-making trial that gripped New York. As part of the “Women Behaving Badly” series, the conversation delves into Mary’s scandalous relationship with her brother-in-law, the era’s unforgiving divorce laws, and the persistent themes of reputation, gender, and agency in Gilded Age society. Author Barbara Weisberg brings the tale to life, sharing her discoveries and reflections on what made this case so notorious and enduring.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Discovery and Research of the Story

• Barbara Weisberg’s Introduction to the Story

  • Weisberg encountered the story while researching another project; she stumbled across the scandal in the diary of New Yorker George Templeton Strong, a relative to the main participants.

    “He writes about everything having to do with New York in this diary that goes for 40 years, I think. And right in the middle of it, he talks about this terrible divorce that his cousin Peter is going through.”—Barbara Weisberg (02:55)

• How the Research Unfolded

  • Pandemic restrictions shifted Weisberg from library research to deep internet exploration.
  • Unique documents included 1830s passports and long-lost depositions; an archivist at the Municipal Archives even unearthed a “shopping bag” of original testimonies.

    “A few days later, he came out, literally with a shopping bag and all these rolled up yellowed papers. And they were all depositions from people…” —Barbara Weisberg (04:29)

  • Weisberg credits librarians and archivists for making such a detailed history possible.

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2. The Marriage: Mary Stevens and Peter Remsen Strong

• Their Social Standing and Courtship

  • Both came from New York's elite “old money” society—a match rooted in status and love.
  • Peter fell “desperately” for the young, 19-year-old Mary; he was 29.

    “It’s said that Peter fell desperately in love with her when he met her.”—Barbara Weisberg (05:22)

• Early Frictions in the Marriage

  • Immediately after the honeymoon, Mary was uprooted from her urban life to Peter’s family estate in then-rural Queens, surrounded by in-laws.
  • Differences in temperament quickly became pronounced: Peter was a socialite, away often; Mary was religious, serious, and focused on motherhood.

    “Mary almost immediately was taken away from everything she knew and transported into a world where she was surrounded by in laws. And I think that probably from the beginning irked her.”—Barbara Weisberg (06:32) “Peter was kind of a social butterfly…Mary was a more serious person. She was somewhat religious…She was a good mother. And Peter…was off and about and living, I think, a different kind of life.” (07:32)

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3. The Scandal: Affair, Confession, and Trial

• Mary’s Affair with Edward Strong, Her Husband’s Brother

  • Edward, recently widowed, was viewed as “an absolute paragon of virtue”—a church deacon, godfather to the Strongs’ baby, and a Union soldier.
  • The affair was confessed by Mary during a time of grief following their daughter’s death.

    “Edward is just going off to war…so everybody thinks that Edward is just this paragon of virtue.”—Barbara Weisberg (09:04)

• Conflicting Narratives

  • Peter’s family portrayed Mary as the seductress; Mary’s family claimed Edward pressured and possibly assaulted her.

    “One version...is that Mary was a seductress…The other version…is that Edward pressured her and eventually assaulted and may even have raped her.” —Barbara Weisberg (11:01)

  • For Mary, evidence surfaces of both guilt and complicity, revealing how complex her motivations and experiences were.

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4. Divorce and Societal Implications

• Extreme Rarity and Legal Obstacles

  • Divorce was “almost impossible” in New York at the time. Only adultery constituted legal grounds—not cruelty or desertion.
  • Societal norms dictated quiet separation rather than legal dissolution; proceeding with a divorce aired dirty laundry, especially among the elite.

    “To sue for divorce means that you’re basically advertising infidelity. Nobody really wants to do that, particularly the snooty upper class, who, again, have this reputation to uphold.” —Barbara Weisberg (13:20)

• Disaster for Women

  • Divorced women lost both financial support and custody of their children.

    “For women at the time, divorce is really a disaster…even worse, in most situations, women lose custody of their kids…In a divorce situation, the father gets custody of the children.” —Barbara Weisberg (13:53)

• Mary’s Desperation

  • Fearing she would lose her children, Mary fled with their youngest daughter.

    “Absolutely. It seemed very clear that Peter…wanted full custody of the children, wanted to control whether or not Mary was allowed to see them...” —Barbara Weisberg (14:30)

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5. Abortion and Social Change

• Attitudes Toward Abortion

  • Early 19th-century America was relatively permissive (“pre-quickening” abortions unpunished), but by mid-century, increasing criminalization occurred as male doctors dominated women’s healthcare.
  • Class played a significant role—elite women’s abortions provoked greater scandal.

    “For a good at least half a century, abortion was readily available, and then it became less available as the century wore on.”—Barbara Weisberg (16:42)

• Was There An Abortion?

  • The records are inconclusive. Weisberg suspects Peter orchestrated it and “paid off” the abortionist, who was his tenant.

    “It was awfully convenient that this abortionist actually was a tenant of Peter’s, and that Peter continually visited the abortionist…and then he gave her…wonderful terms on her lease. So I felt like there’s a payoff going on there.” —Barbara Weisberg (17:48)

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6. Public Fascination with the Case

• Escapism in a Time of War
  • The trial gripped the public, offering a distraction from Civil War tragedies and the assassination of Lincoln.
  • Unlike modern celebrities, high society then fiercely guarded its privacy, making the scandal even juicier.

    “There’s nothing like high society gossip to take your mind off more painful, more painful topics…this divorce broadcast this bad behavior from Boston to San Francisco…” —Barbara Weisberg (18:54)

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7. Mary’s Connection to Edith Wharton

• Family Ties and Literary Resonance
  • Mary Strong was Edith Wharton’s first cousin once removed; Wharton later famously wrote about similar themes.
  • No evidence that Wharton directly used Mary’s story, but the themes of reputation, marriage, and divorce are unmistakably shared.

    “…the very themes that Wharton writes about—marriage and divorce in an age of tremendous transition—is really the stuff of the strong story.” —Barbara Weisberg (20:50)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Librarians and Archives:

  “Librarians are wonderful.” —Barbara Weisberg (05:02)

• On Gendered Expectations:

  “Women in Victorian America are supposed to be genteel and they’re supposed to be proper and they’re supposed to be well behaved, not badly behaved. Oh, no, no, no, no.” —Barbara Weisberg (10:17)

• On Social Change and Abortion:

  "As doctors take over the business of women's medicine, they are less sympathetic to women's needs. And you begin to have laws criminalizing abortion really from quickening on." —Barbara Weisberg (15:51)

• On the Enduring Mystery:

  “There are mysteries about the human heart that really can’t be resolved.” —Barbara Weisberg (17:45)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 01:35–02:54 — Episode Introduction & setup of the Strong divorce case
• 02:55–05:03 — Weisberg’s discovery and research process
• 05:03–08:19 — Mary and Peter Strong: marriage beginnings, lifestyle, and early frictions
• 08:19–12:21 — The affair: Edward Strong, conflict, and perspectives on guilt
• 12:21–14:49 — Divorce law in 19th-century New York and consequences for women
• 14:49–17:36 — Abortion in 1800s society and its role in the Strong case
• 17:36–18:30 — Was there really an abortion?
• 18:30–19:55 — Why the case gripped New York’s attention
• 19:55–21:14 — Mary’s connection to Edith Wharton and cultural legacies

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Final Thoughts

The episode not only exposes a forgotten slice of sensational New York history but also draws parallels to modern debates about gender, privacy, and women's agency. With sharp research and thoughtful speculation, Barbara Weisberg breathes new life into the Gilded Age’s most notorious divorce, serving up a rich tale of love, betrayal, and society’s rules—then and now.

Transcript

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[Alison Stewart]

You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. A scandalous affair, a kidnapping, a high profile divorce trial with accusations of forced abortion. These aren't plot lines from the latest premium streaming drama. They are the details from the shocking true story of a 19th century New York City divorce. Mary Strong and her husband Peter came from old money families in New York high society. It was by all accounts a good match, even one made for love. But in 1862, Mary made a shocking confession. She had been carrying on an affair with Peter's younger brother Edward. What's more, she was pregnant. The child could have been either brother's attempts to keep the scandal a secret eventually ended when Mary fled the city with the couple's youngest child and Peter filed for divorce. The resulting trial captivated the public in the 1800s and over a century later caught the attention of my next guest. Author Barbara Weisberg recounts the story of this contentious marriage in her book Strong A Scandalous Divorce in Old New York. We are speaking to her as part of our series Women Behaving A Tongue in Cheek. Look at Unruly Woman in New York City. I began my conversation with Barbara by asking her when she first encountered this story.

[Barbara Weisberg]

Oh, a long time ago. I was working on another project and I came across it in a diary of a New Yorker named George Templeton Strong. And he writes about everything having to do with New York in this diary that goes for 40 years, I think. And right in the middle of it, he talks about this terrible divorce that his cousin Peter is going through. And so there's a real personal connection between George and Peter, the divorced guy in my book. And this story just fascinated me. And I kept on researching it in bits and pieces through the years.

[Alison Stewart]

Yeah. What kind of research were you able to do?

[Barbara Weisberg]

Well, it was difficult because, as you well know, we had a pandemic in the middle of my trying to do my research. And I love libraries, so I had to kind of learn how to do my Internet research. But it is astonishing what one can find up there now. Passports from 1830, where you can see people's pictures and discover descriptions of them. Before the pandemic, I was able to go to the New York Municipal Archives and there's a wonderful archivist there who helped me. And it was all very official and everything was filed away, all these divorce papers. But I went back after the pandemic and said, oh, can't you find more? Can't you find more? And he said, well, this is Catalon, it's right here. And a few days later, he came out, literally with a shopping bag and all these rolled up yellowed papers. And they were all depositions from people who had not formally testified at the trial. But these were just sort of packed away in the library. And he unearthed them for me in the shelves. Librarians are wonderful.

[Alison Stewart]

We're talking with Barbara Weisberg, the author of Strong A Scandalous Divorce in Old New York. Let's get into the actual participants. Mary Stevens and Peter Remsen Strong met in 1852. She was only 19, he was 29. What drew them together.

[Barbara Weisberg]

Something very important back in the day, was what social class you were from. And they were both from the same class of wealthy merchants lawyers, what were called the world of old New York. Prim and proper and fancy. But they were also both lively, interesting, well educated young people. And it's said that Peter fell desperately in love with her when he met her.

[Alison Stewart]

Let's talk about the affair. You said that they were a good looking couple, a couple that were meant to be together, but obviously there was some friction that started to fray. What was the first encounter of something was wrong? What was the first encounter of something wrong?

[Barbara Weisberg]

Well, I actually think the first encounter of something wrong occurred almost immediately after the couple's honeymoon. Because Mary was very much an urban creature. She was raised right smack on Bleecker Street. And as soon as they Got married. Peter took his bride to the country. Now, the country at the time was Bukala Queens, but he lived there on an estate that belonged to his wealthy mother. And it was basically a family compound for Peter's family. His four brothers lived there. One of his sisters lived there with their spouses and their kids. So Mary almost immediately was taken away from everything she knew and transported into a world where she was surrounded by in laws. And I think that probably from the beginning irked her. I would think there were certainly differences in temperament between the two of them. Peter was kind of a social butterfly who. He had an inheritance, and even though he was trained as a lawyer, he chose not to work. And he was away fairly often. He would come into Manhattan and visit his friends and his clubs. Mary was a more serious person. She was somewhat religious. And of course, they began to have children. They had three daughters. And she was at home at the family compound in Queens. Being a mother, which she loved, she was a good mother. And Peter loved his children also, but he was off and about and living, I think, a different kind of life.

[Alison Stewart]

We're talking with Barbara Weisberg. She's the author of Strong Passions. A scandalous divorce in New York. It's the case of Peter and Mary Strong, the divorce that shocked 19th century New York. Now, Mary had an affair with Edward Strong, who happens to be her husband's brother. She, in the throes of grief because their daughter died, she announces that she's had an affair and had an affair with Edward Strong. So let's start with what do we know about Edward Strong.

[Barbara Weisberg]

Edward was a widower, and he was considered an absolute paragon of virtue. He was the church deacon, and he was the godfather to Peter and Mary's little baby daughter, who had just died. When Mary confesses to the affair to her husband, Edward is just going off to war. He has volunteered to be a Union soldier. So everybody thinks that Edward is just this paragon of virtue. He is something of a daredevil. We begin to see a little bit in the war that he does accomplish some very interesting feats. He takes Confederate soldiers through front lines to bring them to a different prison and is decorated and is promoted. So he is a bit of a daredevil, but he nevertheless is also supposedly very religious, very moral, very good godfather to their baby.

[Alison Stewart]

Let's look at two ways that Mary views what happened and what Peter views would happen. What's Peter's version of what happened?

[Barbara Weisberg]

Peter's version of what happened is that his wife completely betrays him. And I think he is utterly shocked and utterly horrified, because in women in Victorian America are supposed to be genteel and they're supposed to be proper and they're supposed to be well behaved, not badly behaved. Oh, no, no, no, no. So he is horrified. Mary says that there are two different versions of how this affair may have begun and they come out at the trial. And one version, which is Peter's family's version, is that Mary was a seductress who seduced Edward. The other version, which is Mary's family's version, is that Edward pressured her and eventually assaulted and may even have raped her. And at that point, the relationship continued from there, as we know, can sometimes happen with victims of assault. So for Mary, what you hear is tremendous guilt and tremendous ambivalence. But she is also said. She is said to say that there were times when she felt comfortable in the affair and did not feel guilty and therefore may have been really complicit in it.

[Alison Stewart]

Let's talk about divorce at the time. How common was divorce? What allowed someone to file for divorce in New York City?

[Barbara Weisberg]

Divorce at the time was really rare and almost impossible to get to the point where couples who wanted to divorce often just split. Maybe the husband would go west or the wife would run off to her own family. One of the reasons it was so difficult to get was that marriages were revered and to break that bond was considered something that undermined the very foundation of. Of the state. So one partner or the other had to be found at fault for a divorce even to be considered. And what happens in New York, which is very strict, is that the only fault on which a divorce will be granted is. Is adultery, and that's cruelty. Doesn't count. Desertion doesn't count, only adultery. So to sue for divorce means that you're basically advertising infidelity. Nobody really wants to do that, particularly the snooty upper class, who, again, have this reputation to uphold. But for women at the time, divorce is really a disaster because women most often depend on their husband for income. Women are not allowed to work in most situations, and even worse, in most situations, women lose custody of their kids. In a divorce situation, the father gets custody, the father gets custody of the children.

[Alison Stewart]

So is that the reason why Mary ran away with their youngest daughter with Allie?

[Barbara Weisberg]

Absolutely. It seemed very clear that Peter was wanted full custody of the children, wanted to control whether or not Mary was allowed to see them and would indeed have gotten custody in court.

[Alison Stewart]

Abortion enters the story when Mary reveals that she was pregnant. Yes, the family claimed that Peter forced his wife to end her pregnancy after he learned of the affair. Let's talk it broadly. What were the societal opinions and attitudes towards abortion at the time?

[Barbara Weisberg]

For the first half of the 19th century, abortion was basically widely accepted, and nobody really paid any attention to it. By that, I mean an abortion pre quickening was widely accepted, and quickening of the first movements of the baby in the womb after that, after quickening, it was considered illegal, and there would be a fine or possibly prison term. By the middle of the century, male doctors had taken over the whole business of women's medicine from midwives. Women's medicine was lucrative, and they were becoming more interested in their reputation and finances as physicians. What happens is, as doctors take over the business of women's medicine, they are less sympathetic to women's needs. And you begin to have laws criminalizing abortion really from quickening on. And as these laws become stricter, they also. It's a class situation because they could ignore abortion if it was poor women or single women. But the attitudes were more and more married and wealthy women were looking to have abortions, and this would never do because, of course, the better class of children were the ones who supposedly needed to be born. And so by the end of the century, you begin to have very strict abortion laws. That was not true before. So for a good at least half a century, abortion was readily available, and then it became less available as the century wore on.

[Alison Stewart]

Through your research, could you tell, Did Mary have an abortion?

[Barbara Weisberg]

We don't know for sure. And one of the reasons I really like stories like strong passions is that there are mysteries about the human heart that really can't be resolved. But my instinct is that it was awfully convenient that this abortionist actually was a tenant of Peter's, and that Peter continually visited the abortionist and then he gave her. Right around the time Mary was supposed to have the abortion, he gave his tenant, the abortionist, wonderful terms on her lease. So I felt like there's a payoff going on there.

[Alison Stewart]

Given everything that was going on at this time, why do you think people were gravitating towards this story? It was in the papers.

[Barbara Weisberg]

I think people were looking for some distraction from the absolute horrors of war. Every family was dealing with death and wounded relatives and Lincoln's assassination and such a terrible time. And as we know, in our day and age, there's nothing like high society gossip to take your mind off more painful, more painful topics. And it was particularly interesting at the time because unlike now, when celebrities really want all the news about their lives broadcast everywhere. The upper class was very private, very insular, had a. You know, cared about discretion. No matter what they did, they cared about discretion and not having it out in the news. So the fact that this divorce broadcast this bad behavior from Boston to San Francisco was very unusual and very thrilling.

[Alison Stewart]

I think I do want to point out, before you go, is that Mary has a connection to Edith Wharton, who later had her own divorce and wrote about high society women entrenched in scandal. What was the family connection? Do we know if Mary was an inspiration to Edith Wharton?

[Barbara Weisberg]

Mary is 30 years older than Wharton, but Wharton is Mary's first cousin once removed. That means that Wharton's mother. I'm pretty sure this is how it goes. Wharton's mother is Mary's first cousin. But in any event, Mary and Wharton are cousins. I have found no direct evidence that Wharton draws specifically on the story of the Strongs in any of her works. I haven't seen evidence of that in any of the letters that I have encountered. However, the very themes that Wharton writes about marriage and divorce in an age of tremendous transition is really the stuff of the strong story.

[Alison Stewart]

That was my conversation with author Barbara Weisberg, author of the new book Strong A Scandalous Divorce in Old New York. And that is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart. I appreciate you listening and I appreciate you. I. I will meet you back here on Monday. Have a great weekend.

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[Barbara Weisberg]

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