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Civics & Coffee: A History Podcast
Gilded Age Espionage: Alias Agnes with Dr. Elizabeth DeWolfe
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to Civics and Coffee, a history podcast. The show all about United States history delivered to you in the time it takes to enjoy your morning cup of coffee. I'm your host, Alicia, a historian trained in United States history with a passion for telling both the known and unknown parts of America's past. So grab your coffee and get ready for some bite sized history. Welcome back everyone. I'm happy to introduce this week's conversation with Dr. Elizabeth DeWolf, author of Alias, the notorious tale of a Gilded Age spy. As you'll pick up from our discussion, this is a book that reads like historical fiction and is an engrossing history exploring the limitations of women during the Gilded Age. I hope you all enjoy the conversation. Hello everyone. Joining me today is Dr. Elizabeth Dwolf. She is a professor of history and co founder of the Women's Studies program at the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine where she teaches courses in women's history, American culture and archival research. She is also an award winning author whose latest book, Alias, the notorious tale of a Gilded Age Spy, will be the focus of our conversation today. Welcome, Dr. DeWolfe.
- [01:18]
B
Thank you. It is such a pleasure to be here.
- [01:21]
A
I'm so happy to have you. Let's dive into this incredible book and we'll start with the easy question.
- [01:27]
B
How did you come to write about
- [01:29]
A
a breach of contract case in the Gilded Age?
- [01:32]
B
I first learned of this case actually at an antique show at a New Hampshire hockey rink where I stumbled on an 1894 book about about the case. And it was basically a compilation of the day by day newspaper articles. As this breach of promise trial unfolded, I was really intrigued by this young woman named Madeleine Pollard and her willingness to call out Breckenridge, a US Congressman, on his bad behavior. So I didn't buy the book at that moment, but that night when I went home, it was still in my head. And so I did a little quick Google research and I learned that no one had really written about this case. And the few articles that existed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries were written by male historians. And their focus was really on Breckinridge's career and how this scandal ruined his political life. But there was virtually nothing on Madeleine before or after her 15 minutes of fame. And it was at that point I knew I'd found my project. So my initial intent was to write a biography of Madeline Pollard centered on this breach of promise trial. But the archive has a way of derailing your plans. And when I found hints and then confirmation of the spy, Agnes Parker, and uncovered her identity as Jane Armstrong, a fellow Mainer. My project took a very unexpected and
- [03:16]
A
delightful turn, Ed, so you kind of gave us a little hint in your previous answer. But for those who might be unfamiliar, who were William Breckenridge and Madeleine Pollard?
- [03:29]
B
William Breckenridge was a Lexington, Kentucky lawyer, Civil War veteran, and in the 1880s was an up and coming politician from a well known and well admired Kentucky family. Madeleine Pollard was also from Kentucky. She suffered a very difficult childhood when her father unexpectedly died when Madeline was 12 years old. And his death shattered the Pollard family. Some of her siblings were sent to an orphanage. Her youngest infant sibling stayed with mom and Madeline was sent to live with a succession of aunts. And the Pollard family never lived altogether ever again. Now, Madeline wanted more than anything in the world an education. She was a precocious reader. She was intellectually motivated. She wanted that life of art and travel and literature and culture. But how could she afford it? So she made a deal with an older bachelor farmer from Kentucky, a man named James Rhodes. He would pay her tuition if at the conclusion of her education, she would marry him. Or Madeline said, I'll pay you back. And so off she goes to Cincinnati Wesleyan Female College, a very good school, and she loved it. The classes, her like minded classmates, the debate club. She was in her element. And then James Rhodes ran out of money and said, madeleine, it's time to marry. And Madeleine did not want to marry a bachelor farmer. The education was supposed to free her from that life that she witnessed in her aunt's households. And so she recalled, just a few weeks earlier, by chance, she had met William Breckenridge on a train. Now he was running for Congress, so he was no doubt going up and down the aisles, glad handing his future constituents. She wrote him a letter. He came to Cincinnati. He visited during visiting hours of the college and he suggested, Madeline, this discussion should be more private. Let's take a carriage ride. And so, on an August sultry night in a carriage with closed windows, Breckenridge made his move. Yada, yada yada. Three days later, Madeleine was his mistress. It was 1884. She was 20, he was almost 30 years her senior. And he had a daughter the same age that at the very same week he had just dropped off at Wellesley College for her freshman year.
- [06:20]
A
So as much as this is a story about a kind of notorious court case, this is also about some of the themes that we see a lot
- [06:28]
B
in the Gilded Age.
- [06:29]
A
So can you talk about the strict social codes governing middle class women's lives during this era.
- [06:35]
B
It was an incredibly fraught period to be a middle class woman. The key here was reputation, and the word was respectability. So respectability before marriage protected your father's name and made you a more desirable future, future wife. And respectability after marriage protected your husband's name and solidified your membership in the middle class. So what was respectable? Well, certainly beyond the obvious sexual connotations of virginity until marriage, respectability was enacted in every facet of a woman's daily life. In her speech, her dress, the food she served, the books she read, how she ran her home and with whom she socialized. One wrong move, one mistake in the complex, complicated etiquette of the day, which was really the social kind of constraints, the goalposts and the rules for middle class society. One wrong move and your reputation and your social aspirations were sunk. And so we see the importance of this respectability even in Jane Tucker. When her mother, after the trial, learns what Jane had actually been doing, spying, she was aghast, as if the Breckenridge Pollard scandal was somehow contagious and would ruin Jane's respectability. And of course, Madeleine on the stand is scrutinized for that very scandal and whether her position, nine years, a nine year affair with Breckenridge, nine years later and she is in Washington society as somewhat of an it girl. Of course, no one knows her hidden secret, but on the trial, Madeleine had to show that her, her status there was legitimately earned. Or did she break the rules and jump social barriers to get into a higher class? So respectability was about the legitimacy of your position in your social niche.
- [09:01]
A
Yeah. And you talk about how breach of promise laws were kind of an avenue to kind of come back for of that derision. Right. So what were breach of promise laws and how did they serve as a potential remedy for middle class white women?
- [09:22]
B
It was very clever and very astute of Madeleine to sue Breckenridge for breach of promise because it is very much a remedy used by the middle and the leisured classes. So in claiming breach of promise, she's automatically putting herself in that class. So breach of promise laws restored respectability to middle class women who were left at the altar or otherwise jilted or insulted by men. And this would be a court ordered remedy to restore that respectability. A way that the court says to a woman, it's not you, it's him. It's a way to protect family honor and a way to protect marriageability. But it's also a way of social policing of middle class men. Breckinridge was not the only one to take a mistress. One reason the Pollard Breckenridge trial was watched so closely was that in many ways, Madeleine Pollard, for the middle class, was one of their own. She was a studious college girl. If she had been a domestic servant, no one would have cared. But because she was in college when this seduction occurred, because she was seen as a legitimate member of society, middle class observers were well aware that their daughter could have been in Madeline Pollard's shoes, if not in college, than in any of the other social situations where they might have interacted with well known, well admired men of their same social class, just like Breckenridge. That was the issue here. He had seduced a woman of his own class and that broke a rule.
- [11:18]
A
And you mentioned in, in an earlier response that you go into the archives and you kind of stumbled upon this, this spy. So who was Jane Armstrong and, and how did she cross paths with Pollard?
- [11:33]
B
Jane Armstrong Tucker was from Maine and like Madeline, she had her own ambitions to get ahead in the world. Now while for Madeline, education and a good marriage was her path, for Jane it was financial self sufficiency. So as a young woman she lived and worked in Boston and she learned key new skills for the working woman of the 1880s and 1890s, typing and stenography. And with these skills, Jane had a number of very good jobs in several different kinds of businesses. First in Boston and then in New York. But in 1893, the economy was awful and Jane lost her job and had no recourse but to return to Maine. But early in 1894, a former employer contacted her. He had a secret job for her. She could name her salary, they'd have a secret meeting in Boston to discuss the details. She took the job and she headed to Washington the very next night. And when she stepped off that train, Jane Tucker was now Agnes Parker, undercover spy, working for Breckinridge's principal attorney, a man named Charles Stowell, a former employer from New York. And so Jane's mission befriend Madeleine Pollard, who was ensconced in the House of Mercy, a home for fallen women. And that is where she lived as she prepared for the breach of promise trial. Stoll's idea. Breckenridge was desperate for a defense because he really didn't have one. So Stoll's idea was that Jane, now Agnes, could befriend Madeleine and in their heart to heart female talks, steal her secrets and turn them over to Breckinridge's legal team so they could use them against Madeleine in court. And for 10 weeks she carried out her mission. And when the trial was over, she wrote a book about her experiences called the Real Madeleine Pollard.
- [13:55]
A
And kind of speaking of Jane's interpretation of Madeline in the book, it comes through pretty, pretty clearly that Jane made up her mind fairly quickly about Madeleine's character and her quote, unquote, guilt. Is there anything in the record to explain how she came to such a conclusion? Or, you know, was it maybe just a sign of the kind of deep seated patriarchy of the time?
- [14:22]
B
I think. I think the deep seated patriarchy had a lot to do with it. And we also have to keep in mind our principal source, the Real Madeleine Pollard was written with a specific agenda in mind to show Madeleine in a bad light and to throw some sympathy back towards Breckinridge, who was big surprise running for reelection and was contemplating further legal action. And Jane was devoted to Charles Stowell, whom she called the best employer she ever had. And he could and did provide financial opportunities for Jane. So at least when she's writing the Real Madeline Pollard, we have to take her perspective with somewhat of a grain of salt. She had a job to do. Yet when Breckenridge died in 1904, Jane wrote to her mother and said rather unkindly that Breckenridge was dead and all his family was probably glad. Jane also praised Charles Stowell's wife, who opposed Breckinridge's infidelity. So these two indications tell us that privately, perhaps she did not see him as innocent as she puts forth in the Real Madeleine Pollard. Yet at Breckinridge's death, she also makes a rather cruel cut on Madeline Pollard as well. So there's no sympathy here. It was really interesting to me and frustrating to me that Jane could not see Madeline's quest in a larger women's rights or just women's challenges kind of way. I mean, Jane in her letters, advocated for her sister to divorce her terrible, abusive husband. And she also sought out information on birth control for her sister in law, who had lost several children, even though that was a fraught action in that day and illegal to mail because of Comstock Laws. Jane complained about bosses that screwed her over. And she railed against Breckenridge's attorneys, who often dismissed her advice on how to handle Madeleine on the standard. And that was too bad because Jane was likely right. So she's a funny character here. We do in a lot of ways have to read between the lines.
- [17:00]
A
Yeah, yeah. That was what was so interesting to me. Right. Is here we have this duality of this character. Right. She's so passionate and so protective on one hand of her people, and. And then was so critical and so dismissive on the other hand. And so I was just wanting to get your read on the situation, knowing how much you'd spent in the archives and with the character of, you know, where did she land here?
- [17:32]
B
Yeah, yeah. And she was so complex. And the interesting thing, when I was working on this project, which was rather lengthy for all sorts of reasons, but I would. I would go back and forth. There were times when I was, you know, yay, Madeline. Pro Madeline. It's like, boo, Jane. And then I would entirely switch. And I see, despite their very different paths and their very end, of course, their antagonists, but I see a lot of similarities between these two women and indeed many of the other women who testify or play a role in this story. This is about women who are merely trying to get around the many, many cultural and social obstacles in women's way, and they find creative ways to do that.
- [18:18]
A
Well, speaking of testimony, one of the pivotal moments of the case was Madeleine's testimony. So how did she prepare and how does her testimony exemplify some of the pervasive gender stereotypes of the era?
- [18:34]
B
Madeline met with her lawyers almost daily to plan the line of questions that her lawyers would ask her and to figure out how best to answer. And Jane Tucker tells us in the Real Madeline Pollard, that Madeleine would practice her testimony in the evening at the House of Mercy, often in front of the very few, very few people there who were actually sympathetic to her. Now, Jane tried to use this as evidence that Madeline was acting as if practicing lines in some sort of play. But I think it shows how seriously Madeleine took this case and how well aware she was of this very narrow line she had to walk. So, you know, kind of following along gender ideas of the day, Adeline needed to show that her life in Washington, that she was a legitimate member of that leisured class, not a pretender. She had legitimately earned her space there. And indeed, she needed to show that her claims for a literary cultured life and education were not just an affect, but rather a lifelong held plan. Her dress needed to reflect respectability but not be too showy, but not be woefully out of fashion on the stand. She couldn't appear too haughty, too bold, too ambitious, or too intelligent. She also needed to show genuine sympathy for the losses that Breckenridge caused the loss of her two children left at orphaned asylums by his command. So in short, she had to defy very carefully and very planfully the gendered stereotype of a lust filled seductress only out for someone else's fame and fortune.
- [20:33]
A
And.
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B
And this was an incredibly difficult line to walk, especially when the eyes of the nation are on you.
- [20:43]
A
Well, and something else that comes through in this book is the Women's Protective League. So what was that and how is it connected to this case?
- [20:52]
B
The Women's Protective League was kind of an interesting little find that I noticed in the newspapers. It was a Washington, D.C. organization of leisured class women who attempted to establish laws and policies to protect young single women. And it's a response to the thousands of single working women in D.C. you know, what another scholar calls women adrift. And keep in mind, these leisured class women have daughters who are so called adrift. And so they're trying to find social protections, if not legal ones. So they are meeting secretly in Washington, much to the surprise of people when they learn of this organization. And at the end of the trial, the Women's Protective League sent commendations and flowers to those who supported Madeline Pollard's cause to call out Breckenridge and the sexual double standard. So they sent flowers to Pollard's lead attorney and to some of the women who testified, including elite society leader Julia Churchill Blackburn, K.D. churchills, as in Churchill Downs, they did not send flowers to Sarah Gist, who provided key testimony on the date of the seduction. Sarah Gist was the formerly enslaved owner of a house of assignation. Nor did they send flowers or commendations to the working women who testified in court. And significantly, significantly, they didn't send a thing to Madeline Pollard. They supported the principal of the case, but not the plaintiff. And more than just simply sending flowers, the WPL put forth a resolution to the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary to create a morals standard for members of Congress. And I think we all know what happened to that. Yeah, yeah.
- [23:06]
A
So it's been a theme of our conversation thus far. It's a theme, I think, that's throughout this book. Both, you know, subtle and very specific. But how does this story illustrate the limitations women faced during the Gilded Age? And what are some of the parallels we see today?
- [23:28]
B
I think there's some interesting connections here. And one that I see is as much as we want to imagine that women had each other's back, this case shows that this wasn't so. Class and racial lines often trump gender alliances. And then Those pervasive cultural beliefs about mistresses remains strong. I think that tells us what we know. Women are complex. Just because we're all women does not mean we all believe the same thing or stand on the same side of an issue. And we see that very clearly here as well. Another parallel, sadly, we see that intelligent women today who speak out, women with ambitions to lead companies or lead a country, women who make statements, run for office, are scrutinized and demonized in ways that hearken back not just to the Gilded Age, but we can go all the way back to the European witch trials. As we see again and again and again, women who accuse men of sexual improprieties or other bad doings are often deemed liars.
- [24:45]
A
And what do you hope readers take away from your book?
- [24:47]
B
I hope they enjoy it. I worked very hard on writing this deeply researched history as a narrative. I wanted it to read like a story, a novel. It's all true because history unfolds as a story. Our lives are stories. I would like readers to come away with a sense of the strategies women use to navigate around those considerable barriers of the Gilded Age. While this story focuses on the fraught friendship of Jane and Madeleine, as I mentioned, this trial featured several women, and I was fascinated by them. So, for example, Julia Churchill Blackburn. Why is she on the stand in this seeming see me trial? Because she's defending her married name for the second time. Her husband had been involved in an earlier scandal, and she is defending it because that name gives her social credibility. Louise Lowell was a typist and stenographer, and on the stand she is relaying information about letters she typed for Breckenridge. But within that, she is telling her story of work as independence and how proudly she is providing for herself. And then, of course, Sarah Gist, formerly enslaved, whose father was the enslaver, turns the table as a free woman and profits from the passions of men. All these women found workarounds for the barriers placed before them, and I found that fascinating. And then I also hope that people will consider the nature of women's friendships. Is Jane justified in throwing Madeline under the bus, in revealing her confidences to Breckinridge, and later in her book, the real Madeline Pollard, revealing all to the reading public? Was she just doing her job, or did she stab Madeleine Pollard in the back? And that raises the question of what do we do today to support women of our own class, other classes, other identities, other backgrounds? What is women's friendship? So those are some of the things I'd love readers to Think about.
- [27:14]
A
Well, for what it's worth, when I picked it up the first time, I think I had forgotten what, what book I was reading. And I was like, oh, is this, is this a narrative, like fiction? I thought a historical fiction. And then I saw the first footnote and I was like, oh, no, it's actually, it's actually a historical book. So I think you, you won the day there.
- [27:38]
B
Thank you. Thank you.
- [27:39]
A
Worked.
- [27:40]
B
Worked hard on that. Worked hard on that.
- [27:42]
A
And where should readers go when they've finished your book and they want to learn more about you and the work that you do?
- [27:48]
B
Well, I would welcome readers to find more of my writing and information about where I'll be speaking and other info on me on my website, which is ElizabethDewolf.com and I am also on Facebook and Instagram.
- [28:07]
A
Wonderful. And we'll make sure to put that stuff in the show notes for the episode so folks know where to find you. And we've covered a pretty large swath of territory. But is there anything that we haven't discussed that you want future readers to know?
- [28:21]
B
Many of us grew up in an era, I think, where history was taught as long lists of great typically white men. The wars they fought, the countries they ran, and the inventions they claimed to invent. But women's stories are there in the cracks behind the scenes, in the very dailiness of life. They're there and they matter. Ordinary women who can do extraordinary things.
- [28:54]
A
What a wonderful way to end this conversation. And for the listeners out there, if you are in a rut waiting for the next season of the HBO series the Gilded Age, and you want some real life drama to keep you company, be sure to grab yourself a copy of Alias Agnes. You will not be disappointed. Thank you again, Dr. DeWolf.
- [29:19]
B
Thank you. This has been so much fun to talk about Agnes and Madeline.
- [29:23]
A
My thanks again to Dr. DeWolfe for spending her time with me. If you want captivating narrative nonfiction that reads like historical fiction, consider picking up your copy of Alias Agnes wherever fine books are sold. As a reminder, all guest books can be found on my affiliate shop@bookshop.org thanks, peeps. I'll see you next time. Thanks for sitting down with me as I explored this chapter of American history. If you liked what you heard, be sure to subscribe and share with your friends. I look forward to our next cup of coffee together.