Fitz Hugh Ludlow

Summary

Stuff You Missed in History Class: Fitz Hugh Ludlow

Release Date: August 4, 2025

Hosts: Holly Frey and Tracy V. Wilson
Produced by: iHeartPodcasts

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of Stuff You Missed in History Class, hosts Holly Frey and Tracy V. Wilson delve deep into the life of Fitz Hugh Ludlow, a prolific 19th-century writer whose brief but impactful existence was marked by groundbreaking advocacy for addiction treatment. The episode meticulously explores Ludlow's tumultuous personal life, his innovative literary contributions, and his forward-thinking views on drug addiction long before they became mainstream.

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Early Life and Family Background

Fitz Hugh Ludlow was born on September 11, 1836, in New York into a staunchly abolitionist family. His father, Reverend Henry Gilbert Ludlow, was a fervent advocate against slavery and supported interracial marriage—views that often subjected the family to public hostility.

Notable Quote:
"My father, mother and sister were driven from their House in New York by a furious mob..." ([04:33])

This early exposure to societal conflict and personal loss, including the death of his older sister Mary before his birth, profoundly shaped Ludlow's worldview and resilience.

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Education and Early Writing Career

Ludlow demonstrated intellectual prowess early on, teaching himself to read by age five despite a frail childhood plagued by various ailments. His academic journey led him to the College of New Jersey (now Princeton) and later Union College in Schenectady, where he excelled in literature. By 1856, Ludlow had already made a name for himself by writing a celebratory song for his graduation and publishing influential articles that resonated with the spiritualist movement of the time.

Notable Quote:
"I was four years old when I learned that my father combined the two functions of preaching in a New England college town and ticket agency on the underground railroad." ([06:07])

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Drug Use and Advocacy for Addiction Treatment

Ludlow's fascination with drugs began innocently at his father's pharmacy in Poughkeepsie, where he experimented with substances like chloroform and ether. However, his experimentation with hashish marked a turning point, leading to a substance use disorder.

Notable Quote:
"I could not doubt it. I was in the power of the hashish influence..." ([18:23])

Despite the lack of initial effects, increased dosages eventually led to intense psychological experiences, including hallucinations and paranoia. These personal struggles fueled Ludlow's passion for advocating compassionate treatment for addiction, which was revolutionary for the 1860s.

In his 1867 article for Harper's Bazaar, Ludlow articulated the challenges of overcoming opium addiction, emphasizing the need for structured treatment environments—ideas that prefigured modern addiction therapy.

Notable Quote:
"I propose that our perfected scheme shall contain everything necessary to make the social life indoors a delightful refuge..." ([40:36])

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Marriage and Personal Life

Ludlow's personal life was equally complex. His marriage to Rosalie Osborne, an heiress, initially seemed harmonious but was overshadowed by rumors of an affair between Rosalie and Albert Bierstadt, a renowned artist. This scandal led to their divorce and Rosalie's subsequent marriage to Bierstadt, deeply affecting Ludlow's personal and professional life.

Notable Quote:
"...Fitzhugh is working very hard to understand his subject while also finding this way of life just deeply inscrutable." ([37:20])

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Travels and Career Decline

The cross-country journey to the West with Bierstadt was both a professional and personal endeavor for Ludlow. While the trip provided rich material for his writing, it took a significant toll on his health, leading to tuberculosis. The subsequent breakdown and persistent opium misuse severely hindered his career, culminating in the publication of a poorly received book, The Heart of the Continent (1870), which failed due to outdated information by the time of its release.

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Final Years and Death

Despite his struggles, Ludlow continued to write and advocate for addiction treatment. In 1870, seeking to improve his health, he traveled to Europe with his sister Helen and wife Maria O'Brien. Tragically, Ludlow died in Geneva, Switzerland, the morning after his 34th birthday.

Notable Quote from Obituary:
"Mr. Ludlow had many fine gifts which would have made him a deserved distinction if he had had the steadiness of character necessary to make the best of them." ([46:24])

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Legacy and Modern Perception

A century after his death, Ludlow's contributions have been re-evaluated, recognizing his early insights into addiction as a disease rather than a moral failing. The Fitzhugh Ludlow Memorial Library, later renamed the Ludlow Santo Domingo Library at Harvard University, preserves his works and continues to inspire discussions on altered states of mind.

Notable Listener Mail:
A listener clarified historical details about Ludlow's connections to notable landmarks, highlighting the podcast's engagement with its audience and the enduring relevance of Ludlow's story ([48:00]-[51:08]).

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Conclusion

Fitz Hugh Ludlow's life, though short, was marked by significant literary achievements and pioneering advocacy for addiction treatment. Stuff You Missed in History Class provides a nuanced portrayal of Ludlow's struggles and triumphs, offering valuable insights into a man ahead of his time whose work continues to resonate today.

Listener Engagement:
The episode concludes with interactive segments, including listener mail that connects historical narratives to personal experiences, enhancing the relatability and depth of the discussion.

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Listen to the full episode on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

[Holly Frey]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Robert Lamb]

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[Robert Lamb]

Listen to America's Crime Lab on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Joe McCormick]

Hey, this is Robert Lamb and this.

[Danielle Robaix]

Is Joe McCormick and we're the hosts of the Stuff to Blow youw Mind podcast. We've got an exciting week ahead for you on Stuff to Blow youw Mind. It's Cat Week. That's right. To coincide with International cat Day on August 8th, we're dedicating every episode in the Stuff to Blow youw Mind podcast feed to your cute, mysterious feline companions. So tune in for core Stuff to Blow your Mind episodes on the earliest archaeological evidence for domesticated cats and the folklore of the British Isles.

[Joe McCormick]

The week's Monster fact will focus on a popular cat creature and you better believe weird house cinema will cover some kind of head scratching cat movie. So tune in August 5th through 8th for stuff to Blow your mind's Cat Week. Find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Kelly Harnett]

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[Holly Frey]

I think any good romance. It gives me this feeling of like butterflies.

[Kelly Harnett]

I'm Danielle Robaix and this is bookmarked by Reese's Book Club. The new podcast from hello Sunshine and I Heart Podcast where we dive into the stories that shape us on the page and off. Each week I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So what happened at Chappaquiddick?

[Holly Frey]

Well, it really depends on who you talk to.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

There are many versions of what happened.

[Joe McCormick]

In 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Drove a car into a pond and left a woman behind to drown.

[Holly Frey]

Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Every week we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal Family listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frey.

[Holly Frey]

And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So when we did our episode on Albert Bierstadt a little while back, not that long ago, I mentioned that Fitzhugh Ludlow, whose wife Bierstadt fell in love with and ultimately stole away, you could say, was gonna be his own episode and today's the day. So Fitzhugh Ludlow's fame as a writer came very quickly when he was very young, and it was directly tied to his drug use initially. So no upfront that a lot of this episode is going to talk about that because he was a writer and a highly productive one. We have a lot of examples of that writing included. And some of it does kind of wax rhapsodic about that drug use. Not all of it. Some of it is on the other side of that equation. So if you listen though, with younger history buffs, you might want to pre screen this or even skip it entirely. I would not say that this is a particularly happy topic. Ludlow lived a lot in a very short life, but he's really, really interesting to me. And the reason I wanted to give him his own episode is because in his final years, his advocacy for true compassionate treatment and destigmat of the illness of addiction was so far ahead of its time and used language that has really only become the accepted or preferred way to discuss those things in like the last decade. And he was writing about it in the 1860s, so that is why I think he, he merits a little discussion.

[Holly Frey]

When I was reading through this, it reminded me a little bit of when we were reading about all the self experimentation with nitrous oxide.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Frey]

And like reading people's accounts of what it felt like to be on that. And there's some of this in this episode too, although about other substances, not nitrous oxide. Fitzhugh Ludlow was born in New York on September 11, 1836, and born into a deeply abolitionist family. His father, the Reverend Henry Gilbert Ludlow, was known for making impassioned speeches about the issue of slavery and was an early advocate for the acceptance of interracial marriage. Fitzhugh later wrote as a journalist about how his family was treated by people who opposed these views. He relayed the story of a night before he was born when, quote, my father, mother and sister were driven from their House in New York by a furious mob. When they came cautiously back, their home was quiet as a fortress the day after it has been blown up. The front parlor was full of paving stones. The carpets were cut to pieces. The furniture and the chandelier lay in one common wreck. And the walls were covered with inscriptions of mingled insult and glory. Over the mantelpiece had been charcoaled rascal over the pier table. Abolitionist Henry Ludlow was also sometimes attacked on the street and pelted with eggs.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, this was not the only time the home was attacked. At one point, a rumor had gotten out that he had performed a marriage ceremony for an interracial couple. And it sparked like this huge attack on the family. And this is what he grew up in. That sister that Fitzhugh mentioned in that account was his older sister, Mary. She had actually died several months before he was born. The Ludlows had another daughter, Helen, who was born three years after Fitzhugh, Hugh and their father. Henry Ludlow was so deeply affected by his first daughter's death that he actually wrote about not being able to love his other children as deeply as he had loved Mary.

[Holly Frey]

Per his own account, Fitzhugh was told stories about abolitionists from his earliest days. He noted that, quote, I was four years old when I learned that my father combined the two functions of preaching in a New England college town and ticket agency on the underground railroad. Although he took that literally, as a lot of kids do, to mean that there was an actual railroad that had a station in the family's basement.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, there are stories of him as a little kid trying to go down and see where the trains came in, which is quite charming. He was a very smart kid. His father boasted that Fitzhugh had taught himself to read by the age of five, but he was also sickly as a child. He described himself in his writings as having, quote, a feeble child childhood. And he notes that this feebleness led him to explore the world from the comfort of a couch, becoming engrossed in books and his thoughts. The one exception to this was in venturing out on the water, which he clearly loved and described in his writing. Quote, the only exception to this state of imaginative indolence were the hours spent in rowing or sailing upon the most glorious river of the world. And the consciousness that the Hudson rolled at my own door only contributed to settle the conviction that there was no need of going abroad to find beauties in which the soul might wrap itself as in a garment of delight. Even at these seasons, exercise was not so much the aim as musing many a time with the handles of my skulls thrust under the side girders and the blades turned full to the wind, have I sat and drifted for hours through mountain shadows and passed glimpses of light that flooded the woody gorges with a sense of dreamy ecstasy which all the novelties of a new world could never have supplied.

[Holly Frey]

When Fitzhugh was 6, Henry moved the family to Poughkeepsie, New York. The family was living there when Fitzhugh's mother, Abigail Woolley Wells, died. Her son was 12 years old at that time. It was also there, in Poughkeepsie, where Fitzhugh often found himself at the pharmacy picking up medications for his various ailments. And that also became a place where the boy, as he grew into a young man, really liked to hang out. He later wrote, quote, about the shop of my friend Anderson, the apothecary. There always existed a peculiar fascination which early marked it out as my favorite lounging place. In the very atmosphere of the establishment, loaded as it was with a composite smell of all things curative and preventive, there was an aromatic invitation to scientific musing. A little sanctum at the inner end of the shop, walled off with red curtains from the profane gaze of the unsanitive, contained two chairs for the doctor and myself and a library where all the masters of physic were grouped through their sheep and paper representatives in more friendliness of contact than has ever been known to characterize a consultation of like spirits under any other circumstances.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, I didn't include it, really, in this outline, but I will say as something of an autodidact in the sciences, he really did know a lot. In a lot of his papers, he talks about science in extremely clear terms and with an obvious deep grasp and understanding of what he's talking about. This pharmacy is also where Fitzhugh began his recreational drug use, and it started with experimenting with various things that were just available to him. There. He wrote, quote, here especially with a disregard to my own safety, have I made upon myself the trial of the effects of every strange drug and chemical which the laboratory could produce. Now, with the chloroform bottle beneath my nose, have I set myself careering upon the wings of a thrilling and accelerating life until I had just enough power remaining to restore the liquid to its place upon the shelf and sink back into the enjoyment of the delicious apathy which lasted through the few succeeding moments. Now ether was substituted for chloroform and the difference of their phenomena noted. And now some other exhilarant in the form of an opiate or stimulant was the instrument of my experience until I had run through the whole gamut of queer agents within my reach. Clearly there was not a lot of tracking going on at this time. Like, if you tried to do this if you were at a pharmacy today, there would be counts done of the medications and people would realize someone had their hand in it. But the US Wouldn't get its first federal law regarding Drugs until the 1906 Food and Drug Act. So it wasn't as though his friend at the pharmacy had to account for any of these missing substances. And it also appears that his friend was pretty comfortable letting Ludlow experiment there.

[Holly Frey]

Yeah, there were also a lot of things at the time that you could just go buy that today would be either like tightly controlled, controlled substance. Yeah, yeah. Or like illegal for use of any type.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah. That's the thing in talking about all of this. Even though there were some stigmas attached to some of them, none of the things he did were illegal, which is a little mind blowing to consider. Yeah.

[Holly Frey]

So Fitzhugh's account states that he didn't use these drugs repeatedly. He would try each of them only once and note its effects. And then when he had tried everything that was available, he thought he was done. But then one day the pharmacist mentioned that he had a new acquisition that was being used in India to treat lockjaw. He told Ludlow that it was, quote, deadly poison, which stopped the young man from using it. Ludlow spent the rest of the morning researching this new substance which was labeled Cannabis indica.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So we're going to get into Ludlow's fascination with this new substance. After we first pause for a sponsor break.

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[Danielle Robaix]

A foot washed up. A shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable or these are the.

[Robert Lamb]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen, I was just like, ah, gotcha.

[Robert Lamb]

On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors and you'll meet the team behind the scenes at othram, the Houston lab that takes on the most hopeless cases to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Joe McCormick]

Hey, this is Robert Lamb.

[Danielle Robaix]

And this is Joe McCormick, and we're the hosts of the Stuff to Blow youw Mind podcast. We've an exciting week ahead for you on Stuff to blow your mind. It's Cat Week. That's right. To coincide with International cat Day on August 8th, we're dedicating every episode in the Stuff to Blow youw Mind podcast feed to your cute, mysterious feline companions. So tune in for core Stuff to Blow youw Mind episodes on the earliest archaeological evidence for domesticated cats and the folkloric cats of the British Isles.

[Joe McCormick]

The week's Monster Fact will focus on a popular cat creature. And you better believe weird house cinema will cover some kind of head scratching cat movie. So tune in August 5th through 8th for stuff to blow your minds Cat Week. Find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Kelly Harnett spent over a decade in prison for a murder she says she didn't commit.

[H]

I'm 100% innocent.

[Joe McCormick]

While behind bars, she learned the law from scratch.

[H]

He goes, oh God. Harnett, jailhouse lawyer.

[Joe McCormick]

And as she fought for herself, she also became a lifeline for the women locked up alongside her.

[Holly Frey]

You're supposed to have your faith in.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

God, but I had nothing but faith in her.

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So many of these women had lived the same stories.

[H]

I said, were you a victim of domestic violence and she was like, yeah.

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But maybe Kelly could change the ending.

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I think I have a mission from God to save souls by getting people out of prison.

[Joe McCormick]

The Girlfriends Jailhouse Lawyer listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Ludlow would, in his first book, write an explainer for his readers of what hashish is Quote in northern latitudes, the hemp plant grows almost entirely to fiber, becoming in virtue of this quality, the great resource for mats and cordage under a southern sun. This same plant loses its fibrous texture, but secretes, in quantities equal to one third of its bulk, an opaque and greenish resin. The resin of the cannabis is hashish. The forms in which it is employed are various. Sometimes it appears in the state in which it exudes from the mature stalk as a crude resin. Sometimes it is manufactured into a conserve with clarified butter, honey, and spices. Sometimes a decoction is made of the flowering tops in water or arrack. Under either of these forms, the method of administration is by swallowing. Again, the dried plant is smoked in pipes or chewed as tobacco. So, for clarity, this is different from marijuana, which is the dried flowers, buds, and stems of the cannabis plant. Hashish is much more potent and causes more intense experiences, including hallucinations, panic, and motor ataxia.

[Holly Frey]

So the hashish that Ludlow had encountered at the apothecary was in that resin form, and after he had been warned off of it by his friend, he decided to try it anyway, in secret. He started with a small amount taken surreptitiously while at the pharmacy, but that did not have any effects. So he repeated this experiment several times, increasing the dose each time. He had come to the conclusion that he was, for some reason unsusceptible to it. And then one Evening, after taking 30 grains of it, which was an amount he had worked up to by adding five grains at a time to the dose, he left the pharmacy and went to a friend's house. And then, after three hours of nothing, he wrote that it began to take effect, describing that first experience this way. Quote ha. What means this sudden thrill, a shock as of some unimagined vital force, shoots without warning through my entire frame, leaping to my fingers, ends piercing my brain, startling me till I almost sprang from my chair. I Could not doubt it. I was in the power of the hashish influence. My first emotion was one of uncontrollable terror, a sense of getting something which I had not bargained for that moment I would have given all I had or hoped to have to be as I was three hours before. No pain anywhere, not a twinge in my fiber. Yet a cloud of unutterable strangeness was settling upon me and wrapping me impenetrably in from all that was natural or familiar. Endeared faces, well known to me of old surrounded me, yet they were not with me in my loneliness. I had entered upon a tremendous life which they could not share.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

He also describes in this account a lot of things that have become common in accounts of drug use. So the paranoid feeling that other people knew he was on drugs, the sense of time and space expanding, etc. He had, as that passage that Tracy read indicates, a lot of anxiety. And he also hallucinated in ways that he found both pleasant and unpleasant. He, in one of these hallucinations, had an altercation with a bony, supernatural figure that he kind of hints might have been death. And at one point he came to the conclusion that he was immortal. So things you've probably heard in other accounts of drug use, but. But unlike all of the other substances that Fitzhugh had tried up to this point, he developed a substance use disorder when it came to hashish.

[Holly Frey]

In 1854, Fitzhugh was enrolled at the College of New Jersey, which is known today as Princeton. He stayed there less than a year. In 1855, a fire at the school led Fitzhugh to leave and go to Schenectady's Union College. He was an average student, and socially, descriptions of him during this time vary pretty wildly. Some of his classmates thought very highly of him, while others seemed to think he was awkward and weird. The one area where he excelled was literature, and he was asked to write a song for commencement the year he graduated, which was 1856.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Later that year he published an article titled the Apocalypse of Hashish in Putnam's Monthly. And that article opens with quote, in returning from the world of hashish, I bring with me many and diverse memories the echoes of a sublime rapture which thrilled and vibrated on the very edge of pain, of Promethean agonies which wrapped the soul like a mantle of fire, of voluptuous delirium which suffused the body with a blush of exquisite languor. All are mine, but in value far exceeding these is the remembrance of my spellbound life as an apocalyptic Experience. The value of this experience to me consists in its having thrown open to my gaze many of those sublime avenues in the spiritual life at whose gates the soul in its ordinary state is forever blindly groping, mystified, perplexed, yet earnest to the last in its search for that secret spring which, being touched, shall swing back the colossal barrier. In a single instant I have seen the vexed question of a lifetime settled, the mystery of some grand recondite process of mind laid bare the last grim doubt that hung persistently on the sky, of a sublime truth blown away.

[Holly Frey]

That writing was very well received. Remember, that was right in the middle of the spiritualist movement in the US So this idea of using drugs to have kind of a supernatural experience had a lot of allure. It inspired the young Fitzhugh to publish a long form account of his drug use in 1857 that was titled the Hessian Sheesh Eater Being Passages from the Life of a Pythagorean. That book starts with a quote from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan. Quote, Weave a circle round him thrice, and close your eyes with holy dread, for he on honeydew hath fed and drunk the milk of Paradise. Kublai Khan was written by Coleridge in 1797 and it was left unfinished. The text of the poem blames an interruption that Coleridge had while writing, and it was never intended for publication. But after Coleridge died, Lord Byron published the work in 1816, and this particular piece of poetry is invoked by Ludlow, probably because in the original manuscript of the work, Coleridge noted that the dream he had that inspired it was brought on while he was drugged writing quote this fragment with a good deal more not recoverable, composed in a sort of reverie brought on by. By two grains of opium taken to check a dysentery.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The introduction of Ludlow's book also invokes another account of Drug Use, the 1821 book by Thomas de Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater. In Ludlow's preface he writes, quote, I like prefaces as little as my readers can. If this so proverbially unnoticed part of the book catch any eye, the glance that it gives will of course travel no farther to find my apology for making this preface a short one. There is but one thought for which I wish to find place here. I am deeply aware that if the succeeding pages are read at all, it will be by those who have already learned to love de Quincey. Not that I dare for a moment to compare the manner of my narrative with that most wondrous, most inspired dreamers. But in the experience of his life and my own, there is a single common characteristic which happens to be the very one for whose sake men open any such book. The path of de Quincey led beyond all the boundaries of the ordinary life into a world of intense lights and shadows, a realm in which all the range of average thought found its conditions surpassed, if not violated. My own career, however far its recital may fall short of the opium eaters, and notwithstanding it was not coincidence and, but seldom parallel with his, still ran through Lance's glorious, as unfrequented, as weird as his own, and takes those who would follow it out of the trodden highways of mind.

[Holly Frey]

He also refers to his own book as a, quote, resume of experiences and talks of them as being, quote, my cup of awakening. And he notes that there are some commonalities between his experiences and the ones relayed by de Quincey in his book. And specifically regarding perception and memory, Ludlow writes, quote, acknowledging the resemblance, I only say that we both saw the same thing. The state of insight which he attained through opium I reached by the way of hashish. The rest of the book includes accounts of several of his experiences with hashish, including the first, which we've shared excerpts from. It's not all complimentary, though. He continued to have both good and bad experiences with the drug, and he's pretty open about that, sometimes describing it as a terrible thing. But he was also clearly addicted to it, even as he referred to it as, quote, an accursed drug. By the end of the book, he concludes that hashish is not the proper means to attain enlightenment and gives an account of how unpleasant withdrawal was for him when he gave it up.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This book was a hit, both critically and in terms of sales numbers. It went through several editions right away, and it gave Fitzhugh the confidence to pursue a writing career and leave the teaching job that he had taken after he finished school. He wanted a life of what he called, quote, entire self sustenance. He didn't really get along with his father. They had a lot of conflict. And he wanted to have the financial standing, to have no dependence whatsoever on his family to make his way as a writer and to get a little distance from that family. Fitzhugh moved to New York City, and he became a regular at Pfaff's Tavern, where the American bohemian group tended to gather.

[Holly Frey]

It was also during this time that Fitzhugh met and fell in love with an heiress named Rosalie Osborne. He proposed and after Rosalie's mother conducted a background check on Ludlow, the pair of them got married. In 1859, they went to Florida for an extended honeymoon. It was during that honeymoon that Ludlow made the assessment of Florida and Jacksonville specifically as having, quote, the climate of utopia, the scenery of paradise, and the social system of hell.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

We're going to talk more about Ludlow's thoughts on the south after we hear from the sponsors that keep stuff you missed in history class going.

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[Danielle Robaix]

A foot washed up, a shoe with.

[Holly Frey]

Some bones in it.

[Danielle Robaix]

They had no idea who it was.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Most everything was burned up pretty good.

[Holly Frey]

From the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable.

[Robert Lamb]

These are the coldest of cold cases. But everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA. Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen, I was just like, ah, gotcha.

[Robert Lamb]

On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors and you'll meet the team behind the scenes at othram, the Houston lab that takes on the most hopeless cases to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Joe McCormick]

Hey, this is Robert Lamb and this.

[Danielle Robaix]

Is Joe McCormick, and we're the hosts of the Stuff to Blow youw Mind podcast. We've got an exciting week ahead for you on Stuff to Blow your mind It's Cat Week. That's right. To coincide with International cat Day on August 8th, we're dedicating every episode into the Stuff to Blow youw Mind podcast feed to your cute, mysterious feline companions. So tune in for core Stuff to Blow youw Mind episodes on the earliest archaeological evidence for domesticated cats and the folkloric cats of the British Isles.

[Joe McCormick]

The week's monster fact will focus on a popular cat creature and you better believe weird house cinema will cover some kind of head scratching cat movie. So tune in August 5th 8th for stuff to blow your mind's Cat Week. Find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Kelly Harnett spent over a decade in prison for a murder she says she didn't commit.

[H]

I'm 100% innocent.

[Joe McCormick]

While behind bars, she learned the law from scratch.

[H]

He goes, oh God. Harnett Jailhouse Lawyer and as she fought.

[Joe McCormick]

For herself, she also became a lifeline for the women locked up alongside her.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

You're supposed to have your faith in God, but I had nothing but faith in her.

[Joe McCormick]

So many of these women had lived the same stories.

[H]

I said, were you a victim of domestic violence? And she was like, yeah, but maybe.

[Joe McCormick]

Kelly could change the ending.

[H]

I said, how many people have gotten other incarcerated individuals out of here? Here? I'm going to be the first one to do that.

[Joe McCormick]

This is the story of Kelly Harnett, a woman who spent 12 years fighting not just for her own freedom, but her girlfriend's too.

[H]

I think I have a mission from God to save souls by getting people out of prison.

[Joe McCormick]

The girlfriends Jailhouse Lawyer listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Ludlow later wrote in his observations of Southern culture that he was not really surprised by the fact that white men routinely had sexual relations with enslaved black women. But he was surprised that it was accepted by everyone as just kind of a normal part of life. And he illustrated this with an example quote the particular friend of one family belonging to the cream of Florida society was a gentleman in thriving business who had for his mistress the waiting maid of the daughters. He used to sit composedly with the young ladies of an evening, one of them playing on the piano to him, the other smiling upon him over a bouquet, while the woman he had afflicted with the burdens without giving her the blessings of marriage came in curtsying humbly with a tea tray. Everybody understood the relation perfectly, but not even the pious shrugged their shoulders or seemed to care. I will say, in all of his writings about this, he doesn't really bring up the issue of consent, which is obviously another problem, but he's just kind of befuddled by how everybody accepts this as normal. In an article for the Atlantic written in April 1865, Ludlow writes a rather scathing cataloging of this incident, as well as many other aspects of Southern culture and its inconsistencies as it related to the issue specifically of slavery. One of those is the way that he found he would talk with Southern enslavers who threatened that they would arm their slaves to fight for them, but that he also knew that those same men would be utterly stricken with fear if they thought for even a second that one of the black people they enslaved had a gun. It's a pretty interesting look at the whole thing, but I do want to tell people, as a side note, if you go looking for this or any other articles or writing that Ludlow wrote, they are very full of problematic language. And this is not just because of the time. Ludlow may have been an abolitionist, but he was also still racist in a lot of ways. In addition to the way he sometimes characterizes black people and he tries to write in their vernacular in a way that is very unflattering, he also wrote some really racist things about other people, particularly Native Americans and Mexicans. So forewarned, if you want to read.

[Holly Frey]

Fitzhugh Ludlow, that was also really not unique among abolitionists.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

No, not at all. His is. He is. I find him to be a very good writer. He's very florid, but he paints a really interesting picture. But then when you're like, oh, and then he said something horrible in the midst of this. Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck.

[Holly Frey]

Oh, and yikes. Fitzhugh was very busy as a writer in his early marriage, and he and Rosalie were really active in New York's literary social scene. But once the US Civil War began, it was increasingly difficult to make a living as a writer. He had to take a job at the New York City Customs House to bring in a little extra money. So when Albert Bierstadt mentioned that he wanted to return to western North America, Ludlow was eager to go with him. He saw an opportunity to write journalistic accounts of the lands that they passed through. Ludlow was a huge supporter of Bierstadt's work and had used his journalism jobs to praise the artist. Artists, paintings, publicly. Ludlow's descriptions of the places they traveled are colorful and a little hilarious for Example, he described an area they reached after their stagecoach had passed through the Rocky Mountains as, quote, the secret spot where the world clasps her girdle.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

That tickled me. Encountering Mormons in Salt Lake City was something of a surprise to Ludlow, who wrote regarding an incident where he encountered a polygamous home for the first time, quote, a cosmopolitan, especially one knowing beforehand that Utah was not distinguished for monogamy, might well be ashamed to be so taken off his feet as I was by my first view of Mormonism in its practical workings. I stared. I believe I blushed a little. I tried to stutter a reply. His biggest confusion is pretty sexist. Here it was how the multiple wives of one man weren't terribly jealous of each other and didn't, quote, fly into each other's faces with their fingernails and tearing out each other's hair. Ludlow wrote a lengthy description of the Mormon community as he observed it for the Atlantic, including a lengthy discussion he had with Brigham Young at a ball that he had been invited to. It is pretty clear that Fitzhugh is working very hard to understand his subject while also finding this way of life just deeply inscrutable. Later, when those writings were mentioned in Ludlow's obituary, it was noted, quote, his statements about the Mormons were flatly denied and his conclusions fiercely resented by the representatives of that sect.

[Holly Frey]

When the journalist and artist got to San Francisco, they had a more luxurious time than most of their trip had afforded. They stayed at the Occidental Hotel. They met Mark Twain while they were there. Mark Twain wasn't famous yet. They also met Bret Hart. These and others formed a little ad hoc group similar to the Bohemian circle that Ludlow had been part of in his early days in New York. He participated with Twain, Hart and others in the publication of the weekly paper the Golden Era.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

As we mentioned in the Bierstadt episode, there were some hints during this cross country travel that Albert Bierstadt and Rosalie Ludlow were actually having some sort of affair. And we don't have any information on the specifics of what happened, but two years after these two men returned to New York, the Ludlows divorced and Rosalie and Albert were married very soon after that.

[Holly Frey]

That Ludlow was already in rough shape by the time he and Beer Stot returned to New York. The trip had been really grueling and Fitzhugh was enthusiastic, but he was not exactly well suited for a cross country journey. He'd lived a pretty leisurely life and had never been in particularly robust health. And he also contracted tuberculosis while he was on the West Coast. The breakup of his marriage, combined with his physical depletion led to a breakdown. Ludlow was in a lot of pain, and he started using opium to deal with that pain.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

He continued to work, though, including adapting the story of Cinderella for the stage for a performance at the New York City Sanitary Fair the year that he returned to the city. From his Western travels, his life spiraled.

[Holly Frey]

In 1866, he married again. Shortly after Rosalie married Albert Bierstadt, he married an older woman named Maria o'. Brien. We don't know much about Maria. During this time, he was really struggling with opium misuse and consulted a number of doctors and his efforts to get treatment for his addiction. He never fully managed to get out from under it, and for the next several years he continued a cycle of progress in his treatment and then relapses. Throughout all this, he started to advocate for better treatment.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Statements in 1867, Ludlow penned an article for Harper's Bazaar titled what Shall They Do To Be Saved? About the difficulty of overcoming opium addiction. This article was later republished as part of Horace B. Day's book, the Opium Habit. And this writing shares Ludlow's observations of various people in the throes of opium addiction and the ways that it can really destroy a person, both mentally and physically. And he describes in very unflinching detail what it is like to go through withdrawals when trying to get off of it. He does not pull any punches or spare the reader any of the, you know, truly awful things that happen. He talks very openly about the physical and mental pain involved. And then there's also a letter that he wrote to Horace Day at the end of that reprinted article, in which he describes his ideas for what he believes would be effective treatment for opium addiction.

[Holly Frey]

This letter explains, quote, that experience having shown me how impracticable in the large majority of cases is any cure of a long established opium habit while the patient continues his daily avocations and remains at home. It arises from the fact that in his own house a man cannot isolate himself from the hourly hearing of matters for which he feels responsible, yet to which he can give no adequate attention without his accustomed stimulus, that his best friends are apt to upbraid him for a weakness, which is not crime, but disease, and that the control of him by those whom he has habitually directed, however well judged, seems always a harassment. This really struck Holly as ahead of its time because it's the earliest instance she can think of where somebody has correctly identified addiction as an illness rather than a Moral failing. He also talks through the most frequent origin point for opium addiction, mentioning that for an average case, quote, his habit, as in nine cases out of every 10, dates from the medical prescription of opium for the relief of violent pain or the cure of obstinate illness. He was not aware of the drug then administered to him, or at any rate of the peril attending its use, and his malady was so long protracted that opium had established itself as a necessary condition of comfortable existence before he realized that it had possessed the slightest hold upon him.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Ludlow envisioned a place he called Lord's Island, a literal island where people can be treated through a gradual decrease of opium misuse under the care and administration of a knowledgeable team. Like a true treatment center, this island would have facilities specifically designed to ease patients through the various painful stages of recovery. And he also writes that he feels it's important to really establish a place where the people who are being treated also have creature comforts. Writing quote I propose that our perfected scheme shall contain everything necessary to make the social life indoors a delightful refuge to all far advanced enough to take pleasure in society from the dejection and introversion peculiarly characteristic of opium's revenges. This comprehends a suite of parlors where ladies and gentlemen can meet in the evening on just the same refined and pleasant terms that belong to an elegant home elsewhere, furnished with a piano to dance, to play or sing, with first class pictures as far as our own funds, aided by donations and bequests, guests can procure them for us. Cozy open fireplaces, unblemished taste in furniture and carpets in fine an air of the highest ideal of a private family's handsomest assembling room. I propose a billiard room with a couple of tables so neatly kept that both ladies and gentlemen can meet there to enjoy the game. A reading room with the best papers and magazines, and a good library, both to be enjoyed by guests of either set. A smoking and card room for the gentlemen. I propose to have our engine, before mentioned, do the work of taking our invalids up and down the stairs by a lift, like those in use in some of our best hotels, so that the highest rooms may be practically as near the baths, the dining and social apartments, and as eligible as any of the lower ones. And if feasible, I suggest that some at least of the rooms be arranged in small suites or pairs, so as to admit of a well daughter, son, sister, parent, wife, wife or brother coming to stay with any invalid who needs their loving presence and nursing. This all blew me away because he's advocating for compassionate care and treatment. More than 150 years ago, this writing.

[Holly Frey]

Really struck a chord with a lot of people who, like Ludlow, were trying to regain control of their lives and to stop using opium. He started receiving letters from people who read his articles. He had ongoing correspondences with a lot of them for the remainder of his life.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1870, Ludlow published a long form account of his travels with Bierstadt titled the Heart of the Continent, A record of travel across the plains and in Oregon, with an examination of the Mormon principle. And this was a project he had been contracted to deliver much sooner, but his health and recovery efforts had really derailed his schedule. And as a consequence, a lot of the information that he included in the book about things like the potential of the western half of the country and the expanding railroad was just kind of outdated. By the time the book went to market, it had been six years and it flopped.

[Holly Frey]

After the book was published in the summer of 1870, Fitzhugh traveled to Europe for the first time, hoping to improve his health. He was really close to his sister Helen. She traveled with him and his wife Maria. The group first went to London, where they stayed more than a month, and then on to Geneva, Switzerland. Ludlow died in Switzerland the morning after his 34th birthday.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

His obituary, which ran in New York World and then was syndicated to many other papers, concluded the summary of his life with this quote. Mr. Ludlow had many fine gifts which would have made him a deserved distinction if he had had the steadiness of character necessary to make the best of them. His death at so early an age as 33, that's incorrect by a day put a period to a life of which the actual results are very evidently and sadly short of the promises and possibilities.

[Holly Frey]

The obituary that ran in the New York Times was a lot more sentimental, noting, quote, a gentler, more loving spirit never escaped from the conflict conflicts of this world. That write up mentions how many people he helped through their own battles with drug use, noting his ceaseless generosity with anybody who asked him for help. The obituary also included this line, which hit Holly pretty hard. Quote, some persons blamed him, but we doubt that he left an enemy in this world if he had one, that enemy died with him. In 1970, 100 years after his death, the Fitzhugh Ludlow Memorial Library, which was a private collection, was founded in San Francisco by Julio Murillo Santo Domingo Jr. It's a collection of materials focused on altered states of mind. The collection became part of the library holdings at Harvard University after the death of its originator, and at that point it was renamed the Ludlow Santo Domingo Library.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, we can talk about it some on Friday, but there have been a lot of efforts and moments of resurgence and interest in his work, some of which I'll talk about it on Friday, because some of it kind of cherry picks his writings to make him kind of a proponent of drug use, when really, if you look at the whole of his work, that's not really what's going on. But in the meantime, I have listener mail and it ties to this episode and the Albert Bierstadt one. This is from our listener Jennifer. Jennifer writes, Dear Holly and Tracy, I've been catching up on episodes after some summer traveling, and when I saw one titled Albert Bierstadt, it immediately caught my eye. I live in a small community in the mountains of Colorado that's not far from Mount Bierstadt, which is one of Colorado's famous fourteeners, I. E. One of 58 mountains in the state with elevations that top out over 14,000ft. Since Bierstadt is certainly not a common name, I wondered if the mountain was named after him, and it turns out that it is is. Regardless, at the portion of the narrative where you discussed his painting A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mount Rosalie, Tracy made a statement that there is no Mount Rosalie, to which my brain immediately interjected, yes, there is. I was almost certain I'd heard of a Mount Rosalie in our area, and after a little Google map searching cross reference with my personal hiking notes, I confirmed that there indeed is a Mount Rosalie and it's located right next to Mount Bierstadt. I have no idea if the naming came before or after Albert's famous painting, but in any case, although it's officially Rosalie Peak, locals usually refer to it as Mount Rosalie and it is a favorite local hiking area. I've enjoyed your podcast for many years now, so it was fun to come across something in an episode that resonated in my personal life. As Pet Tax, I've attached some pics of my hiking buddy Sammy, officially Sammy Hagar, and yes, he is the successor to Eddie Van Halen, who sadly died young. Sammy is a Bernadoodle that we affectionately refer to as our doofic because he's a smart dog who likes to do dumb things. If his haircut looks like he got run over by a lawnmower, that's because he's been kicked out of three dog groomers. So we gave up and now he gets a home haircut. He doesn't seem to mind and we're saving money. Thanks for all you do. Keep up the great work. Okay. I don't care if it's a home haircut. This dog is so cute, I can't quite deal with it. That's a cute dog. I have Rosalie Mountain information.

[Holly Frey]

Yeah.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So here's the. Here's the scoop. The Mount Rosalie in that picture was renamed later Mount Evans, and the Mount Bierstadt was also named Mount Rosalie briefly, and then now it's Bierstadt, and they picked a different one to keep a Rosalie in the mix. And that is Rosalie Peak, which is its technical name. And I was like, this is also confusing in many renamings and switcheroos of mountain that. I'll just leave it out of the episode. And it made for confusion. So I apologize. But yeah, Rosalie Peak. There technically still is no Mount Rosalie. There was, but there wasn't when he found it and called it that, and there wasn't by the time we recorded the episode, because it's Rosalie Peak and it's a different mountain entirely. I don't know if that clears anything up. That may be clear as mud, but in any case, that's the scoop. I just want to look at dog pictures again. If you would like to write to us about this or anything else you can. Our email address is historypodcastheartradio.com you can also subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Holly Frey]

Stuff youf Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Robert Lamb]

Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime on the new podcast, America's Crime Lab. Every case has a story to tell, and the DNA holds the truth.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen, I was just like, like, ah, gotcha. This technology's already solving so many cases.

[Robert Lamb]

Listen to America's Crime Lab on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Joe McCormick]

Hey, this is Robert Lamb.

[Danielle Robaix]

And this is Joe McCormick, and we're the hosts of the Stuff to Blow youw Mind podcast. We've got an exciting week ahead for you on Stuff to Blow youw Mind. It's Cat Week. That's right. To coincide with International cat Day on August 8th, we're dedicating every episode in the Stuff to Blow youw Mind Podcast feed to your cute, mysterious feline companions. So tune in for core stuff to blow your mind episodes on the earliest archaeological evidence for domesticated cats and the folkloric cats of the British Isles.

[Joe McCormick]

The week's Monster Fact will focus on a popular cat creature and you better believe Weirdhouse cinema will cover some kind of head scratching cat movie. So tune in August 25th through 8th for stuff to blow your mind's Cat Week. Find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Girlfriends is back with a new season, and this time I'm telling you the story of Kelly Harnett. Kelly spent over a decade in prison for a murder she says she didn't commit. As she fought for her freedom, she taught herself the law.

[H]

He goes on. Oh God. Harnett Jailhouse Lawyer and became a beacon.

[Joe McCormick]

Of hope for the women locked up alongside her.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

You're supposed to have your faith in God, but I had nothing but faith in her.

[H]

I think I was put here to save souls by getting people out of prison.

[Joe McCormick]

The Girlfriends Jailhouse Lawyer listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Danielle Robaix]

My Uncle Chris was a real character, a garbage truck driver from South Carolina who is now buried in Panama City alongside the founding families of Panama. He also happens to be responsible for the craziest night of my life. Wild stories about adventure, romance, crime, history and war intertwine as I share the tall tales and hard truths that have helped me understand Uncle Chris. Listen now to Uncle Chris on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Holly Frey]

This is an iHeart podcast.