HUB History - Our Favorite Stories from Boston History

This week we’re featuring a magician. And not just any magician, one of the most famous of all time, Harry Houdini. When he wasn’t busy escaping from locked jail cells and underwater safes, the Great Houdini made it a personal mission to unmask fraudulent mediums. In the early 20th century, mediums, spiritualists, and psychic practitioners of all kinds were undergoing a massive boom. With all the death associated with the Great War and the global flu pandemic, the public was desperate for a message from the other side, and there were plenty of practitioners who were willing to sell it to them. The practice of spiritualism was so widespread and accepted that the journal Scientific American was on the brink of giving it the stamp of scientific legitimacy. The leading contender for their approval (and their large cash prize) was a Beacon Hill medium who went by the stage name Margery. And she might have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for that meddling magician, too!

Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/244/

Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/

The Magician and the Medium Margery Houdini by the Mass Ave Bridge Houdini shows how Margery broke out of the box Houdini showing the reinforced box Houdini’s illustration of Margery’s tricks The gang The gang Houdini with $10,000 in bonds

• Aug 28, 1924 DC Evening Star: results of the Margy box test
• Aug 26, 1924 Alaska Daily Empire: Margery’s identity revealed
• Jan 31, 1921 New York Herald: Ad for Houdini’s “Miracle Mongers”
• Oct 18, 1922 Union Daily Times: Houdini finds danger in psychic phenomena
• Nov 9, 1926 Douglas Daily Dispatch: Spiritualists to try contacting Houdini in the afterlife
• Dec 1, 1926 New Britain Herald: Dr. Crandon defends Margery
• Houdini’s book about the Margery case
• Walter Franklin Prince’s article in the American Journal of Psychology
• Boston Globe articles (paywalled)
  • 3 Jan 1925 Houdini declares spiritualism bunk, demonstrates mediums’ methods
  • 11 May 1925 Houdini interrupted and challenged onstage by Margery supporters
  • 12 May 1925 Houdini demonstrates methods
  • 22 Sep 1926 Houdini says Boston is where spiritualists honed their craft
• Jan 16, 1925 Boston Herald: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle endorses Margery and scorns Houdini
• Jan 27, 1925 Springfield Union: Houdini’s response to Doyle
• Dec 14, 1925 Springfield Union: Margery will not get the Scientific American prize
• Correspondence between Houdini and Margery
• Locating Houdini’s jump from the Harvard Bridge