Speaker 1: Happy Saturday.
Speaker 2: Something that came up in passing in the research for
Speaker 2: this week's episode on George Washington Williams was that he
Speaker 2: knew Richard T. Greener, first black graduate of Harvard and
Speaker 2: father of Belle DaCosta Green, and I thought, Hey, we
Speaker 2: talked about her on the podcast. She is one of
Speaker 2: the three women we discussed in this episode, Gertrude Belle,
Speaker 2: Ellian Belle Da Costa Green, and Dido Elizabeth Bell. It
Speaker 2: is Today's Saturday Classic and it originally came out on
Speaker 2: December eleventh, twenty seventeen. Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed
Speaker 2: in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 2: to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.
Speaker 2: Today we have another episode in which we're going to
Speaker 2: devote some time to three unique women, all of whom
Speaker 2: are notable in their way. And the two things that
Speaker 2: they have in common is that each of them has
Speaker 2: an element to their story that really surprised me in
Speaker 2: some way, and the other is that they each have
Speaker 2: the name Belle. If you're wondering, Hey, Tracy, why is
Speaker 2: this not a six impossible episodes, It's because a lot
Speaker 2: of the other bells were already taken. You will find
Speaker 2: Belle Boyd, Bell Star, and Bell Ganness in the archive,
Speaker 2: along with Gertrude Bell, whose name doesn't have the E
Speaker 2: on the end, and even the Bell which he was
Speaker 2: not a person. The three women today are Gertrude Bell Ellien,
Speaker 2: Belle DaCosta Green, and Dido Elizabeth Bell. Dido Elizabeth Bell
Speaker 2: is a frequent listener request, including more recently from Renee
Speaker 2: and Melissa. And then the other two are people I
Speaker 2: learned about kind of stumbled over in various travels. Gertrude
Speaker 2: Bell Ellien, known as Trudy, was born on January twenty third,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighteen. Her father, Robert, was a dentist who had
Speaker 2: immigrated from Lithuania and moved to New York at the
Speaker 2: age of twelve. Her mother, Bertha Cohen, had immigrated from
Speaker 2: a part of Russia that is now Poland when she
Speaker 2: was fourteen years old. The family was Jewish, and Robert
Speaker 2: was from a long line of rabbis. Ellien grew up
Speaker 2: in a Manhattan apartment adjacent to her father's dentistry practice,
Speaker 2: and when she was six, a younger brother, Herbert, was
Speaker 2: born Not long after that, the family moved to the Bronx,
Speaker 2: which was at the time considered more of a suburb
Speaker 2: than an actual part of New York City.
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty three, Ellian graduated from high school, and
Speaker 1: her family at that point was in pretty dire financial streets.
Speaker 1: Like much of the rest of the country and in
Speaker 1: some cases, the world, they had suffered huge losses in
Speaker 1: the Great Depression, and her father had declared bankruptcy. Fortunately, though,
Speaker 1: because Elien had been such an exceptional student, she was
Speaker 1: accepted at Hunter College, which was at the time a
Speaker 1: tuition free women's college.
Speaker 2: Ellien's grandfather died of cancer that she graduated from high school,
Speaker 2: and she wanted to pursue a career that would let
Speaker 2: her fight the disease. But she also had kind of
Speaker 2: an aversion to dissection, so she got around this difficulty
Speaker 2: by studying chemistry.
Speaker 1: Ellien graduated from Hunter College summa cum laude in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty seven, but in spite of her excellent academic record,
Speaker 1: she couldn't find work as a chemist because of her gender.
Speaker 1: She got a job teaching biochemistry to nursing students at
Speaker 1: the New York Hospital School of Nursing but that was
Speaker 1: only a temporary position, with the course only taught once
Speaker 1: every nine months, and when she finally did find a
Speaker 1: job working as a lab assistant, it was unpaid and
Speaker 1: it slowly and gradually increased from zero to twenty dollars
Speaker 1: a week. She saved as much money as she could,
Speaker 1: and her parents gradually recovered from the Great Depression thanks
Speaker 1: to her father's loyal dentistry patients, so by nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: nine she had enough money to go back to school.
Speaker 1: She enrolled at New York University and the chemistry department
Speaker 1: as its only female master's degree student, earning her MS
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty one, not long after the United States
Speaker 1: entered World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 1: We often talk about World War two as a time
Speaker 1: when more women were entering the civilian workforce because so
Speaker 1: many men were entering the military, and that's often discussed
Speaker 1: in terms of factory labor or wartime industries, but the
Speaker 1: same concept applied to other jobs as well. So during
Speaker 1: the war, Elian was finally able to get work as
Speaker 1: a chemist, starting out in the Quaker Made Company's quality
Speaker 1: control department. She didn't really.
Speaker 2: Love doing this work, she was doing things like testing
Speaker 2: the acidity of pickles, and it was pretty repetitive, but
Speaker 2: it did give her a lot of practice at conducting
Speaker 2: tests quickly and efficiently and doing them accurately. When she
Speaker 2: felt like there wasn't anything else she could learn at
Speaker 2: Quaker Maide, she looked for another job and was hired
Speaker 2: in a research position at Johnson and Johnson, but that
Speaker 2: company shuttered the research lab when she'd been there for
Speaker 2: only about six months.
Speaker 1: Then in nineteen forty four, she got a position doing
Speaker 1: what she had really wanted to do since high school,
Speaker 1: working as a research chemist at pharmaceutical company Burrow's Welcome,
Speaker 1: where she started out as an assistant to doctor George H. Hitchings.
Speaker 2: Side note that after many moves and name changes, Burrow's
Speaker 2: Welcome is now glaxosmith Klein. This new role was really
Speaker 2: ideal for her. Hitchings encouraged her to learn as much
Speaker 2: as she could, including branching out from the field of chemistry.
Speaker 2: He progressively gave her more and more responsibility, and often
Speaker 2: when Hitchings got promoted, she got promoted into his old role.
Speaker 2: By nineteen sixty seven, she had risen through the ranks
Speaker 2: to become Burrow's Welcome's Head of Experimental Therapy, a position
Speaker 2: that she would hold until the end.
Speaker 1: Of her career. When Ellian started working at Burrow's Welcome,
Speaker 1: a lot of pharmaceutical research was carried out basically on
Speaker 1: a try, vile and error basis, but Elien and the
Speaker 1: rest of their team took a different approach, examining and
Speaker 1: then exploiting biochemical differences between healthy cells and pathogens so
Speaker 1: that they could develop targeted drugs.
Speaker 2: While at burrows Welcome, Elien and Hitchings developed the first
Speaker 2: successful chemotherapy for the treatment of childhood leukemia. They developed
Speaker 2: the world's first anti rejection drug, which made kidney transplants
Speaker 2: possible between people who weren't related to one another. Elian
Speaker 2: also develops treatments for a number of other diseases, including gout, lupus, malaria, meningitis,
Speaker 2: and arthritis. In the late nineteen sixties, after she had
Speaker 2: become head of the Department of Experimental Therapy, Elien did
Speaker 2: pioneering work in anti viral drugs. The conventional wisdom at
Speaker 2: this point was that any drug that could successfully work
Speaker 2: against viruses would be far too toxic to be tolerated
Speaker 2: by the human body. The department's first breakthrough was a cyclovire,
Speaker 2: invented by Howard Schaeffer. A cyclovier, used to treat herpes,
Speaker 2: was the world's first truly successful targeted antiviral medication. There
Speaker 2: were a few other antiviral drugs at this point, but
Speaker 2: most of them had been developed as treatments for non
Speaker 2: viral diseases, they were discovered to actually have some antiviral efficacy,
Speaker 2: or they were broad spectrum treatments that were really hard
Speaker 2: on the patient. Ellien's work with a cyclovier included refining
Speaker 2: its development, as well as figuring out exactly why it worked,
Speaker 2: and then applying those findings to other drugs.
Speaker 1: Elien's techniques also led to the development of a zidathymidine,
Speaker 1: more commonly known as AZT, which in nineteen eighty seven
Speaker 1: became the first drug approved by the FDA for the
Speaker 1: treatment of HIV. By the time AZT was developed, Elien
Speaker 1: had retired and was serving as scientist emeritus and consultant,
Speaker 1: so she had more of a supervisory role than a
Speaker 1: hands on one. Early in her career at Burroughs Welcome,
Speaker 1: Ellien had wanted to continue her education. She enrolled in
Speaker 1: the PhD proget Brooklyn Polytechnic, going to school part time
Speaker 1: while continuing to work. But after two years in the program,
Speaker 1: the dean told her she needed to choose between her
Speaker 1: job and her studies. She chose the job, and she
Speaker 1: never finished her doctorate. So she rose to these incredible
Speaker 1: heights with two strikes against her, the fact that she
Speaker 1: was a woman and the fact that she didn't have
Speaker 1: a PhD. Been her own words. Quote.
Speaker 2: Years later, when I received three honorary doctorate degrees from
Speaker 2: George Washington University, Brown University, and University of Michigan, I
Speaker 2: decided that perhaps that decision had been the right one
Speaker 2: after all.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty eight, Gertrude Bell Ellion and George H.
Speaker 1: Hitchings were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Speaker 1: In the words of the Nobel Assembly, they quote demonstrated
Speaker 1: differences in nucleic acid metabolism between normal human cells, cancer cells, protozoa, bacteria,
Speaker 1: and virus. On the basis of such differences, a series
Speaker 1: of drugs were developed the block nucleic acid synthesis in
Speaker 1: cancer cells and noxious organisms without damaging the normal human cells.
Speaker 1: Ellien in that moment, became the fifth woman to earn
Speaker 1: a Nobel Prize in medicine, the ninth woman to earn
Speaker 1: a Nobel Prize in any science category, and one of
Speaker 1: a very few people to earn a Nobel Prize in
Speaker 1: the sciences without having a doctorate. As a side note,
Speaker 1: also receiving the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight was James W. Black, who developed beta blockers,
Speaker 1: which are used to treat high blood pressure and heart disease,
Speaker 1: and eight two antagonists, which are used to treat peptic ulcers.
Speaker 1: Ellien Is also listed on the patents for more than
Speaker 1: forty drugs. She received more than twenty honorary doctoral degrees,
Speaker 1: and in nineteen sixty eight she was awarded the Garvin
Speaker 1: Medal from the American Chemical Society, and in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: five she earned the American Chemical Society Distinguished Chemist Award.
Speaker 1: She also earned the American Cancer Society Medal of Honor,
Speaker 1: the National Medal of Science in the Lemmelson MIT Lifetime
Speaker 1: Achievement Award, among others. In nineteen ninety one, at the
Speaker 1: age of seventy three, she became the first woman inducted
Speaker 1: into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2: She also served as a leader in several organizations dedicated
Speaker 2: to health and research, including serving on the board of
Speaker 2: directors of the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society,
Speaker 2: and the Multiple Sclerosis Society. She was also a member
Speaker 2: of the American Academy of Pharmaceutical Scientists, the National Academy
Speaker 2: of Sciences, the American Chemical Society, and the American Association
Speaker 2: of Cancer Research, also serving as its president. In addition
Speaker 2: to all of this, she did a lot of outreach
Speaker 2: to encourage children to study the sciences, especially girls. She
Speaker 2: was an avid traveler and photographer, and she also loved
Speaker 2: music that she subscribed to the Metropolitan Opera for forty years. Eventually,
Speaker 2: brose Welcome moved its headquarters to Chapel Hill, North Carolina,
Speaker 2: and Ellien moved as well. While in North Carolina, she
Speaker 2: taught at both the University of North Carolina and at
Speaker 2: Duke University in Durham. She died in Chapel Hill on Sunday,
Speaker 2: February twenty first, nineteen ninety nine, at the age of
Speaker 2: eighty one. I learned about her at the National Museum
Speaker 2: of Jewish American History in Philadelphia. I had never heard
Speaker 2: of her before, and it is amazing that she did
Speaker 2: such important and groundbreaking work in the field of chemistry,
Speaker 2: and especially in pharmaceutical chemistry without as would typically be
Speaker 2: expected a PhD. Like for her to be at that
Speaker 2: rank within the company without a PhD and also a woman,
Speaker 2: is amazing. Yeah, we're going to talk about another fascinating
Speaker 2: lady with the name Belle in just a moment, But
Speaker 2: first we're going to pause and have a little sponsor break.
Speaker 2: Beginning in about eighteen ninety, wealthy financier and banking titan
Speaker 2: John Pierpont Morgan Senior started amassing a huge collection of
Speaker 2: rare and antique books, artifacts and art, and other assorted
Speaker 2: treasures at his home at two nineteen Madison Avenue in
Speaker 2: New York City. He acquired a Gutenberg Bible on vellum,
Speaker 2: the first of three Gutenberg Bibles that he would go
Speaker 2: on to own. Also for Shakespeare, folios, signed manuscripts by
Speaker 2: John Keats and Charles Dickens, a fourteen fifty nine edition
Speaker 2: of The Man's Psalter.
Speaker 1: On and on a very impressive collection. It was extensive
Speaker 1: and expensive as well as being impressive, so much so
Speaker 1: that in nineteen oh two, he commissioned an architect to
Speaker 1: build a library adjoining his home to house it all.
Speaker 1: And while he did seem to have the knowledge, taste,
Speaker 1: and money to build a good collection, he didn't really
Speaker 1: have a head for curating or organizing it. For that,
Speaker 1: he needed a librarian.
Speaker 2: That librarian was bell to Costa Green, who he high
Speaker 2: in nineteen oh five when she was twenty two. Green
Speaker 2: born on December thirteenth, eighteen eighty three, was of Portuguese heritage.
Speaker 2: She'd been born in Virginia and grew up in Alexandria,
Speaker 2: and she'd gone directly from public school to working at
Speaker 2: the Princeton University Library in nineteen oh one or nineteen
Speaker 2: oh two. Although she had no prior training as a librarian,
Speaker 2: her time at Princeton had made her quite skilled at
Speaker 2: cataloging and reference work, and she'd had a lifelong affinity
Speaker 2: for rare books and illuminated manuscripts.
Speaker 1: I would imagine that would seem like a dream job then,
Speaker 1: at least that is the biography that she probably gave
Speaker 1: to JP Morgan, who had been introduced to Green through
Speaker 1: his nephew Junia Spencer Morgan, Associate librarian at Princeton, and
Speaker 1: it is also the one she presented to the world
Speaker 1: at large, and you will still find some of those
Speaker 1: details in articles about her life.
Speaker 2: Green did go to public school and work in a
Speaker 2: Princeton University library, but biographer Heidi Artisan puts her birth
Speaker 2: at November twenty one, six, eighteen seventy nine, in Washington,
Speaker 2: d C. So slightly different place and also a little older.
Speaker 2: From there, her family moved to New York in eighteen
Speaker 2: eighty five, and then after graduating from high school, Green
Speaker 2: went on to Teachers College, as well as possibly taking
Speaker 2: a library apprenticeship at New York Public Library and a
Speaker 2: bibliography course at Amherst College.
Speaker 1: And her name was not initially Belle Da Costa Green.
Speaker 1: It was Bell Marion Greener. Her father, Richard T. Greener,
Speaker 1: was the first black man to graduate from Harvard, the
Speaker 1: first black librarian and professor at the University of South Carolina,
Speaker 1: and a former dean at Howard University, a historically black
Speaker 1: university in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: Green may have had some Portuguese ancestry. Her parents both
Speaker 2: had very like complexions, but the name the Costa and
Speaker 2: the change of her last name from Greener to Green
Speaker 2: both came after her father left the family and moved
Speaker 2: to Russia to take on a consular post. Race that
Speaker 2: was listed on Green's birth certificate was colored. It's virtually
Speaker 2: certain that Belle da Costa Green could not have gone
Speaker 2: on to the life that she had and the work
Speaker 2: that she did had she presented herself to the world
Speaker 2: as a black woman. Her father was able to rise
Speaker 2: to some prominence, largely thanks to when he was born.
Speaker 2: His admission to Harvard and his job at USC were
Speaker 2: products of reconstruction happening during the brief window when the
Speaker 2: nation made reluctant strides towards racial equality. But Bell de
Speaker 2: Coosta Green went to work for JP Morgan in nineteen
Speaker 2: oh six, well into the Jim Crow era. Even though
Speaker 2: the South has a much more notorious reputation for segregation
Speaker 2: and racist violence, segregation and racism were present in the
Speaker 2: rest of the nation as well, although often in a
Speaker 2: somewhat subtler way. We have a whole library of podcast
Speaker 2: episodes called not Just in the South that relate to
Speaker 2: this whole idea, which we will link to in our
Speaker 2: show notes. So after her father's depart Green, along with
Speaker 2: her mother and siblings, changed their last names with a brother,
Speaker 2: adding DaCosta to his as well. They distanced themselves from
Speaker 2: Richard T. Greener, his reputation and his color, and they
Speaker 2: joined the white world. For Bell's part, she had far
Speaker 2: more opportunity available to her as a white woman straight
Speaker 2: out of high school than is the daughter of a
Speaker 2: black Harvard graduate who had attended college and possibly completed
Speaker 2: a library apprenticeship. Can I take just a moment to
Speaker 2: talk about the idea of passing because it has come
Speaker 2: up Yeah, previous episodes a couple of times, like the
Speaker 2: idea of passing. So a person of color living within
Speaker 2: the white world as a white person has its connotation
Speaker 2: of deception and doing something wrong. But to be clear,
Speaker 2: what is wrong is the society that made it impossible
Speaker 2: for people of color to live the same life as
Speaker 2: white people had access to. So what she was basically
Speaker 2: doing here was just not playing by the rules that
Speaker 2: white society was establishing for people of color, doing her
Speaker 2: own thing. Yeah, it is one of those things that's
Speaker 2: sometimes framed as sort of sneaky, but when you look
Speaker 2: at it really as the comparative that Tracy laid out
Speaker 2: in these notes of like, here's a woman who is educated,
Speaker 2: she has all of these skills, she is super smart.
Speaker 2: But if she presents herself as black, she will never
Speaker 2: get this job. Versus saying, oh no, I'm just an
Speaker 2: enthusiast straight out of high school, but I'm white and
Speaker 2: gets the job. Like that's a pretty clear indicator of
Speaker 2: why passing became something that people tried to do. Yes, So,
Speaker 2: for her first three years working for Pierpont Morgan, Green
Speaker 2: spent most of her time sorting out this collection he
Speaker 2: had accumulated, organizing catalog and curating this whole haphazard mess
Speaker 2: into an actual private library, and then from there, while
Speaker 2: still acting as his personal librarian, she started traveling around
Speaker 2: the world on his behalf, basically as an acquisitions agent.
Speaker 1: In this Green was highly confident and completely confident. Particularly
Speaker 1: in her early career. There was quite a bit of
Speaker 1: media coverage that painted her as a flibbertygibbet, but she
Speaker 1: carried herself with such assurance that it increasingly offset the
Speaker 1: fact that she was, to everyone else's eye, a twenty
Speaker 1: somethingter woman who had never been to college. She was
Speaker 1: also quite spylish and fashionable, playing up her so called
Speaker 1: quote exotic appearance. Reportedly saying, quote, just because I am
Speaker 1: a librarian doesn't mean I have to dress like one.
Speaker 1: She was openly flirtatious with everyone, and she had a
Speaker 1: string of lovers, rumored to include women and men. She
Speaker 1: was briefly engaged to a few of the latter. There
Speaker 1: were rumors that she was involved with Morgan himself, which
Speaker 1: she neither confirmed nor denied, just saying we tried when
Speaker 1: asked about it, like, what does that even mean? I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: Her longest and most important relationship was with married art
Speaker 2: historian Bernard Berenson, who she wrote more than six hundred
Speaker 2: letters to between nineteen ten and nineteen forty four. Green
Speaker 2: also neither confirmed nor denied speculation about whether she had
Speaker 2: quote crossed the color line, which went on throughout her life. Instead,
Speaker 2: she lived exuberantly and passionately, presenting herself as a mysterious,
Speaker 2: intriguing woman with a sharp tongue and shrewd bargaining skills,
Speaker 2: who also became highly internationally respected for her work as
Speaker 2: a librarian and her ability to negotiate for new acquisitions.
Speaker 1: Belle de Costa.
Speaker 2: Green expanded Pierpont Morgan's holdings into one of the finest
Speaker 2: private library collections in the world. By the time Morgan
Speaker 2: died in nineteen thirteen, his library contained six hundred rare
Speaker 2: and valuable volumes. It included an incredible collection of medieval
Speaker 2: and Renaissance manuscripts, along with a sizable collection of books
Speaker 2: printed by William Caxton, in large part thanks to Green
Speaker 2: negotiating a private purchase the night before an entire set
Speaker 2: was supposed to be sold at auction, and one of
Speaker 2: her most famous acquisitions, she secured another caxpan An edition
Speaker 2: of La Morte d'erteur for forty two eight hundred dollars,
Speaker 2: which is a lot of money, but it is a
Speaker 2: whole lot less than the one hundred thousand dollars that
Speaker 2: Morgan had offered her to had authorized her to pay
Speaker 2: for it. After Morgan's death, Green's future was briefly uncertain.
Speaker 2: His son, JP Morgan Junior, known as Jack, was not
Speaker 2: particularly interested in his father's collection, but in about nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty he changed his mind, and Green resumed her travels
Speaker 2: to Europe to continue acquiring manuscripts, books and art, now
Speaker 2: hoping to develop the Morgan collection until it rivaled the
Speaker 2: world's finest public institutions and make it into something that
Speaker 2: the public could access. Jack Morgan ultimately agreed with this goal,
Speaker 2: and the Morgan Library became a public institution in nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty four, at which point Green became its He became
Speaker 2: its first director. For the next twenty four years, Bell
Speaker 2: de Costa Green worked to transform the Morgan Library into
Speaker 2: an internationally recognized center for academic study. She developed an
Speaker 2: information services department, a copying services department. She arranged public
Speaker 2: lectures and publications. She also continued to travel and acquire
Speaker 2: new works until nineteen thirty six, when her health started
Speaker 2: to decline.
Speaker 1: She worked at the Morgan Library until her retirement in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty eight, and she died on May tenth, nineteen fifty.
Speaker 1: Although she was seventy one and the people in her
Speaker 1: life thought she was more like sixty seven, people wondered
Speaker 1: whether she had been ill or whether her lifestyle had
Speaker 1: contributed to her early death. She was a lifelong smoker
Speaker 1: and a heavy drinker, and she'd always burned the candle
Speaker 1: at both ends in a life of passion, travel and adventure.
Speaker 2: The Morgan Library, which is now the Morgan Library and Museum,
Speaker 2: held an exhibition the year before her death which featured
Speaker 2: more than two a few hundred and fifty of the
Speaker 2: most notable items she had acquired for the library, and
Speaker 2: today her presence is still definitely felt there. There's including
Speaker 2: a piece about her in the free audio tour that
Speaker 2: you can get if you go to the Morgan, which
Speaker 2: is how I first learned about Harry. It was actually
Speaker 2: on my second trip to the Morgan. For whatever reason,
Speaker 2: my first time there, I hadn't flipped through to that
Speaker 2: part and I was there my second time around with
Speaker 2: my husband and he came over to me was like, hey,
Speaker 2: have you listened to this about the librarian? Listen to
Speaker 2: the one about the librarian. She sounds amazing, So we
Speaker 2: have one more amazing woman to talk about after one
Speaker 2: more quick sponsor break. Hanging in Schoon Palace in Perth,
Speaker 2: Scotland is a striking and beautiful portrait of two young women.
Speaker 2: The woman on the right is in a pink gown
Speaker 2: with a gauzy white overlay. It's pretty traditional, maybe even
Speaker 2: a little bit old fashioned for the time. She's holding
Speaker 2: a book in one hand and the other woman's farm
Speaker 2: in the other. Her expression is a little reserved, but
Speaker 2: it has kind of a playful, little smile. The woman
Speaker 2: on the left is dressed more exotically, a white satin
Speaker 2: dress with a silken blue shawl flowing back from her arms,
Speaker 2: and a white turban decorated with a fashionable ostrich bloom
Speaker 2: in a little gold embellishments. She's carrying a basket of
Speaker 2: fruit and holding one finger up to her cheek, wearing
Speaker 2: a decidedly mischievous expression. Given their clothing, their jewelry, and
Speaker 2: the setting, both women are clearly wealthy. They're also obviously
Speaker 2: fond of one another. The painting's composition suggests that they
Speaker 2: might be sisters and in what's most striking about the portrait,
Speaker 2: which dates back to the late seventeen seventies, is that
Speaker 2: the woman on the right is white and the woman
Speaker 2: on the left is black. In a dramatic departure from
Speaker 2: what would have been accepted at the time and what
Speaker 2: is really depicted in paintings from the time, it presents
Speaker 2: them as near equals.
Speaker 1: That woman on the left is Dido Elizabeth Bell, and
Speaker 1: on the right is her cousin, Lady Elizabeth Murray. Both
Speaker 1: were grand nieces of William Murray, first Earl of Mansfield
Speaker 1: and the Lord Chief Justice of Britain, who, along with
Speaker 1: his wife, raised them at the estate of Kentwood House.
Speaker 1: Their fathers were two of Lord Mansfield's nephews. Lady Elizabeth
Speaker 1: Murray's father was an ambassador and her mother had died
Speaker 1: when she was still a baby, which is why she
Speaker 1: was being raised at Kenwood House. Dido.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Bell's father was a British Navy officer, Sir John Lindsay.
Speaker 2: Her mother was an enslaved woman named Maria, who Lindsay
Speaker 2: either stole or rescued, depending on who you ask, from
Speaker 2: a Spanish vessel in the Caribbean. We know virtually nothing
Speaker 2: concrete about Maria's life. We don't know whether she was
Speaker 2: bound from Africa to the Caribbean when Lindsay encountered the
Speaker 2: ship she was on, or whether she had already been
Speaker 2: in the colonies and then was being transported elsewhere.
Speaker 1: We don't even know what ship it was.
Speaker 2: We also know virtually nothing about her connection to John Lindsay.
Speaker 2: It was extremely common for a ship's crew to rape
Speaker 2: enslaved women in transit, but it was unheard of for
Speaker 2: a British officer to return home with an enslaved woman
Speaker 2: who was carrying his child. Which, according to what the
Speaker 2: one surviving second hand account that we have, is what
Speaker 2: John Lindsay did.
Speaker 1: It would have been simple enough for Lindsay to set
Speaker 1: Dido and her mother up with comfortable living arrangements somewhere
Speaker 1: in London, the city's black community numbered about fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: in the eighteenth century, but instead he acknowledged his daughter
Speaker 1: and made arrangements for her to be brought up as
Speaker 1: a lady in a manner befitting his family and his station,
Speaker 1: and in seventeen seventy two, roughly eleven years after Dido's birth,
Speaker 1: he gave her mother land in Pensacola, Florida, suggesting both
Speaker 1: that she was free and that they had an ongoing
Speaker 1: relationship in the years after Dido's birth in seventeen sixty one.
Speaker 1: There is just so much we don't know here.
Speaker 2: Belle and her cousin were raised, not quite as equals,
Speaker 2: but much closer to one another than one would have
Speaker 2: expected given Bell's birth and color. Lord and Lady Murray
Speaker 2: had no children, and while there's some debate about exactly
Speaker 2: what Bell's position was in the family, they seemed to
Speaker 2: have raised both girls as daughters. Household accounts show orders
Speaker 2: for things like bedding and dresses being ordered in paars.
Speaker 2: Dido was able to read and write, and seems to
Speaker 2: have had the same education that Elizabeth did.
Speaker 1: At the same time, there were clear differences in their stations.
Speaker 1: Both ladies received an allowance, but Dido's was thirty pounds
Speaker 1: a year Elizabeth's was one hundred. At least some of
Speaker 1: the time, Dido was not allowed to eat with the
Speaker 1: family when they were entertaining guests, and she was also
Speaker 1: expected to work. She super the dairy and the poultry yard,
Speaker 1: and took dictation for Lord Murray's letters. All of this
Speaker 1: was pretty typical for how the aristocracy treated quote poor
Speaker 1: relations and out of wedlock children who they actually liked,
Speaker 1: but it was not at all typical for how the
Speaker 1: aristocracy treated people of color. Bell's life at Kenwood House
Speaker 1: and her relationship with the Lord Chief Justice drew some criticism.
Speaker 1: Lord Mansfield was already the subject of some scrutiny. He
Speaker 1: was a scot from a line of Catholic Jacobites, although
Speaker 1: he had distanced himself from Scotland and from his Scottish
Speaker 1: family in his young adulthood. Having his nephew's multi racial
Speaker 1: natural daughter living in his home and treating her with
Speaker 1: obvious familial affection raised even more eyebrows. This was particularly
Speaker 1: true when it came to Lord Mansfield's work as Lord
Speaker 1: Chief Justice, especially when it came to cases relating to slavery.
Speaker 1: In seventeen seventy two, Lord Mansfield heard what's known as
Speaker 1: the Summrset case. Charles Stewart, a customs official from Boston,
Speaker 1: had brought his enslaved servant, James Somerset with him to England.
Speaker 1: Somerset escaped, was recaptured, and was forced onto a ship
Speaker 1: bound for Jamaica to be sold back into slavery.
Speaker 2: So the question was whether the capture and sale of
Speaker 2: Somerset was lawful. After a lengthy and often delayed process,
Speaker 2: Mansfield ruled, quote, no master ever was allowed here to
Speaker 2: take a slave by force to be sold abroad because
Speaker 2: he deserted from his service, or for any other reason whatsoever.
Speaker 2: Therefore the man must be discharged. This meant that enslaved
Speaker 2: people who had escaped their enslavement in England could not
Speaker 2: be recaptured and sold back into slavery, and more specifically,
Speaker 2: that James Somerset was free.
Speaker 1: Mansfield's ruling also noted that there was nothing in English
Speaker 1: common law specifically establishing slavery as legal, so the decision
Speaker 1: was widely misunderstood at the time as freeing all slaves
Speaker 1: in Britain immediately. There continues to be some debate about
Speaker 1: how it was put into practice at the time, but
Speaker 1: this was certainly more of a starting point than an
Speaker 1: ending point, bolstering the movement for abolition throughout the British Empire.
Speaker 2: So naysayers suggested that Mansfield's decision was influenced by the
Speaker 2: fact that Dido Elizabeth Bell was living in his home
Speaker 2: as a member of his family. It's certainly possible or
Speaker 2: even probable, that her place in his life shaped his views.
Speaker 2: At multiple points he described slavery as odious and unnatural,
Speaker 2: but his work as Lord Chief Justice was really dedicated
Speaker 2: to meticulously interpreting, clarifying, consolidating and following the law, particularly
Speaker 2: commercial law, and there are other cases where it's hard
Speaker 2: to imagine that he was thinking of Bell at all.
Speaker 1: For example, he was also involved in the case of
Speaker 1: the Zong Massacre, was a seventeen eighty one incident in
Speaker 1: which the crew of a slave ship threw more than
Speaker 1: one hundred sick and dying in slaved people overboard during
Speaker 1: an epidemic, claiming that this was necessary because the ship
Speaker 1: was running out of water. The ship's owners filed an
Speaker 1: insurance claim over the loss of their enslaved property, which
Speaker 1: was granted. Lord Mansfield held a hearing regarding the insurer's
Speaker 1: appeal in seventeen eighty three. Lord Mansfield did suggest that
Speaker 1: a new trial might be in order, largely because of
Speaker 1: evidence that the ship's captain and crew had passed up
Speaker 1: the opportunity to take on fresh water and had continued
Speaker 1: culling the enslaved people after rains had replenished the water supply,
Speaker 1: But he didn't really consider the question of whether this
Speaker 1: was murder. He approached it strictly from the perspective that
Speaker 1: the people on board were insured property, even at one
Speaker 1: point comparing them to horses. The insurers may be worried
Speaker 1: that another trial might lead to murder convictions stop pursuing
Speaker 1: the case, even though Mansfield, down in their favor didoh
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Bell lived with Lord Mansfield until his death in
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety three. At that point, his wife Elizabeth had
Speaker 1: also died, and the younger Lady Elizabeth Murray had married
Speaker 1: and left the house. Lord Mansfield left Bell five hundred
Speaker 1: pounds upon his death, plus one hundred pounds a year
Speaker 1: for the rest of her life. In his will, he
Speaker 1: also confirmed that she was free, so that there would
Speaker 1: be no doubt about it in anyone else's mind.
Speaker 2: It's also the way that he phrased that was not
Speaker 2: that he granted her her freedom, but that he confirmed it,
Speaker 2: so he was basically confirming something that already existed. The
Speaker 2: following year, Dido married a Frenchman named John Divinier, and
Speaker 2: they lived on land that had been left to her
Speaker 2: by her father, who by this point had also died,
Speaker 2: leaving one thousand pounds to his children, named in his
Speaker 2: will as Elizabeth and John. It's widely believed that this
Speaker 2: Elizabeth is died oh Elizabeth Bell and not another Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: even though Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: Was a really common name in that family.
Speaker 2: Obviously, John would have been either her brain or a
Speaker 2: half brother by another woman. John Lindsay had no children
Speaker 2: with his wife.
Speaker 1: Dido and her husband John had at least three children together,
Speaker 1: and could have lived comfortably on her income. There's little
Speaker 1: else about her in the historical record, but she died
Speaker 1: at the age of forty two in July of eighteen
Speaker 1: oh four.
Speaker 2: Her father's obituary in the London Chronicle, though, suggests that
Speaker 2: she was admired outside the family, and also sums up
Speaker 2: her story a little bit. It describes her as quote
Speaker 2: a mulatto who has been brought up in Lord Mansfield's
Speaker 2: family almost from her infancy, and whose amiable disposition and
Speaker 2: accomplishments have earned her the highest respect from all his
Speaker 2: Lordship's relations and visitants. There is also a highly fictionalized
Speaker 2: dramatization of her life, a film that came out a
Speaker 2: couple of years ago that's simply titled Bell.
Speaker 1: I watch that. It's enjoyable, but it.
Speaker 2: Is highly fictional, highly fictional life also at times maybe
Speaker 2: a little melodramatic.
Speaker 1: What a movie melodramatic?
Speaker 2: Ever, So, those are the three astonishing Bells that I
Speaker 2: found talk about on the podcast today. I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: disguise the fact I unabashedly love all of them. Thanks
Speaker 2: so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since this
Speaker 2: episode is out of the archive, if you heard an
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