The Scarlet Sisters (61 page)

13.
Christian charity and fortitude:
Brooklyn Eagle
, April 3, 1897.

14.
love of her children:
Brooklyn Eagle
, April 15, 1897.

15.
un-American idea of any third term:
undated newspaper, Brooklyn Public Library.

16.
at any time in Brooklyn:
Brooklyn Eagle
, Oct. 1, 1875, p. 2.

17.
the Woodhulls… of the future:
Ibid.

18.
a fitting frame for his face:
Brooklyn Eagle
, April 22, 1894, p. 21.

19.
the former “Brooklynite,” now respectable:
Brooklyn Eagle
, June 24, 1894.

20.
gave herself to the embraces:
Underhill,
The Woman Who Ran for President
, p. 263.

21.
money “to make a living.”:
Frisken,
Victoria Woodhull’s Sexual Revolution
, p. 180, chapter note 67.

22.
Tennie has had a man in bed:
All Joseph Treat’s accusations are from a self-published pamphlet, Aug. 6, 1874.

23.
of “harlotry”:
Underhill,
The Woman Who Ran for President
, p. 265.

24.
drippings wear the hardest stones:
Ibid., pp. 266–67.

25.
decipher through her Spiritualist aspirations:
Ibid., p. 268.

26.
there is life beyond the grave:
Ibid., p. 268; no attribution for quote.

27.
The grandest woman in the world:
Tucker-Sachs.

28.
the Destiny of the World:
Ad for lecture,
Brooklyn Eagle
, June 27, 1876.

29.
climbing about his shoe-soles:
Applegate,
The Most Famous Man
, p. 468.

30.
“barometer” for cultural anxiety:
Richard K. Sherwin,
When Law Goes Pop: The Vanishing Line between Law and Popular Culture
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).

31.
our present social evils:
Chicago Daily Tribune
, Oct. 1, 1874.

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Siege of London

1.
George Washington and Genghis Khan:
Stiles,
The First Tycoon
, pp. 563–66.

2.
irrelevant to any senility charge:
Ibid., p. 504.

3.
make themselves scarce during the trial:
Arthur T. Vanderbilt II,
Fortune’s Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt
(New York: William Morrow, 1991), p. 61.

4.
“too ridiculous to seriously discuss.”:
New York Times
, May 13, 1877, p. 12.

5.
advised by Scott Lord:
TC letters, SIU.

6.
Dante’s
Inferno
wax tableau:
Luc Sante,
Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991), p. 97.

7.
“filthy practices” now referred to:
TC letters, SIU.

8.
advise against any contact:
Underhill,
The Woman Who Ran for President
, p. 278.

9.
perform our duties:
Doyle,
Plymouth Church and Its Pastor
, pp. 438–39.

10.
the three richest men in England:
Elon Danziger, “The Cook Collection: Its Founders and Its Inheritors,”
The Burlington Magazine
145, no. 1215 (July 2004): 444–58.

11.
noble and beautiful landscape garden:
(London) Times
quote in Danziger, “The Cook Collection.”

12.
absence of ceremony:
House Beautiful: Making of an American Project
(Chicago: Herbert S. Stone and Company), reproduction of a book published before 1923.

13.
not bear further discussion:
Ibid.

14.
“somewhat flatulent rhetoric.”:
Correspondent for the
Brooklyn Eagle
, commenting on VW’s reception by British reporters. Dec. 24, 1877.

15.
her fervent eloquence:
Gabriel,
Notorious Victoria
, p. 247.

16.
certainly make her my wife:
John Biddulph Martin obituary,
New York Press
, BPL, March 24, 1897.

17.
their “barefaced mendacity.”:
Gabriel,
Notorious Victoria
, p. 254.

18.
an electric light in an alabaster vase:
Brooklyn Eagle
, Jan. 18, 1881.

19.
marrying for love, not money:
New York Times
, Oct. 23, 1909, p. 20.

20.
his “old enemy” vanished:
Underhill,
The Woman Who Ran for President
, p. 280.

21.
she made them happy:
SIU.

22.
litany of upper-class breeding:
In 1699 the first Martin joined a banking firm that had reigned from the early fourteenth century. In all, thirteen family members served as members of Parliament between 1741 and 1885. John Biddulph Martin,
The Grasshopper in Lombard Street
(London: Simpkin Marshall Hamilton Kent and Co.; New York: Scribner and Welford, 1892).

23.
feel anxiety on my account:
BPL.

24.
“appalling story of V’s antecedents.”:
Underhill,
The Woman Who Ran for President
, p. 282.

25.
related to Alexander Hamilton:
G. S. Darewin, “Synopsis of the Lives of Victoria C. Woodhull (Now Mrs. John Biddulph Martin) and Tennessee Claflin (Now Lady Cook): The First Two Lady Bankers and Reformers of America” (London: n.p., 1891).

26.
“lying lips” and a “deceitful tongue.”:
Tilton, “Victoria C. Woodhull.”

27.
favor free love, even tacitly:
Underhill,
The Woman Who Ran for President
, p. 283.

28.
only the revised images:
Frisken,
Victoria Woodhull’s Sexual Revolution
, p. 148.

29.
ensnared by the “harlot” Woodhull:
Underhill,
The Woman Who Ran for President
, p. 285.

30.
& your love will help us:
Martin correspondence, Nov. 3, 1883, at SIU.

Chapter Twenty-Four: Lady Cook

1.
cared for her a great deal:
John Somerville e-mail to MM, May 30, 2011.

2.
“Yours, forever, Frank.”:
SIU.

3.
nymphs and cupids cavorting:
Andre Metaxides, owner of Doughty House, in June 2011, who provided MM with a photo of the painting.

4.
Sunday afternoon concerts:
New York Times
, May 17, 1914.

5.
pointing out such masterpieces as:
Jardim Formoso
, Aug. 12, 2009.

6.
how startling life can be:
The Burlington Magazine
, July 2004.

7.
leaving pamphlets and tracts:
Vera Ryder,
Little Victims at Play: Reminiscences of Doughty House by the Great-Granddaughter of Sir Francis Cook, Tennessee Claflin’s Husband
(London: Robert Hale Ltd., 1974).

8.
an “American elevator.”:
Fragment of article, at SIU.

9.
prettiest woman in the hall:
Omaha Daily Bee
, May 29, 1887, p. 4.

10.
titled him Viscount de Monserrate:
The palace and garden are now a national monument and a favorite destination for tourists. Gerald Luckhurst, Monserrate’s landscape architect, led MM on a fine tour of this magnificent site. In 2011, Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, christened a new rose garden at Monserrate.

11.
contented with my precious husband:
SIU.

12.
the contessa’s [Tennie’s] children:
Atlanta Constitution
, Jan. 22, 1905.

13.
“Tennie’s own Stars and Stripes,”:
Ibid.

14.
Yours sincerely, Frank Cook:
SIU.

15.
calling Sir Francis “your darling husband.”:
Ibid.

16.
He paid nominal damages:
Underhill,
The Woman Who Ran for President
, p. 295; no original attribution.

17.
in favor of Sir Francis:
(Adelaide, Australia) Advertiser
, March 18 and 20, 1894.

18.
Write me a line:
VW to TC, undated letter, at SIU.

19.
wrote in his fine script:
VW and JM to TC, undated letter, at SIU.

20.
a look that is not Love:
SIU.

21.
Cable quickly:
TC to VW, undated, in ibid.

22.
alone & keep very quiet:
Ibid.

23.
a result of sexual disease:
Joseph Treat,
Beecher, Tilton, Woodhull, the creation of society
. Self-published pamphlet, 1874.

24.
gonorrhea or ‘excessive venery’:
Stiles,
The First Tycoon
, p. 557.

25.
Stiles skewered Renehan’s unreliable claim:
Stiles challenged Renehan to produce what Stiles charged were nonexistent diaries from a Vanderbilt doctor. Renehan never answered or refuted Stiles. The latter’s credibility was further muddied when he was sentenced to eighteen months in federal prison for pilfering letters written by George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt from the Theodore Roosevelt Association, and selling them for $100,000, while he was acting director of the association (
[NY] Sun
, June 23, 2008). Renehan said he was suffering from bipolar disorder at the time, which was also while he was writing the Vanderbilt biography. Renehan did not respond to my attempts to reach him. A request for an explanation from his publisher, Basic Books, resulted in this e-mail: “My recollection is that we asked the author to review this matter and to submit any necessary changes… publishers rarely if ever are in the business of fact-checking their authors’ manuscripts.
It’s neither financially feasible, nor is it contractually required.” The Renehan biography remains prominent on Amazon, without changes. Stiles argued that Vanderbilt remained mentally alert to the end and showed none of the symptoms of physical or mental tertiary syphilitic dementia. Even the doctor who said Vanderbilt may have had gonorrhea testified that Vanderbilt was a most clearheaded man, able to transact business until the end.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Love and Libel

1.
your precious arms around me:
Unless otherwise indicated, the correspondence in this chapter between VW and JM is from BPL.

2.
bicycling craze:
Underhill,
The Woman Who Ran for President
, p. 301.

3.
not displeased with her call:
William S. McFeely,
Frederick Douglass
(New York, W. W. Norton and Co., 1991), p. 333; Douglass diary, Feb. 1887 in
The Autobiographies of Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave
(Library of America, Series, 1994).

4.
Birth control was a necessity:
Underhill,
The Woman Who Ran for President
, p. 292.

5.
reputation will not bear investigation:
Marberry,
Vicky
, pp. 227–228; Quotes the
(NY) World
, n.d.

6.
“representing or suggesting” Woodhull:
Underhill,
The Woman Who Ran for President
, p. 288, no attribution.

7.
crooks and honest men:
New York Herald
, April 24, 1892, p. 5.

8.
“a titled imbecile”:
Brooklyn Eagle
, Nov. 19, 1889, p. 7.

9.
“I made no apology,”:
Washington Post
, May 5, 1890.

10.
hesitate to sacrifice the truth:
New York Herald
, April 24, 1892, p. 5.

11.
scapegoats of all their misdeeds:
Los Angeles Times
, May 4, 1890, p. 4.

12.
It is cutting us to pieces:
Brooklyn Eagle
, May 4, 1890, p. 20.

13.
too pure to mix:
New York Times
, Sept. 4, 1883.

14.
the flower of our family:
New York Times
, Sept. 8, 1883.