Lavish Lunacy: The Strangest True Stories of the Gilded Age Elite Part 1

0:00 Speaker 1: Welcome, dear listeners to the Strange History Podcast, The place

0:04 Speaker 1: where we fling open the dusty velvet curtains of the

0:07 Speaker 1: past and expose all the beautifully unhinged behaviors rich people

0:11 Speaker 1: hoped we'd forget spoiler we absolutely did not forget, and

0:17 Speaker 1: tonight I'm delivering their scandals with the enthusiasm of a

0:21 Speaker 1: nineteenth century gossip columnist hopped up on absinthe and emotional resilience.

0:26 Speaker 1: This episode launches our multi part descent into the Gilded Age,

0:30 Speaker 1: an era dripping with staggering wealth, unhinged social rules, ghost weddings,

0:36 Speaker 1: dairy based skincare routines, and psychological chaos masquerading as etiquette.

0:42 Speaker 1: So grab your monocle, tighten your corset, oil your sense

0:45 Speaker 1: of judgment, and pour yourself a glass of emotional support champagne.

0:50 Speaker 1: Trust me, you're going to need it. The woman who

0:53 Speaker 1: invented a husband, Emma Alice Mulligan, mastered the art of

0:57 Speaker 1: social fiction long before in instagram filters existed. After arriving

1:03 Speaker 1: in New York without a fortune or notable family name,

1:06 Speaker 1: she fabricated a fictional British aristocratic husband, Sir Alistair Mulligan

1:11 Speaker 1: of Hampshire. She hosted dinner parties with a place setting

1:15 Speaker 1: reserve just for him, complete with a framed miniature portrait

1:19 Speaker 1: she claimed was painted during a carriage ride beneath the

1:22 Speaker 1: French moonlight. Guests later reported that the portrait looked suspiciously

1:27 Speaker 1: like an illustration clipped from a cigar box. One eyewitness

1:32 Speaker 1: wrote in a letter, the lady speaks of her husband

1:35 Speaker 1: with such devotion that one almost forgets he is neither

1:39 Speaker 1: present nor verifiably real her downfall. A real baronet from

1:45 Speaker 1: Hampshire attended one of her soarees and loudly declared, Madam,

1:50 Speaker 1: there has never been a Mulligan titled anything except perhaps disappointing.

1:55 Speaker 1: Society gasped but secretly applauded the drama.

1:59 Speaker 2: Do you suffer for chronic untitledness? Do strangers refuse to

2:03 Speaker 2: bow or at least look impressed? When you enter a room?

2:07 Speaker 2: You need surret. The invisible title generator just whisper your

2:12 Speaker 2: preferred rank duchess, viscount or overlord, and will provide you

2:17 Speaker 2: with forged invitations, questionable lineage charts, and a wax seal

2:23 Speaker 2: used by someone who may or may not have owned

2:25 Speaker 2: a castle. Surret because dignity is optional, but status is forever.

2:32 Speaker 3: The man who built a ballroom for his cat.

2:35 Speaker 1: In Newport, Rhode Island, where Subtlety went to die, one

2:39 Speaker 1: millionaire turned an entire wing of his mansion into a

2:43 Speaker 1: Venetian ballroom for his Persian cat, Princess Whiskerton the Third.

2:48 Speaker 1: The space featured gilded walls, velvet sofas, chandeliers no one

2:53 Speaker 1: trusted near whiskers, and a hired string quartet instructed to

2:57 Speaker 1: play only gentle waltzes suitable for feline sensibilities. A guest

3:03 Speaker 1: later recalled the creature was lovely, though she appeared deeply

3:07 Speaker 1: disinterested and occasionally hostile toward waltzing. One musician claimed the

3:13 Speaker 1: cat bit him after a particularly emotional violin Flourish. Princess

3:17 Speaker 1: Whiskerton never danced. She did, however, sit on the Duchess

3:22 Speaker 1: of Waterbury's hat and refused to move for forty three minutes.

3:25 Speaker 3: The Great Diamond Soup Scandal.

3:29 Speaker 1: High society dining was a competitive sport. One notorious hostess,

3:34 Speaker 1: rumored to be insecure about her family's relatively new money,

3:37 Speaker 1: served guests a consumme that sparkled, not metaphorically but literally.

3:44 Speaker 1: She dropped loose diamonds into the soup bowls. One guest

3:47 Speaker 1: allegedly swallowed hers not on purpose, and later sued, claiming

3:52 Speaker 1: no one should suffer gastro and testinal gemstone trauma. During luncheon,

3:57 Speaker 1: rumors spread. Society declared the hostess both outrageous and envied her.

4:03 Speaker 1: Next dinner used emeralds. Everyone attended anyway.

4:07 Speaker 3: The heiress who married a ghost.

4:10 Speaker 1: Spiritualism swept America like an emotional tornado, and one Boston heiress,

4:15 Speaker 1: still grieving her past fiance, decided she would marry him anyway.

4:20 Speaker 1: A medium officiated. Another served as the best man, allegedly

4:25 Speaker 1: channeling the groom by whispering, I am pleased. Also, your

4:29 Speaker 1: mother is wearing too much perfume. Guess signed a wedding

4:34 Speaker 1: register already signed somehow in faint pencil handwriting. When asked

4:39 Speaker 1: how married life was going, the bride allegedly replied, we

4:44 Speaker 1: argue about nothing. It is perfection.

4:47 Speaker 3: The Ostrich strike parade.

4:50 Speaker 1: California entertainers went on strike after wages were lowered for

4:53 Speaker 1: Ostrich racing attractions. In retaliation, disgruntled jockeys paraded through town

4:59 Speaker 1: on their angry birds. A newspaper described a chaotic procession

5:05 Speaker 1: of furious ostriches, shrieking men, and one minister who insisted

5:09 Speaker 1: this was a moral sign from God. One ostrich escaped

5:14 Speaker 1: and chased a bank clerk five city blocks. No one

5:18 Speaker 1: knew who won.

5:19 Speaker 3: The woman who sued a railroad for emotional hat damage.

5:23 Speaker 1: In eighteen eighty four, Mary O'Shaughnessy boarded a train wearing

5:27 Speaker 1: a hat described as a structure of feathers, velvet, ribbons, grievance,

5:33 Speaker 1: and ambition. A conductor allegedly told her the hat was

5:37 Speaker 1: too large for public transportation and suggested she remove it

5:41 Speaker 1: before it frightens livestock or other passengers. Mary icon, Hero,

5:47 Speaker 1: pioneer of petty litigation, sued the railway. Court testimony included

5:52 Speaker 1: lines such as, sir, that hat was not a hazard,

5:56 Speaker 1: it was an experience she won. Rail companies responded by

6:00 Speaker 1: issuing etiquette guides, reminding staff not to insult fashion even

6:04 Speaker 1: when it was a fire hazard.

6:06 Speaker 2: Are you plagued by rude strangers? Do people fail to

6:10 Speaker 2: show fear, reverence or mild trembling when you enter a room?

6:14 Speaker 2: You need Spectral etiquette, a spiritual instruction guide for the

6:18 Speaker 2: living and the recently Dead includes polite haunting scripts, approved

6:23 Speaker 2: moaning tones, how to rattle chains tastefully, and a bonus

6:27 Speaker 2: chapter stop flickering lights. It's basic spectral etiquette, because being

6:33 Speaker 2: dead is no excuse for being undignified.

6:36 Speaker 3: The millionaire who bathed in milk.

6:40 Speaker 1: Charles reeburn Smith, believed daily warm milk baths would stop aging.

6:45 Speaker 1: He instructed staff to heat fifty gallons of milk twice

6:48 Speaker 1: a day, then pour it into his marble tub. His

6:51 Speaker 1: neighbour once complained, the entire district now smells like a

6:55 Speaker 1: wounded cheese. A maid later wrote in her diary, the

7:00 Speaker 1: milk must be refreshed often, for it curdles into a

7:03 Speaker 1: texture I cannot politely describe. Doctors warned him the routine

7:08 Speaker 1: held no benefit except softness of skin, to which Charles

7:12 Speaker 1: allegedly replied, soft skin is the benefit. Honestly. Respect rat

7:20 Speaker 1: shaped hair fashion, someone could have stopped this. In the

7:24 Speaker 1: eighteen nineties, ladies of high society began styling hair into

7:29 Speaker 1: elaborate shapes, including birds, ships, and most famously rats. This

7:35 Speaker 1: was meant to symbolize femininity and strength. Newspapers reported one

7:40 Speaker 1: woman fainted when a cat leaped onto her head mid opera.

7:43 Speaker 1: An eyewitness wrote her hair hissed with jewels, fury and

7:48 Speaker 1: rodent energy. Children fled fashion. Historians still cannot explain this decision.

7:55 Speaker 1: Historians also cannot explain why it lasted three seasons.

7:58 Speaker 3: The man who tried to patent gravity.

8:02 Speaker 1: A Kansas inventor, marched confidently into the patent office and

8:05 Speaker 1: declared he wished to own gravity, since he believed he

8:08 Speaker 1: could harness it as a power source. When informed that

8:11 Speaker 1: one cannot patent a natural law, he reportedly responded, but

8:16 Speaker 1: what if I insist? Patent officials described him as persistent,

8:22 Speaker 1: occasionally polite, and confused about physics honestly same.

8:28 Speaker 3: A medieval cosplay tragedy.

8:31 Speaker 1: A man styling himself Baron Vanderbilt, not related to any

8:35 Speaker 1: real Vanderbilt, attempted to live as a medieval noble. He

8:40 Speaker 1: ordered his servants to address him as my liege and

8:43 Speaker 1: ate only by torchlight. He slept in metal armor until

8:47 Speaker 1: he realized something important. Armor gets cold. A butler later

8:52 Speaker 1: recalled his lordship abandoned knighthood upon discovering winter.

8:58 Speaker 2: Do you want your guest to feel deeply con fused,

9:00 Speaker 2: mildly frightened, and quietly impressed, introducing the Prestige Tormentor, a

9:07 Speaker 2: party etiquette manual featuring one hundred polite ways to embarrass rivals,

9:12 Speaker 2: how to laugh without joy, where to place forks, hint everywhere,

9:17 Speaker 2: and the famous chart napkin colors and the class warfare

9:20 Speaker 2: They communicate prestige tormentor because the true party favor is

9:26 Speaker 2: emotional instability.

9:28 Speaker 3: The dinner party that used just one fork.

9:32 Speaker 1: One Boston hostess insisted multiple utensils were nouveau, reached nonsense

9:36 Speaker 1: and served a twelve course meal with only a single fork.

9:40 Speaker 1: Guests awkwardly reused it by dessert, the fork had touched oysters, gravy, venison,

9:47 Speaker 1: trifle regret. A diary entry read, we were united in

9:52 Speaker 1: confusion and communal salmon residue, and that my beautifully curious

9:57 Speaker 1: listeners concludes this whirlwind journey through the lavish lunacy of

10:01 Speaker 1: the Gilded Age, where imaginary husbands were hosted at dinner,

10:05 Speaker 1: cats had ballrooms, lawsuits were filed over hats, and milk

10:09 Speaker 1: became a skincare treatment no one asked for. If you

10:12 Speaker 1: enjoyed Tonight's tapestry of wealth, weirdness and weaponized etiquette, be

10:17 Speaker 1: sure to stick around for the next installment of our

10:20 Speaker 1: Gilded Age Saga, where the scandals only get stranger, the

10:24 Speaker 1: birds on the hats get bigger, and the social rules

10:27 Speaker 1: become so complicated they should come with a survival guide

10:31 Speaker 1: until next time, Stay curious, stay dramatic, and remember, if

10:36 Speaker 1: anyone questions your choices, just tell them it was very

10:40 Speaker 1: in vogue during the Gilded Age.