This is an interview with author Elizabeth DeWolfe, who tells the fascinating story of two women "hidden in history" from the Gilded Age. Her recent book, Alias Agnes - The Notorious Tales of a Gilded Age Spy, brings to light a woman, Madeleine Pollard, who was promised a better life from a Kentucky congressman, and continued an affair with him for a number of years. The congressman eventually married someone else, and Madeline decided to bring him to trial, frankly with solid evidence that he had promised to marry her. The defense team for the congressman, came up with the clever idea to hire another woman - to become a friend of Madeleine's with an assumed alias, essentially to "spy" on her. This interview will definitely "whet your whistle" to learn more and read the full story of the outcome of this trial and eventually the lives of two women, navigating the sometimes difficult society of the 1890's.
Elizabeth DeWolfe is professor of history at the University of New England (Biddeford, Maine) and the award-winning author of The Murder of Mary Bean, and, Shaking the Faith. Her most recent work is Alias Agnes: The Notorious Tale of a Gilded Age Spy. Her website is:
www.elizabeth.dewolfe.com or (link here).
Her book is available at number of online venues or please check your local bookstore:
I too just published a Gilded Age biogrhapy - The Miniature Painter Revealed: Amalia Kussner's Gilded Age Pursuit of Fame and Fortune. It can be purchased either at your local bookstore or online at: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop.org, or the Indiana Historical Society.
There is a new podcast series, exclusively about her life and the many unsolved mysteries, Searching for Amalia - link here. It can also be found on Apple, Spotify and most other podcast platforms (just look up "Searching for Amalia").
My social media: Threads (@phihpod), Instagram (@phihpod), or Facebook ( Kathleen Langone Author). My website: www.kathleenlangone.com (link here).
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