Mortimer Thomson’s “Witches of New York”: Undercover Reporting on the Fortune-Telling Trade

Abstract

During the 1850s, undercover journalists broke new ground by covering slave auctions, Northern uprisings, and fraud. In 1857, Mortimer Thomson, a comedic writer for Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune, went undercover. For the series, “The Witches of New York,” he visited New York fortune tellers who advertised regularly in the newspapers. They sold tonics, offered to find stolen property, helped with matchmaking, and claimed they could tell the future. The series also took the reader to the seedier parts of Lower Manhattan to debunk tricksters and frauds. Later, his works were chronicled in a book, The Witches of New York. His work predates the turn of the twentieth century “stunt journalists” such as Nellie Bly, who wrote first-person narratives about their adventures to actively expose social injustice.

Notes

1 Mortimer Thomson, “Madame Widger,” New-York Daily Tribune, January 23, 1857.

2 Q.K. Philander Doesticks, P.B., The Witches of New York (New York: Rudd & Carleton, 1858).

3 “Arrest of Fortune-Tellers,” New-York Daily Tribune, October 23, 1858.

4 “Astrology,” New York Herald, August 23, 1855.

5 “The Witches of New York,” New-York Daily Tribune, January 22, 1857.

6 “Inflation Calculator,” FinanceRef Inflation Calculator, Alioth Finance, March 23, 2018.

7 “Arrests of New York Fortune Tellers,” Cleveland Morning Leader, October 26, 1858.

8 “The Witches of New York,” New-York Daily Tribune, January 22, 1857.

9 “Spiritualism in Boston: Correspondence of the N.Y. Tribune,” New-York Daily Tribune, April 9, 1857.

10 “Arrest of Fortune-Tellers,” New-York Daily Tribune.

11 Ibid.

12 New York Penal Law 165.35. https://codes.findlaw.com/ny/penal-law/pen-sect-165-35.html.

13 Jane Marcellus, “Nervous Women and Noble Savages: The Romanticized “Other” in Nineteenth-Century US Patent Medicine Advertising,” Journal of Popular Culture 41, no. 5 (2008): 784–808.

14 Brooke Kroeger, Undercover Reporting: The Truth about Deception (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2012).

15 Edward J. Piacentino, “Seeing the Elephant: ‘Doesticks’ Satires of Nineteenth-Century Gotham,” Studies in American Humor 5, no. 2 (1986): 134; J. Louis Kuethe, “QK Philander Doesticks, PB, Neologist,” American Speech 12, no. 2 (1937): 111. For more about Mortimer Thomson see: Edward J. Piacentino, “‘Doesticks' Assault on Slavery: Style and Technique in the Great Auction Sale of Slaves, at Savannah, Georgia,” Phylon 48, no. 3 (1960): 196–203; Ed Piacentino, “Two Perspectives on Racial Oppression: Doesticks and Mark Twain,” Studies in American Humor 3, no. 22 (2010): 69–90; Ed Piacentino, “Two Views of Niagara: Doesticks and Mark Twain,” Journal of American Culture 35, no. 4 (2012): 345–57; Fred W. Lorch, “‘Doesticks’ and Innocents Abroad,” American Literature 20, no. 4 (1949): 446–49.

16 Fletcher Daniel Slater, “The Life and Letters of Mortimer Thomson” (MA thesis, Northwestern University, August 1931).

17 Brooke Kroeger, “Professional Notes: Re-Dating History,” American Journalism 32, no. 4 (2015): 476–82.

18 Slater, “The Life and Letters of Mortimer Thomson;” Brooke Kroeger, “Nellie Bly and Other Stunt Girls (and Boys) of the Late 1880s-Early 1900s: Deception For Journalism’s Sake: A Database,” New York Libraries, November 19, 2015, http://dlib.nyu.edu/undercover/nellie-bly-and-other- stunt-girls-and-boys-late-1880s-early-1900s; Library of Congress, “Chronicling America,” http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/newspapers; Lehigh University, “The Vault at Pfaff’s: An Archive of Art and Literature by the Bohemians of Antebellum New York,” https://pfaffs.web.lehigh.edu.

19 Thomas Butler Gunn, Thomas Butler Gunn, Diaries vol. 16, Missouri History Museum, 1861, 160.

20 Junius Henri Browne, The Great Metropolis: A Mirror of New York (Hartford: American Publishing Company, 1869).

21 “Obituary: Henry Clapp,” New York Times, April 11, 1875.

22 Louis Morris Starr, Bohemian Brigade: Civil War Newsmen in Action (New York: Knopf, 1954).

23 Andie Tucher, “Reporting for Duty: The Bohemian Brigade, the Civil War, and the Social Construction of the Reporter,” Book History 9, no. 1 (2006): 131–57.

24 Piacentino, “Seeing the Elephant.”

25 Charles Hopkins Clark, William Dean Howells, E. W. (Edward Windsor) Kemble, and Mark Twain, Mark Twain’s Library of Humor (New York: Charles L. Webster & Co., 1888).

26 “Gleanings from the Mails,” Washington Union, December 30, 1858.

27 “News Summary,” Evansville (Indiana) Daily Journal, January 5, 1859. “Book List,” Cecil Whig (Maryland), January 1, 1859, and “Book by Express,” Pacific Commercial Advertiser, August 25, 1859; “A New Book by Doesticks,” Nashville Patriot, December 8, 1858.

28 Mortimer Thomson, “Madame Morrow,” New-York Daily Tribune, February 13, 1857.

29 Samantha Peko, “Stunt Girls: Elizabeth Bisland, Nell Nelson, and Ada Patterson as Rivals to Nellie Bly,” (MA thesis, Ohio University, August 2016).

30 Rossiter Johnson and John Howard Brown, The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, vol. 10 (Boston: Biographical Society, 1904).

31 ”Horace Greeley: His Pets and His Successors,” Commercial Advertiser (New York), July 10, 1873.

32 Kuethe, “QK Philander Doesticks, PB, Neologist.”

33 “Obituary: Mortimer Thomson – Doesticks,” New York Times, June 26, 1875.

34 Thomas Butler Gunn, Thomas Butler Gunn, Diaries, vol. 10, Missouri History Museum, 1858, 61.

35 Johnson and Brown, The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans.

36 “Obituary: Mortimer Thomson.”

37 Johnson and Brown, The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans.

38 Ibid.

39 Slater, “The Life and Letters of Mortimer Thomson.” 14.

40 Ibid., 18.

41 Ibid., 25.

42 “Obituary: Mortimer Thomson.”

43 Slater, “The Life and Letters of Mortimer Thomson.”

44 Unsigned, “American Civilization Illustrated: A Great Slave Auction,” New York Daily Tribune, March 9, 1859; and Slater, “The Life and Letters of Mortimer Thomson.”

45 “Obituary: Mortimer Thomson.”

46 Slater, “The Life and Letters of Mortimer Thomson.”

47 Ibid., 154.

48 Thomas Butler Gunn, Thomas Butler Gunn, Diaries, vol. 16, Missouri History Museum, 1861, 160.

49 Ibid.

50 Inflation Calculator.

51 Gunn, Diaries, vol. 16, Missouri History Museum, 1861, 11.

52 Ibid., 28.

53 Slater, “The Life and Letters of Mortimer Thomson,” 131–132.

54 Ibid., 154.

55 Thomson, The Witches of New York, 405.

56 Thomson, “Madame Widger.”

57 Thomson, “Madame Prewster,” New-York Daily Tribune, January 28, 1857; and “Madame Carzo, the Brazilian Astrologist,” New-York Daily Tribune, April 2, 1857.

58 Thomson, “Madame Widger,” “Madame Prewster,” and “Mrs. Pugh,” New-York Daily Tribune, May 20, 1857.

59 “Inflation Calculator.”

60 Thomson, “Madame Widger.”

61 Thomson, The Witches of New York.

62 Michelle Gibbons, “Voices from the People: Letters to the American Phrenology Journal,” Journalism History 35, no. 2 (Summer 2009): 72–81.

63 Ann Braude, “News from the Spirit World: A Checklist of American Spiritualist Periodicals, 1847–1900,” Proceedings of The American Antiquarian Society 99, no. 2 (October 1989): 399–462.

64 Thomson, The Witches of New York.

65 Thomson, “Mrs. Seymour, Clairvoyant,” New-York Daily Tribune, February 6, 1857.

66 Thomson, The Witches of New York.

67 Thomson, “Madame Harris,” New-York Daily Tribune, April 4, 1857.

68 Applegate, Edd C. Applegate, Rise of Advertising in the United States - A History of Innovation to 1960 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014).

69 Ann Anderson, Snake Oil, Hustlers and Hambones: The American Medicine Show (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004).

70 Jane Marcellus, “Nervous Women and Noble Savages,” 784–808.

71 James Young, The Medical Messiahs: A Social History of Health Quackery in 20th Century America (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2015); and Marcellus, “Nervous Women and Noble Savages.”

72 Samuel Hopkins Adams, The Great American Fraud: Articles on the Nostrum Evil and Quackery Reprinted from Colliers (London: Forgotten Books, 2012).

73 Anderson, Snake Oil, Hustlers and Hambones.

74 Marcellus, “Nervous Women and Noble Savages.”

75 “Astrology,” New York Herald, September 14, 1859.

76 “Astrology,” New York Herald, April 5, 1856; “Astrology,” New York Herald, January 5, 1855.

77 “Astrology,” New York Herald, February 14, 1855 and “Astrology,” New York Herald, August 27, 1856.

78 Thomson, “Mrs. Grommer,” New-York Daily Tribune, May 9, 1857.

79 Thomson, “The Gipsy Girl,” New-York Daily Tribune, January 31, 1857.

80 Thomson, “Madame Carzo.”

81 Thomson, “Mrs. Hayes Clairvoyant,” New-York Daily Tribune, February 25, 1857.

82 Thomson, “A Wizard,” New-York Daily Tribune, February 14, 1857.

83 Thomson, The Witches of New York, 150.

84 Thomson, “Mrs. Seymour.”

85 Thomson, “Madame Widger.”

86 Thomson, “Madame Bruce, ‘The Mysterious Vailed Lady,’” New-York Tribune, January 27, 1857.

87 Thomson, “Mrs. Seymour.”

88 Thomson, “Ms. Fleury,” New-York Daily Tribune, April 25, 1857.

89 Thomson, “Madame Widger.”

90 Thomas, “The Witches of New York,” New-York Daily Tribune, January 22, 1857.

91 Thomson, “Mrs. Pugh.”

92 Thomson, The Witches of New York.

93 Ibid.

94 Ibid.

95 Natalie Zarrelli, “The Hidden World of Tenement Fortune Tellers in 19th Century Manhattan,” Atlas Obscura, December 04, 2015, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-hidden-world-of-tenement-fortune-tellers-in-19th-century-manhattan.

96 Thomson, “Madame Prewster.”

97 Thomson, “Madame Bruce.”

98 Ibid.

99 Thomson, “Madame Bruce.”

100 Thomson, “Madame Prewster.”

101 Thomson, “Madame Morrow.”

102 Ibid.

103 Thomson, The Witches of New York, 405.

104 Ibid., 172.

105 “Astrology,” New York Herald, August 27, 1856.

106 “Inflation Calculator.”

107 Thomson, “Madame Leander Lent.”

108 Thomson, “Madame Clifton,” New-York Daily Tribune, February 24, 1857.

109 “Astrology,” New York Herald, January 15, 1856.

110 “Napoleons Oraculum (1839),” Public Domain Review, https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/napoleons-oraculum-1839/

111 “Inflation Calculator.”

112 “City Items,” New-York Tribune, October 21, 1858; and “Inflation Calculator.”

113 “Things in Norfolk,” Daily Dispatch (Richmond, Virginia), October 23, 1858.

114 “Arrests of New York Fortune Tellers,” Cleveland Morning Leader.

115 “Arrest of Fortune-Tellers,” New-York Daily Tribune.

116 Lisa Respers France, “‘Miss Cleo,’ TV Psychic Network Pitchwoman, Dies at 53,” CNN.com, July 27, 2016.

117 Slater, “The Life and Letters of Mortimer Thomson,” 176.

118 Gunn, Diaries, vol. 10, Missouri History Museum, 1858, 51.

119 Thomson, The Witches of New York, 403–4.

120 “Boarding and Lodgings,” New York Herald, October 30, 1858.

121 “A Birdseye View of the Metropolis by a New Jersey Photographist,” New York Herald, September 18, 1859.

122 U.S. City Directories, 1822–1995, New York 1880, Marcy G. Widger.

123 “Astrology,” New York Herald, December 31, 1861.

124 Printer's Ink, A Journal for Advertisers, vol LX, no. 1, July 3, 1907, 60.

125 Printer's Ink, A Journal for Advertisers, vol LX, no. 1, April 3, 1913, 83.

126 Peko, “Stunt Girls: Elizabeth Bisland, Nell Nelson, and Ada Patterson as Rivals to Nellie Bly.”

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Samantha Peko

Samantha Peko is an instructor in the Department of Communication, Media & Journalism at the University of North Georgia-Gainesville, Gainesville, GA.