Curio Cabinet

Who put the "art" in escape artist? Harry Houdini, of course! The Hungarian-American magician was born this month in 1874, and nearly a century after his untimely death, his name remains synonymous with the type of escape performances that he popularized. Yet, when he wasn’t wowing audiences, Houdini was a surprisingly grounded man. It might seem an unlikely role for a magician, but Houdini was a vocal skeptic in his time, especially as a spiritualist movement swept through America. This movement convinced many people that they could speak to dead loved ones, or pay someone to do so, but Houdini was having none of it.
 
Houdini started performing at an early age. By the time he was nine, he was part of a trapeze act. Starting from the age of 17, he adopted his stage name, Harry Houdini (his birth name was Ehrich Weisz) and started performing magic acts. As his career exploded around the turn of the century, Houdini became particularly famous for his escape acts. These death-defying stunts, in which Houdini was often chained underwater with seemingly no way out, seemed like magic when he managed to slip his bonds and survive. However, Houdini was a vocal critic of anyone who claimed to have true supernatural powers, especially spiritual mediums.
 
Houdini felt that, as a performer himself, he had a duty to expose the fraudulent practices rife in the spiritualism industry. His criticism reached the point of activism when he testified before Congress to call for the criminalization of fortune-telling and similar practices. Houdini's skepticism also led to public tensions with his longtime friend, Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle was a believer of spiritualism and regularly held seances with his wife, who claimed to be a medium herself. Sometime before he died, Houdini and his wife devised a way to prove to themselves whether mediumship was actually real. They created a coded message that they agreed to pass to each other from beyond the grave, should they ever truly be contacted. In the decade following Houdini’s death (at Halloween, no less), his wife held seances, challenging any medium to pass along their secret message. None succeeded, and on the 10th anniversary of his death, the widow announced to the world that her husband was unable to be reached. Even in death, Houdini was still putting on a show and keeping skepticism alive.

 
[Image description: Harry Houdini making a mysterious face with one hand raised near his cheek.] Credit & copyright: Library of Congress, 1925. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1930.

This governor has the gift of gab. On this day in 1775, about a month before the American Revolution began in earnest, orator Patrick Henry uttered one of the most famous sentences in American history: “Give me liberty or give me death.” Or did he? There’s still some scholarly debate as to whether Henry actually said those iconic words, but there’s no doubt that his speeches stirred American imaginations.
 
Born on May 29, 1736, in Hanover County in the Colony of Virginia, Henry’s childhood put him on a good path for a future orator. His father, a Scottish immigrant, had been educated at King’s College, while his mother came from a wealthy local family. Since his family’s wealth would pass to Henry’s older brother rather than him, he couldn’t afford a life of leisure. He was educated at home by his father, and in his late teens tried to open and run a store with his brother, though it quickly failed. For a time he helped his father-in-law run a tavern in Hanover, before beginning at-home studies to become a lawyer. Henry already understood the power of words and the persuasive force of good oration. He’d grown up watching passionate preachers during the religious revival known as the Great Awakening, which helped drive him toward his new profession.
 
After earning his law license in 1760, Henry’s wit and speaking ability made him a quick success. His most important legal victory came in 1763, in the sentencing phase of a case known as the Parson’s Cause. Since tobacco was a major cash crop in Virginia, many Virginian officials received their annual pay in tobacco. When a series of droughts in the 1750s caused tobacco prices to rise from two cents per pound to three times that much, the Virginia legislature stepped in to stabilize things. They passed the Two-Penny Act, which set the price of tobacco used to pay contracts at the usual two cents per pound. Clergy in the Anglican Church, which was sponsored by the British government, didn’t want their revenue limited by the Two-Penny Act. So, they appealed to authorities in England, who sided with them, overruling the Two-Penny Act. With the power of England behind him, Reverend James Maury of Hanover County, Virginia, sued his own parish for backpay and won. All that was left was to decide exactly how much backpay Maury was owed. That’s where Patrick Henry came in. Arguing on behalf of the parish vestry, Henry gave a passionate speech about what he saw as the greed of church officials and the overreach of Britain. By overturning the Two-Penny Act, he argued, the British government was exerting tyrannical power over the people of Virginia. Though some in the courtroom accused Henry of treason, the jury sided with him, awarding Maury just one penny of backpay. The case made Henry so popular that it gained him 164 new clients within a year.
 
Now famous for his fiery speeches and resistance to British power, Henry was elected to the Virginia legislature’s lower chamber, the House of Burgesses, in 1765. In 1774, Henry became a delegate to the First Continental Congress. His most famous speech came the following year, at the Second Virginia Convention, where members debated whether to add language to Virginian governing documents stating that the British king could veto colonial legislation. Henry instead proposed amendments about raising an independent militia, since he believed that war with England was imminent. On March 23, he delivered a fiery address saying, “Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace but there is no peace. The war is actually begun!” After arguing in favor of his amendments in more detail, he ended with the famous line, “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
 
In truth, we’ll never know if Henry actually uttered that famous sentence. His speech was never transcribed during his lifetime, but was pieced together from recollections of those present more than 10 years after his death. Regardless, we do know that Henry went on to become Virginia’s first governor in 1776, after the United States declared independence from England, and that he served until 1779. He was elected again in 1785, and served for two years. Though Henry is best remembered for a single speech, he made plenty of others, won plenty of legal cases, and served his newly-formed state and country in both peace and wartime. No one can say that he was all talk!

 
[Image description: A black-and-white illustration of Patrick Henry delivering his famous speech to other men at the Virginia Assembly. He has one hand raised, as do many of the audience members. On the ground is a paper reading “Proceedings of the Virginia Assembly.”] Credit & copyright: Published by Currier & Ives, c. 1876. Library of Congress. Public Domain.