Out of the Shadows
Six Visionary Victorian Women in Search of a Public Voice
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Out of the Shadows
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Narrated by:
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Rachael Beresford
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By:
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Emily Midorikawa
About this listen
Queen Victoria's reign was an era of breathtaking social change, but it did little to create a platform for women to express themselves. But not so within the social sphere of the seance - a mysterious, lamp-lit world on both sides of the Atlantic, in which women who craved a public voice could hold their own.
Out of the Shadows tells the stories of the enterprising women whose supposedly clairvoyant gifts granted them fame, fortune, and, most important, influence, as they crossed rigid boundaries of gender and class as easily as they passed between the realms of the living and the dead. The Fox sisters inspired some of the era's best-known political activists and set off a transatlantic seance craze. While in the throes of a trance, Emma Hardinge Britten delivered powerful speeches to crowds of thousands. Victoria Woodhull claimed guidance from the spirit world as she took on the millionaires of Wall Street before becoming America's first female presidential candidate. And Georgina Weldon narrowly escaped the asylum before becoming a celebrity campaigner against archaic lunacy laws.
Drawing on diaries, letters, and rarely seen memoirs and texts, Emily Midorikawa illuminates a radical history of female influence that has been confined to the dark until now.
©2021 Emily Midorikawa (P)2021 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,522
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Story5 out of 5 stars 1,515
1860: As the clash between the states rolls slowly to a boil, Elizabeth Packard, housewife and mother of six, is facing her own battle. The enemy sits across the table and sleeps in the next room. Her husband of 21 years is plotting against her because he feels increasingly threatened - by Elizabeth’s intellect, independence, and unwillingness to stifle her own thoughts. So Theophilus makes a plan to put his wife back in her place. One summer morning, he has her committed to an insane asylum.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Everyone should read this!
- By Lana S on 12-22-21
By: Kate Moore
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Master Slave Husband Wife
- An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom
- By: Ilyon Woo
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards, Leon Nixon
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 460
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 389
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 388
In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Necessary story well told!
- By Marc W Rhoades on 01-19-23
By: Ilyon Woo
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First Ladies
- The Ever Changing Role, from Martha Washington to Melania Trump
- By: Betty Boyd Caroli
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 20 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
Betty Boyd Caroli's engrossing and informative First Ladies is an essential resource for anyone interested in the role of America's First Ladies. Caroli observes the role as it has shifted and evolved from ceremonial backdrop to substantive world figure. This expanded and updated fifth edition presents Caroli's keen political analysis and astute observations of recent developments, including Melania Trump's reluctance to take on the mantle and former First Lady Hilary Clinton's recent run for president. Caroli here contributes a new preface and updated chapters.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Thorough
- By Kindle Customer on 10-11-20
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Emily Post
- Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners
- By: Laura Claridge
- Narrated by: Christine Williams
- Length: 18 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 64
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4 out of 5 stars 42
From the excesses of the late 19th-century Gilded Age, through the horrors of World War I, to the transformations of the Roaring 20s that gave birth to her magisterial Etiquette, Emily Post unfailingly took the measure of her era. A Baltimore blue blood with a populist heart, she helped the masses live the American dream with her hugely popular book, which has been continuously in print for over 85 years.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Typical for Emily Post
- By Stephanie on 01-07-19
By: Laura Claridge
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"The Rest of Us"
- The Rise of America's Eastern European Jews
- By: Stephen Birmingham
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
The wave of Eastern European Jewish immigrants who swept into New York in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by way of Ellis Island were not welcomed by the Jews who had arrived decades before. These refugees from czarist Russia and the Polish shtetls who came to America to escape pogroms and persecution were considered barbaric, uneducated, and too steeped in the traditions of the "old country" to be accepted by the more refined and already well-established German-Jewish community. But the new arrivals were tough, passionate, and determined.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Book 3 of 3
- By Etoile NEOhio on 11-15-22
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A Secret Life
- The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland
- By: Charles Lachman
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 90
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 78
The child was born on September 14, 1874, at the only hospital in Buffalo, New York, that offered maternity services for unwed mothers. It was a boy, and though he entered the world in a state of illegitimacy, a distinguished name was given to this newborn: Oscar Folsom Cleveland. The son of the future president of the United States - Grover Cleveland. The story of how the man who held the nation’s highest office eventually came to take responsibility for his son is a thrilling one that unfolds like a sordid romance novel....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Are the charges true?
- By Jean on 02-16-13
By: Charles Lachman
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Oliver Wendell Holmes
- A Life in War, Law, and Ideas
- By: Stephen Budiansky
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 428
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 360
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 357
Holmes twice escaped death as a young Union officer in the Civil War when musket balls barely missed his heart and spinal cord. He lived ever after with unwavering moral courage, scorn for dogma, and an insatiable intellectual curiosity. Named to the Supreme Court by Theodore Roosevelt at age 61, he served for nearly three decades, writing a series of famous, eloquent, and often dissenting opinions that would prove prophetic in securing freedom of speech, protecting the rights of criminal defendants, and ending the Court's reactionary resistance to social and economic reforms.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Top-Notch Biography
- By Jean on 08-01-19
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Eleanor in the Village
- By: Jan Jarboe Russell
- Narrated by: Samantha Desz
- Length: 5 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
A captivating blend of personal history detailing Eleanor’s struggle with issues of marriage, motherhood, financial independence, and femininity, and a vibrant portrait of one of the most famous neighborhoods in the world, this unique work examines the ways that the sensibility, mood, and various inhabitants of the neighborhood influenced the First Lady’s perception of herself and shaped her political views over four decades, up to her death in 1962.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Grabs your attention
- By Amanda Hodges on 05-13-21
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Guest of Honor
- Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and the White House Dinner that Shocked a Nation
- By: Deborah Davis
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to have dinner at the executive mansion with the First Family. The next morning, news that the president had dined with a Black man-and former slave-sent shock waves through the nation. Although African Americans had helped build the White House and had worked for most of the presidents, not a single one had ever been invited to dine there. Fueled by inflammatory newspaper articles, political cartoons, and even vulgar songs, the scandal escalated.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great So
- By Maureen Monahan on 04-11-21
By: Deborah Davis
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Self Made
- Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker
- By: A'Lelia Bundles
- Narrated by: A'Lelia Bundles
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 119
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 104
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 103
The daughter of slaves, Madam C.J. Walker was orphaned at seven, married at 14, and widowed at 20. She spent the better part of the next two decades laboring as a washerwoman for $1.50 a week. Then - with the discovery of a revolutionary hair care formula for Black women - everything changed. By her death in 1919, Walker managed to overcome astonishing odds: Building a storied beauty empire from the ground up that would be run by four generations of Walker women until its sale in 1985.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Please read the book and not rely on the Netflix series
- By Sweet Pea's Mommy on 04-27-20
By: A'Lelia Bundles
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Eleanor Roosevelt
- Volume I, 1884-1933
- By: Blanche Wiesen Cook
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 22 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 211
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 186
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 187
Eleanor Roosevelt was born into the privileges and prejudices of American aristocracy and into a family ravaged by alcoholism. She overcame debilitating roots: in her public life, fighting against racism and injustice and advancing the rights of women; and in her private life, forming lasting intimate friendships with some of the great men and women of her time.
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4 out of 5 stars
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One of the Great Americans I knew too little about
- By Ray M on 07-19-20
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Why They Marched
- Untold Stories of the Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote
- By: Susan Ware
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 98
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 81
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 81
For far too long, the history of how American women won the right to vote has been told as the tale of a few iconic leaders, all white and native-born. But Susan Ware uncovered a much broader and more diverse story waiting to be told. Why They Marched is a tribute to the many women who worked tirelessly in communities across the nation, out of the spotlight, protesting, petitioning, and insisting on their right to full citizenship.
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5 out of 5 stars
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a needed history lesson
- By Jerseycookie on 05-14-22
By: Susan Ware
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Eleanor
- By: David Michaelis
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 19 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 620
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 524
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 518
In the first single-volume cradle-to-grave portrait in six decades, acclaimed biographer David Michaelis delivers a stunning account of Eleanor Roosevelt’s remarkable life of transformation. An orphaned niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, she converted her Gilded Age childhood of denial and secrecy into an irreconcilable marriage with her ambitious fifth cousin Franklin. Franklin Roosevelt transformed Eleanor from a settlement house volunteer on New York’s Lower East Side into a matching partner in New York’s most important power couple in a generation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Stands apart from other biographies of ER
- By Debra Malone on 11-20-20
By: David Michaelis
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The Purple Diaries
- Mary Astor and the Most Sensational Hollywood Scandal of the 1930s
- By: Joseph Egan
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 516
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 445
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 447
1936 was a great year for the movie industry - the financial setbacks of the Great Depression were subsiding, so theater attendance was up. Americans everywhere were watching the stars, and few stars shined as brightly as one of America's most enduring screen favorites, Mary Astor. But Astor's personal story wasn't a happy one. Born poor and widowed at 24, Mary Astor had spent years looking for stability when she met and wed Dr. Franklyn Thorpe.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Impossible not to like for old movie buffs
- By Gary on 03-09-17
By: Joseph Egan
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The White Devil's Daughters
- The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown
- By: Julia Flynn Siler
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
During the first hundred years of Chinese immigration - from 1848 to 1943 - San Francisco was home to a shockingly extensive underground slave trade in Asian women, who were exploited as prostitutes and indentured servants. In this gripping, necessary book, best-selling author Julia Flynn Siler shines a light on this little-known chapter in our history - and gives us a vivid portrait of the safe house to which enslaved women escaped.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Well researched
- By Qats reads on 08-05-19
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Vanderbilt
- The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty
- By: Anderson Cooper, Katherine Howe
- Narrated by: Anderson Cooper
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5,782
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,017
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,990
New York Times best-selling author and journalist Anderson Cooper teams with New York Times best-selling historian and novelist Katherine Howe to chronicle the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty - his mother’s family, the Vanderbilts.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting Approach to a Well Known History
- By HistoryNerd on 09-24-21
By: Anderson Cooper, and others