Dead Ladies Show #41: F. Tennyson Jesse, Alice Guy & Victoria Woodhull!

Before year’s end, we’re convening one more Dead ladies Show next month! Our show on Friday December 12 is all in English, featuring three fascinating talks. Learn about an influential criminologist, a groundbreaking screenwriter/director, and a lady stockbroker and activist who certainly forged her own path in many a surprising way.

These are women who took their fascinations and ran with them. Our expert presenters this time are our fantastic podcast producer SUSAN STONE, your beloved co-host FLORIAN DUIJSENS, and the amazing Australian writer ALINA HOYNE. All held together, of course, by your other beloved co-host KATY DERBYSHIRE.

As ever, you can expect a charming audience and a warm and entertaining atmosphere. Standard tickets cost €10 and the reduced price is €4, get them here or at the door. Doors open 7:30 pm – come on time to get a good seat!

Much love,

Katy, Susan & Florian

*****

F. TENNYSON JESSE (1888–1958) was an English journalist, criminologist, and writer. The daughter of a vicar who dragged the family around the British empire, she trained as a painter before moving to London in 1911. Journalism beckoned, but she was not put off by losing the use of her right hand in a plane accident, learning to type left-handed. She reported from the ground during World War I and published fiction, before moving into criminology and true crime writing. Her 1924 book Murder and its Motives set out six basic motivations for killing, a very influential theory. She later co-wrote plays with her husband, including How to Be Happy though Married.

ALICE GUY (1873–1968) was a woman of filmmaking firsts. Secretary to a French camera manufacturer, she attended the very first film showing in 1895. Inspired by the moving image but not its dry subject matter, she became the first filmmaker to incorporate narrative, certainly the first woman director, and probably the only one until 1906. Having moved to the US, she was then the first woman to own a studio, in the pre-Hollywood moviemaking hub of Flushing, New York. Which was where she made one of the first films to feature an all-African American cast. Few of her films have survived, but her legacy is lasting.

VICTORIA WOODHULL (1838–1927) had a first career as a “medical clairvoyant” before starting a Wall Street financial firm with her sister in 1870. They used their fortune to start a newspaper, campaign for women’s and workers’ rights, and to publish the first English edition of The Communist Manifesto. Woodhull was a vocal supporter of the free-love movement, attempting to de-stigmatize divorce. She practiced what she preached, leaving her alcoholic first husband in 1865 and the second one in the mid-1870s. The Equal Rights Party nominated her as its presidential candidate in 1872, though she wasn’t taken seriously. Moving to England, she took part in the women’s suffrage movement there – but put a big blemish on her reputation by promoting eugenics.

BIOS

Susan Stone is a podcast producer and journalist writing about culture, social issues and business with a focus on Germany and Europe.

Alina Hoyne was born in Melbourne but has been living and working in Berlin for most of the last two decades. She writes about performance, art, film, books, music, fashion and culture – and is a lover of libraries, public swimming pools, cinemas and coffee convos. She also loves lists.

Florian Duijsens is an editor, teacher and literary translator, plus of course co-host and co-founder of the Dead Ladies Show.

Dead Ladies Show NYC #2

It is with great pleasure we invite you to the sophomore outing of the DEAD LADIES SHOW in NYC, back by popular demand! Please join us at the KGB Bar on Wednesday, 7 November, from 7:00-9:00pm.

The very special second NYC edition brings you not just your usual three ladies, but an extra bonus LIVING lady as well—we are thrilled to welcome AMY PADNANI to the stage to talk about her superlative NYT series, “Overlooked,” the reading of which has been described by some as akin to attending the Dead Ladies Show, except in the comfort of your own home and far better established.

The incredible women being posthumously presented include a suffragist hiker, a queer star of the Harlem Renaissance, and the first woman to run for U.S. President. The perfect dénouement from Election Day, if you ask us. (Everybody vote!) Presented by editorial guru HELEN RICHARD, rare researcher LIA BOYLE, and your host, MOLLY O’LAUGHLIN. Join us as we raise a glass to these glass-ceiling-shatterers.

Free admission; please buy a drink or two to ensure the future of DLS NYC at KGB.

(N.B.: once up the outside stairs of the building, enter and climb one more flight of stairs, then take a hard right and enter the bar. We are not in the Red Room, which is yet another flight up! We do not need to hike more elevation! We are not all Fanny Bullock Workman!)

Fanny Bullock Workman

An American hiker, cyclist, explorer, geographer, adventurer, and author born in 1859, FANNY BULLOCK WORKMAN was one of the first female professional mountaineers. She and her husband cycled thousands of miles across Europe, Algeria, and India, and were the first Americans to explore the Himalayas in depth. Workman set several women’s altitude records, published eight travel books, insisted on a new precedent for accurate scientific record-keeping, and championed women’s rights and women’s suffrage every step of the way.

Gladys Bentley

GLADYS BENTLEY was a blues singer, pianist and entertainer in the Harlem Renaissance. A Black lesbian, she started her career as a crossdressing pianist and singer at a gay speakeasy called Harry Hansberry’s Clam House, and she was so popular that the club was soon renamed after her. Her combination of musical talent with a raunchy sense of humor and flamboyant queerness wowed audiences of all races and classes. Langston Hughes called her “an amazing exhibition of musical energy…a perfect piece of African sculpture, animated by her own rhythm.”

Victoria Woodhull

Once called “Mrs. Satan,” VICTORIA CLAFLIN WOODHULL was the first woman to run for president—announcing her bid in 1870, 50 years before women had the right to vote. Disowned by the suffragettes for her radical ideas—that women should be able to choose whom they love, that marital rape should be illegal, and that birth control should be widely available—she was far ahead of her time. Among many other achievements, she was the first woman to address a congressional committee and one of the first female brokers on Wall Street.

Helen Richard is an associate editor at G. P. Putnam’s Sons and a moderately aspirational female mountaineer.

Molly O’Laughlin is a writer and translator who recently moved back to NYC from Berlin, Germany.

Lia Boyle studies rare genetic disorders and directs plays in her spare time.