Lore 260: Ghostwriter (ad-free)

Our deep desire to connect to the world of the dead has taken humanity down some fantastic roads, but few compare to the stories that came out of the early 1900s in America.

Narrated and produced by Aaron Mahnke, with writing by GennaRose Nethercott, research by Cassandra de Alba, and music by Chad Lawson.

Sources:

• “9 Oldest Ouija Boards in the World.” Oldest.org. Accessed January 16, 2024. https://www.oldest.org/culture/ouija-boards/ 

• “The Baby that is Being Raised by a Ghost.” Buffalo News. January 25, 1920. https://www.newspapers.com/image/441036506/ 

• Bond, Elijah. “United States Patent: 446054 – Toy or Game.” February 10, 1891. https://patents.google.com/patent/US446054A/en 

• Cassie, Ron. “Not Dead Yet.” Baltimore Magazine. Accessed January 16, 2024. https://www.baltimoremagazine.com/section/artsentertainment/the-dark-and-fascinating-history-of-the-ouija-board-baltimore-origins/ 

• Cox, Robert. Body and Soul: A Sympathetic History of American Spiritualism (University of Virginia Press, 2003).

• Curran, Pearl Lenore. “A Nut for Psychologists.” Reedy’s Mirror. January 1, 1920. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Reedy_s_Mirror/vys-AQAAMAAJ 

• Curran, Pearl Lenore. “Rosa Alvaro, Entrante.” The Saturday Evening Post. November 22, 1919. https://books.google.com/books?id=D_x4vQyICG8C 

• “Detailed History of William Fuld and the Ouija Board.” WilliamFuld.com. Accessed January 16, 2024. https://www.williamfuld.com/ouija1.html 

• “The Dial Plate Talking Boards.” Museum of Talking Boards. Accessed January 16, 2024. https://www.museumoftalkingboards.com/dials.html 

• Dickey, Colin. Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places (Viking, 2016).

• de Alba, Cassandra. “‘This Little Board is the Ruler of the Nation Now:’ Ouija Boards in the 1910s and 1920s.” Unpublished seminar paper, Simmons University, 2014.

• “Factories.” WilliamFuld.com. Accessed January 16, 2024. https://www.williamfuld.com/ouija_factories_williamfuld.html 

• “The First Great Craze.” Mysterious Planchette. Accessed January 16, 2024. http://www.mysteriousplanchette.com/History/history2.html

• Freedman, Lewis. “Scans By Lew - Juanyta Clivette: A Reincarnation of Sappho.” Flying Object. Accessed January 16, 2024. https://www.flying-object.org/flying-object/scans-lew-juanyta-clivette-reincarnation-sappho 

• Higgins, Parker. “How Mark Twain's ghost almost set off the copyright battle of the century.” Splinter. March 2, 2016. https://splinternews.com/how-mark-twains-ghost-almost-set-off-the-copyright-batt-1793855099 

• Hisert, Kristy. “The Contentious Ouija Board: Is It a Toy?” The Strong National Museum of Play. October 20, 2023. https://www.museumofplay.org/blog/the-contentious-ouija-board-is-it-a-toy/ 

• “History of the Talking Board.” Museum of Talking Boards. Accessed January 16, 2024. https://www.museumoftalkingboards.com/history.html 

• Horowitz, Mitch. Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation (Bantam Books, 2009).

• Hutchings, Emily Grant, and Mark Twain (spirit). Jap Herron: A Novel Written from the Ouija Board (Mitchell Kennerley, 1917).

• Kardec, Allan, trans. Anna Blackwell. The Mediums’ Book (Federação Espírita Brasileira, [1861] 1986).

• Kearns, Clare. “Sappho’s Shadow: Reading Ovid’s Heroides 15 as Reconstruction.” Discentes. July 13, 2020. https://web.sas.upenn.edu/discentes/2020/07/13/sapphos-shadow-reading-ovids-heroides-15-as-reconstruction/ 

• Lanzendorfer, Joy. “Ghost Writer: The Story of Patience Worth, the Posthumous Author.” Longreads. June 13, 2018. https://longreads.com/2018/06/13/ghost-writer-the-story-of-patience-worth-the-posthumous-author/ 

• “Latest Works of Fiction.” The New York Times. September 9, 1917. http://www.twainquotes.com/19170909.html 

• “Lenin's Body Improves with Age.” Scientific American. April 22, 2015. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lenin-s-body-improves-with-age1/

• Litvag, Irving. Singer in the Shadows: The Strange Story of Patience Worth (iUniverse, 2001).

• “The Lost Clivette ‘Bazaar de Junk’ - 1 Sheridan Square.” Daytonian in Manhattan. December 3, 2018. http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-lost-clivette-bazaar-de-junk-1.html 

• Lovejoy, Bess. “How the Ouija Board Got Its Name.” Atlas Obscura. February 28, 2014. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-the-ouija-board-got-its-name

• McRobbie, Linda Rodriguez. “The Strange and Mysterious History of the Ouija Board.” Smithsonian Magazine. October 27, 2013. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-strange-and-mysterious-history-of-the-ouija-board-5860627/

• Montgomery, Mary Lou. “Did Ouija Board link two Hannibal authors?” Hannibal Courier-Post. December 11, 2021. https://www.hannibal.net/news/history/did-ouija-board-link-two-hannibal-authors/article_1088f064-593e-11ec-a707-c31db437d8ea.html 

• “Mrs. Wharton’s Story of New England.” The New York Times. July 8, 1917. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1917/07/08/98253369.html?pageNumber=58 

• “Must the Modern Sappho Also Break Her Heart?” The Courier-Journal [Louisville]. May 17, 1925. https://www.newspapers.com/image/107052155/ 

• “Mystery of ‘Little Sappho’ of Greenwich Village.” Lincoln Nebraska State Journal. September 12, 1920. https://www.newspapers.com/image/340784383/ 

• “The ‘New Planchet.’” Chicago Tribune. April 3, 1886. https://www.newspapers.com/image/349738032/ 

• “News of Here, There, and Everywhere.” Centralia Courier. September 28, 1917. https://www.newspapers.com/image/581071331/ 

• Pratt, A. Houghton, and O. Henry (spirit). My Tussle with the Devil and Other Stories (I.M.Y. Company, 1918).

• Rowe, Kaz. “The Bizarre Story of the Girl Who Claimed to be Sappho Reincarnated.” Kaz Rowe. July 29, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SpPx3D8RDU 

• “Sapphic (adj.).” Online Etymology Dictionary. Accessed January 16, 2024. https://www.etymonline.com/word/Sapphic 

• Schmidt, Barbara. “Emily Grant Hutchings.” Twainquotes.com. 2019. http://www.twainquotes.com/EmilyGrantHutchings.html 

• Shatford, Sarah Taylor, and Shakespeare (spirit). Shakespeare’s Revelations (The Torch Press, 1919).

• Shea, Daniel B. The Patience of Pearl: Spiritualism and Authorship in the Writings of Pearl Curran (University of Missouri Press, 2012).

• Smith, Hester Travers, and Oscar Wilde (spirit). Oscar Wilde from Purgatory (Henry Holt, 1926).

• “Spiritualism in Lawsuit.” The New York Times. July 28, 1918. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/07/28/102728204.html?pageNumber=31 

• “Twain’s Daughter Spurns Spirit Book.” The New York Times. February 11, 1918. http://www.twainquotes.com/19180211.html