S2 – 10_ Invisible Hands

Commercial Advocacy and Business Connectivity

• Intuit Financial Services

  • TurboTax: Offers a connection with a real-life tax expert on the spot for tax returns and potential refunds from uncollected business or personal taxes. The service refers to this expert as a "spicy little matchmaker."

  • Credit Karma: Provides personalized financial recommendations to help users gain better control over their "money."

  • QuickBooks: Features automatic generation of invoice reminders to ensure businesses do not have outstanding payments.

  • Mailchimp: Offers email campaign services described as an "ultimate glow up" for marketing.

• Comcast Business

  • Retail and Hospitality: Facilitates seamless restocking, frictionless payment, and the transformation of restaurants into touchscreen-ordering, quick-serving eateries.

  • Healthcare: Supports hospitals in becoming patient-scanning, data-managing healthcare facilities.

  • Infrastructure: Provides leading networking, connectivity, advanced cybersecurity, and expert partnership to power modern business engines.

• T. Rowe Price and Global Questions

  • The road to confident investing is defined as "curiosity."

  • Research Areas: Investigation into how clean water transforms farmland, healthcare innovations, and the role of $AI$ in the future.

• Healthcare and Consumer Services

  • MIVO (Perfluorohexaloctane ophthalmic solution): A prescription dry eye drop that forms a protective layer to prevent tear evaporation. Users are advised to remove contact lenses and wait at least $30$ minutes before re-insertion. Side effects may include eye redness and blurred vision.

  • Target Circle 360: A subscription-based service providing unlimited same-day delivery for orders over $35$ dollars ($USD$).

Political Radicalism and Conflict in New Orleans ($1864$–$1866$)

• The New Orleans Tribune

  • Founded by Louis Charles Roudinay, an Afro-Creole doctor.

  • Purpose: Served as a rallying point for Louisiana radicals and reformers.

  • Objective: To confirm and protect the $1864$ state constitution, which abolished slavery and stripped power from the planter class.

• Opposition to Reform

  • White Planters: Opposed the radical reforms and influenced General Banks, the Union Army commander governing the state.

  • The Planters' Stance: Advocated for a "government of white people for the exclusive political benefit of the white race."

  • General Banks' Policies: Maintained the plantation system using the Union Army to force Black Louisianans to remain on the land of loyalist planters; soldiers captured those who attempted to leave while imprisoned Confederate soldiers were released.

• Spiritual and Intellectual Responses

  • Victor Hugo: Sent a letter to the Tribune from across the Atlantic, encouraging Louisiana radicals in their fight for justice.

  • Spirit of John Brown: Reportedly appeared to Henri and the Cirque Harmonique, praising the Tribune for defending Black equality.

The Mechanics Institute Massacre ($1866$)

• The Event: A political convention called by the Tribune in $1866$ to amend the constitution and grant Black men the right to vote in Louisiana.

• Prelude to Violence: On the first night, city police fought with armed delegates defending the convention, resulting in $2$ deaths.

• The Massacre (Second Day):

  • Black New Orleanians held a celebratory parade marching toward the Mechanics Institute.

  • A white mob, aided by local police and firefighters, stormed the building.

  • Casualties: Over $40$ people died, almost all of whom were Black delegates. Most delegates were unarmed, while the white supremacist mob was heavily armed.

• Historical Impact: This violence galvanized Reconstruction politics on a national scale, leading to a harder push for Black civil rights.

• The Bloody Flag: A tattered flag from the massacre was preserved as a relic and displayed during memorial services held a year later by Cora Scott (then Cora Daniels) at the Mechanics Institute.

Personal Tragedy and the Impact of Disease

• Nathan Daniels' Activism: Reported on Reconstruction for the Rochester Express but became focused on the "scourge" of disease in New Orleans.

• Outbreaks: The city was hit by both Cholera and Yellow Fever in $1867$.

• Deaths:

  • Nathan Daniels: Contracted fever in late September and died on October $1$, $1867$.

  • Henrietta: The infant daughter of Nathan and Cora (less than $1$ year old) died of infection on October $15$, $1867$.

• Aftermath: Grieving the loss of her husband and child, Cora retreated to the Northeast, looking for peace through the spirits of the dead.

Radical Politics and the Spiritualist Influence on Government

• General Benjamin Butler ("Beast Butler")

  • Former Union General who seized New Orleans; later a U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts.

  • Lobbied for Reconstruction alongside Nathan Daniels in Washington.

  • Orchestrated the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson.

• Cora's Confrontation with President Andrew Johnson

  • Cora had served as a spirit adviser to radical congressmen, claiming to channel Abraham Lincoln, William Wilberforce, and Boston abolitionist ministers.

  • In September $1868$, she barged into Johnson's White House office with a spiritualist newspaper editor.

  • She allegedly channeled Abraham Lincoln's laugh, leaving Johnson "dumb with astonishment."

  • The message delivered was: "Let him laugh who wins," suggesting the spirits would not yield their vision for the nation.

• Expansion of Reform Advocacy

  • In May $1869$, Cora spoke at the Universal Peace Society, critiquing the U.S. government for enslaving Africans, proscribing the Chinese, proposing to exterminate the "Indian race," and refusing rights to women.

Samuel Tappan and Indigenous Rights

• Samuel Tappan (Cora's Third Husband)

  • A spiritualist, journalist, and soldier.

  • Sand Creek Massacre Investigation: Investigated the brutal mass murder of Cheyenne and Arapaho people in Colorado. He identified the commanding officer (nicknamed the "Fighting Parson") as having committed the slaughter in cold blood to raise his political profile.

  • The Indian Peace Commission: Samuel served on this commission to negotiate treaties and later on a separate commission to enforce them.

• Spiritualist Critique of Manifest Destiny

  • Samuel and Cora utilized the Banner of Light to criticize the seizure of Native land.

  • Spiritualists viewed Western advancement as a "fraud and a swindle" and a "moral wilderness" created by railroad monopolies.

  • Spirit Guides: Seance circles transitioned from receiving blessings from Native spirits (like Weena) to receiving "Indian curses" on the nation due to ongoing genocide and dispossession.

Victoria Woodhull: From Spiritualism to the "Witch of Wall Street"

• Early Career: Victoria Woodhull and James Blood traveled through New Orleans (shortly after Cora left), Memphis, St. Louis, and Chicago, practicing as healing mediums.

• The Vision: In Pittsburgh ($1868$), Victoria claimed to see a spirit named Demosthenes (an ancient Athenian) inscribed in fire on a marble table. He instructed her to travel to New York, the "city of ships."

• The Vanderbilt Connection:

  • Cornelius Vanderbilt (The Commodore) sought contact with his dead father and relief from health issues.

  • Victoria's sister, Tenney (Tennessee Claflin), became Vanderbilt's "little sparrow," performing "laying on of hands."

  • Victoria acted as his personal medium, providing spiritual and investment advice.

  • Vanderbilt's daughter had been a long-time believer in spiritualism.

• Black Friday ($1869$):

  • Traders Jim Fisk and Jay Gould attempted to corner the gold market by convincing President Grant not to sell government gold.

  • Grant eventually released the gold, causing the price to drop "like a stone."

  • Privy to this information via Vanderbilt, Victoria bought gold as it dropped, amassing a profit of approximately $700,000$ dollars ($USD$).

• Woodhull, Claflin and Co.:

  • The first woman-owned brokerage in New York City.

  • The press dubbed Victoria the "Witch of Wall Street."

The Evolution of Spiritualism in the $1870$s

• Emma Harding Britton

  • Published "Modern Spiritualism: A Twenty Years' Record of the Communion between Earth and the World of Spirits" ($1870$).

  • Married William Britton (who originally helped Cora escape Benjamin Hatch).

• The Era of Materialization

  • Movement shifted from simple tapping/trances to physical manifestations.

  • Apports: Physical objects arriving in the room from the spirit world.

  • Full-body materializations: Spirits appearing to grow from "small white handkerchiefs" into physical bodies that could hug or kiss participants.

• The Robert Dale Owen and "Katie King" Scandal

  • Robert Dale Owen: Son of Scottish reformer Robert Owen; served on the commission for establishing government aid to newly freed Black Americans.

  • Published "Touching Spiritual Visitants from a Higher Life" in The Atlantic.

  • Claimed frequent contact with the spirit Katie King at seances held by Leah Fox Underhill and later a couple in Philadelphia.

  • The Fraud: An actor confessed to playing the role of Katie King. Owen's investigator, Henry Steele Alcott (who helped solve Lincoln's murder), confirmed the hoax.

  • Consequence: Owen's family had him declared insane and committed to an asylum against his will.

• Georgiana Houghton's Spirit Art

  • A London-based medium who created $155$ spirit-guided artworks (watercolors, pencils).

  • Claimed to be guided by the spirits of Titian, Correggio, and Joseph (husband of Mary).

  • $1871$ Exhibition: Funded at her own expense in London. While a financial failure that nearly bankrupted her, it attracted international attention.

  • Meeting with Leah Underhill: Leah Fox Underhill visited Houghton's gallery, where Daniel Underhill identified Leah as "the first medium in the world."

Questions & Discussion

• The Significance of Curiosity: T. Rowe Price poses several overarching questions to the public regarding investment and global progress:

  • "How can clean water transform farmland?"

  • "Can health care innovations create a healthier world?"

  • "How will $AI$ be a part of a new tomorrow?"

• Social Justice and the Seance Table: A spirit at a seance (recorded in New Orleans) described the life of a woman born to wealth but abandoned by a predatory husband who took her inheritance. She supported herself through sex work and was eventually comforted by Mary Magdalene in death.

  • Message: A society that punishes women for surviving abuse is unjust.

  • Ideal State: A "circle" where the poor are lifted and men and women work as equals to seek wisdom.