Profs and Pints DC presents: “Washington’s Spookiest Days,” on its seances and other efforts to communicate with the beyond during the early 20th century, with Mark Benbow, lecturer in American History at George Washington University and former historian at the Woodrow Wilson House Museum.
What do Harry Houdini, Woodrow Wilson, Arthur Conan Doyle, the famous Washington brewmaster Christian Heurich, and the spirit of a Native-American “Princess” named Monotowah have in common?
They’re all part of an eerie chapter of Washington history, the 1910s and 1920s, when seances were the focus of both harmless parlor games and serious religious practices and when skeptics of the occult clashed with its believers in the halls of Congress.
Learn about this fascinating time with Mark Benbow, a historian who wrote two books on Wilson and one on Heurich, and who has given several excellent Profs and Pints talks in the past.
He’ll discuss how a Spiritualist movement that arose the previous century and a spike in interest in contacting the dead following the First World War left many Washingtonians trying to reach those on “the other side.”
Among the fascinating figures he’ll summon up: Madame Marcia Champney, a popular DC medium, who claimed to have visited Edith Wilson and other First Ladies in the White House. She bragged of having fatally cursed debunker Harry Houdini during a Congressional hearing in which he testified in favor of legislation banning seances.
Edith Wilson, Woodrow’s second wife, was not the only believer. Her brother Randolph hosted seances in their S Street home using a Ouija board and color-coded lights and music, to contact wise spirits including a Native American maiden and a "Hindoo" mystic.
Benbow will share a few ghost stories from his time as the Woodrow Wilson House Historian and even let you know where the house’s “haunted” bathroom is. He’ll leave you with a better sense of where to look for ghosts when Halloween arrives. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image constructed from Canva photographs.