Summary of Strong Passions by Barbara Weisberg: A Scandalous Divorce in Old New York E-Book

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• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

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Summary of Strong Passions by Barbara Weisberg: A Scandalous Divorce in Old New York
 
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Strong Passions is a 19th-century novel that tells the story of a tumultuous marriage in New York during the Civil War. The story revolves around Mary Strong, who confessed to adultery and was sued for divorce. The novel explores the private world of the privileged elite in New York, revealing the conflicts over women's roles, male custody of children, and men's power over wives. The story is based on Edith Wharton's "old New York" and offers a glimpse into the private world of New York society.

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Summary of Strong Passions

A

Summary of Barbara Weisberg’s book

A Scandalous Divorce in Old New York

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Summary of Strong Passions by Barbara Weisberg: A Scandalous Divorce in Old New York

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This is an unofficial summary & analysis of Barbara Weisberg’s “Strong Passions: A Scandalous Divorce in Old New York” designed to enrich your reading experience.

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Introduction

Mary Emeline Stevens Strong, a woman who was once a strict and law-abiding mother and father, disappeared with her younger daughter, Allie, in June 1864. Her husband, Peter Remsen Strong, sued her for divorce, and the case came to trial in November 1865. The trial provided a shocking distraction and an unusual glimpse into the private world of New York's powerful and privileged elite. Divorce was virtually nonexistent among the upper echelons of mid-nineteenth-century American society, and women like Mary Emeline Stevens Strong were presumed to never violate the sacred marital bond.

The trial unfolded as a set of overlapping narratives by witnesses, with different events emphasized and analyzed, chronology altered, character traits and motivations debated. Witnesses were summoned from all walks of life, including a governess, a detective, a judge’s daughter, an undertaker, an abortionist’s spouse, a laundress, and Teddy Roosevelt’s uncle. The series of dramatic incidents that precipitated the divorce suit were clouded by a divergence in bitterly contested versions of what occurred.

The press's coverage of the suit gave a frank portrait of life within the Strongs’ unhappy household before and during the Civil War, which rocked genteel society with scandalous revelations. The publicity around Strong v. Strong also helped focus attention on issues, attitudes, and laws related to marital roles, abortion, divorce, and child custody that continue to resonate as they remain in contention today. The Strongs' divorce demonstrated to a society at war with itself that the “perfect union” was as much a fiction in marriage as it had proved to be for the nation.

PART 1

A Perfect Union

A Marriageable Girl

Mary Emeline Stevens, a nineteen-year-old woman, met her husband, Peter Remsen Strong, in 1852. They were from the privileged world of New York City's social elite, a thriving class of well-todo merchants, lawyers, bankers, and doctors. These families represented what the writer Edith Wharton later called the world of "old New York." Mary and Wharton were cousins, born a generation apart. Both were descendants of Ebenezer Stevens, a Revolutionary War hero turned merchant who was Mary's grandfather and Wharton's great-grandfather. Ebenezer founded a successful mercantile firm specializing in overseas trade, importing French wines and other luxury items for notable clients such as Thomas Jefferson.

He married twice and fathered fourteen children. Mary's father, John Austin Stevens, inherited his father's visage and propensity for mercantile success. John graduated from Yale in 1813 and rose to prominence as a partner in Ebenezer's firm. He married Abby Perkins Weld, whose notable New England family approved the match. John subsequently became a banker, joining in 1838 with other New York businessmen to found the Bank of Commerce.

By the mid-1840s, Abby had given birth to twelve children, not all of whom lived beyond a few years. Mary was a middle child, having one older brother, three older sisters, and four younger ones. Her best friend was Lucretia, who was said to have so much spirit that "she kept everyone wide awake."

In the late 1830s and '40s, Mary Stevens lived in a stately red brick townhouse at 63 Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. The house was a fashionable neighborhood with late Federal style townhouses, many with a multistep front stoop and an imposing doorway flanked by white Greek Revival pillars. The Stevens household had five servants, including a cook, a laundress, two housemaids, and a waiter. Mary and her sisters attended Madame Canda's school, a private girls' academy, which was easily accessible on Lafayette Place.

New York was expanding in area and population, with changes visible even in the neighborhood between Mary's home and school. Taverns, butcher shops, secondhand furniture stalls, and boarding houses lined the Bowery, pushing the city northward. Hotels, music halls, public gardens, and specialty shops proliferated along Broadway. In 1847, the magnificent Astor Opera House was built on Astor Place, near Madame Canda's academy.

An estimated twenty-two people died and more than one hundred were wounded in a riot involving William Macready and Edwin Forrest. The couple's divorce suit, with furious charges and countercharges of adultery, made front-page headlines for eighteen years. Prostitutes, some in tawdry or tattered clothes, paraded along Broadway every afternoon. A commentator for the Herald noted that a "strange and disreputable anomaly of theaters, churches, and houses of ill-fame" could be found "all huddled together in one block" in neighborhoods throughout the city.

In Victorian-era New York, the streets were bustling with private carriages, carts, and horse-drawn omnibuses. Young ladies like Mary and Lucretia enjoyed walking to school, shops, and friends' homes, taking in the beautiful landscape and sometimes savoring an ice cream bought along the way. Their father never considered owning a carriage, but could hire one as needed.

For leisure activities after school, young girls like the Stevens sisters practiced piano, played card games, and read novels, always carefully monitored for virtuous content. Godey's Lady's Book warned that a passion for reading needed to "remain a healthful appetite for mental food rather than a morbid craving for mental stimulation." The magazine allowed some novels, such as those of Walter Scott and Washington Irving, to be permitted for their noble heart and sense of honor.

The genteel and salacious seemed oddly to coexist in the newspapers, life, and streets of Victorian-era New York. Mary and her sisters sometimes went to concerts, attended lavish parties, and participated in gatherings where guests sang sentimental parlor songs about love and loss. The Christmas and New Year holidays were especially festive in New York, with New Yorkers feeling they had a proprietary hold on the season.

Mary's mother, Abby Stevens, was famed in New York society for her splendid annual holiday gala. George Templeton Strong fondly recalled the festive, hectic atmosphere and the few moments that stood out in memory from all the rest.

Catherine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe's sister, believed that glamorous parties distracted young girls from learning how to excel in their life's work as wives and mothers. However, Mary and her sisters were well-trained for their future roles, as they took care of the younger children and performed routine household chores. Mary excelled as a seamstress, sewed handkerchiefs, collars, and dresses.

Small family gatherings took place at relatives' homes, such as Mary's uncle Byam Stevens and his sister, and her widowed aunt Mary Stevens Rhinelander. Mary and her siblings visited Aunt Em and her sister, Aunt Caroline, at their Brunswick home, which provided respite for their mother, Abby. The president of Bowdoin College, Leonard Woods, boarded with Em and Caroline, and some of his students, making dinner the scene of lively conversations.

Mary and her siblings spent summers at Newport, Rhode Island, where they lived in modest seaside communities. Mary knew how to stand her ground, veering slightly from the nineteenth-century ideal of the passive, perfectly genteel young lady. In 1850, Mary decided to continue her studies beyond the customary age of sixteen, possibly to perfect her French or dream of future travel. Lucretia commented on Mary's fierce determination, but in 1850, only the slightest hint of it shone through her genteel demeanor.

A Good, Honest, Warm- Hearted Fellow

In July 1838, a horseman lost control of his horse while racing through Manhattan's business district. The horseman, a well-dressed businessman, was knocked to the ground and kicked with a back hoof, shattering his skull. Good Samaritans lifted him and carried him into a nearby shop where a doctor attempted to revive him. The victim, fifty-five-year-old James Strong, died a few hours later, leaving behind his wife, Aletta, and six children between the ages of nine and eighteen. Peter, like his future bride, Mary, was a middle child, with two older sisters, one older brother, and two younger ones.

James Strong, an established member of old New York's powerful merchant elite, joined the mercantile firm founded by his father, the Revolutionary War patriot Selah Strong. He married Aletta Remsen, a descendant of wealthy merchants and property owners with land and roots in Queens. They chose to live on Cortlandt Street in lower Manhattan, close to his business and other affluent urban dwellers.

After James's death, shock and grief transformed the family's life. Aletta retreated to her Queens homestead, now named Waverly, where Peter and his siblings lived. Despite the constraints of his father's will, Peter managed to assert his independence, becoming a young man about town, commuting by coach and ferry to Manhattan. He studied law at Columbia College and later became a lawyer, but never practiced law.

Peter enjoyed the life of a well-to-do gentleman, reading Romantic poets, boating, hunting, and socializing with friends. His cousin and good friend George Templeton Strong wrote about him in his diary, which he kept faithfully for forty years.