The Indiana History Blog

Transcript for Giving Voice: Sarah Halter

Beckley: I’m Lindsey Beckley and this is Giving Voice.

On today’s installment of Giving Voice, I had the pleasure of speaking with Sarah Halter, the executive director of the Indiana medical History Museum. If you haven’t listened to our latest episode, which covered the story of Rufus Cantrell, the so called King of Ghouls, I suggest you go do so now as we reference that story during our conversation and it might be helpful to be familiar with the story before going in. In this episode, we talk about the history of Central State Hospital and the steps the museum has taken to reintroduce the stories of the patients of Central State into the interpretation of the museum.

And now, Giving Voice.

I’m here today with Sarah Halter of the Indiana medical History Museum. We are so excited to have you on today Sarah, thanks for joining us.

Halter: Thank you.

Beckley: So I reached out to you because in our main episode, which is about Rufus Cantrell who was also known as the ghoul – or the King Ghouls – he, in his confession, in his long and varied confessions, claimed to have stolen upwards of 100 bodies from the cemetery on the site of what is now the Indiana Medical History Museum, but at that point would have been Central State Hospital. I was wondering, do you know if there is any truth in that claim or if he was just kind of blustering?

Halter: There certainly could be. It’s certainly possible. He also was supposed to have, I think he described it as something like he virtually emptied Mount Jackson Cemetery too, which is right west of the former grounds, just south of the later parts of the Central State Hospital Cemetery. The problem with Rufus Cantrell is that he was an interesting guy, he was quite a showman, and he was thought to have exaggerated or even made up things  One of the first things he did when he got out of prison, for example, was to try to get the gang back together to start a vaudeville act. He bragged a lot and it’s hard to know for sure. But it wouldn’t surprise me if he had.

Beckley: Yeah, I got a little bit of a sense of that from reading the newspaper reports. There was some truth definitely in there because there were a lot of graves that were found empty, but there was also at least a little bit of blustering in there as well. So, I thought that as far as with Central State Hospital, I was hoping that you would give a little bit of a general history on the hospital and how it became the Indiana Medical History Museum.

Halter: Sure, I’d love to. Central State Hospital opened in 1848 as the Indiana Hospital for the Insane, and that name doesn’t really sound very progressive to modern ears, but just using the word hospital in the name implied that the goal was to help patients recover, which was a far cry from the asylum system that had been pretty widespread before, where patients were just confined and sort of kept out of sight and out of the mind of the public and usually treated more as prisoners than as patients. So, this whole idea of treating mental illness as just that – these are something like other diseases, they can be understood and treated. So, the hospital opened in line with these new ideas and what was called moral treatment. And physicians and administrators had pretty high hopes for success. They had a lot of confidence in their own abilities. And it was a big step in the right direction, but unfortunately it was largely ineffective in many cases. It provided more humane treatment for patients and improved living conditions, and it certainly eased burdens on families, and in some ways it began a slow change in medical and public perceptions about mental illness and the people who suffer from mental illnesses , but they had a grossly deficient understanding of the nature of the diseases that they were working with. They didn’t have any effective arsenal of therapies and so the doctors really just kind of couldn’t do much regardless of their intentions. And many of the staff, including doctors, nurses, and attendants were poorly paid, poorly trained, and poorly equipped emotionally for the really high stress situations that they found themselves in.

So, from the beginning there were also serious allegations of abuse and neglect as well as mismanagement and misuse of funds, nepotism, political cronyism, all of those things. In the 19th century, hospitals were perpetually overcrowded and underfunded and most of the patients really couldn’t expect a quick recovery and these hospitals, you know, this was the 1st in Indiana, they would fill up with patience and they weren’t likely to go home, and so a new hospital would be needed. So, by the late 1880s, early 1890s, these massive state hospitals were popping up all over Indiana. They were huge, they were expensive to build and to operate, and one of their responses to this which happened here at Central State Hospital was the establishment of pathological departments.

So, Dr. George Edenharter, who was the Superintendent at the time, had this idea that by learning about these diseases using this new field of pathology that was just emerging, it was pretty unheard of in the United States, it was something that was being studied in Europe, especially in Germany and in France, we could use these new ideas and these new technologies to study physical causes of mental diseases. We could learn about them learn what causes them and how to treat them, and that way we can improve outcomes for patients, which weren’t that great at the time, but we could also save the state a lot of money by eliminating this seemingly constant need for new hospitals. And so, the Pathological Department here at Central State was established in 1896 for that reason. They were studying things like tumors, lesions, circulatory problems, inflammation, hermetic injuries, congenital defects – all of these things – to learn about them, to learn about the things that can go wrong with a person’s central nervous system and to develop treatments, hopefully, for them. And to ease the burden both on the patients and on the state of Indiana.

Beckley: I have this memory of one of the first times I went to the medical History Museum and, I can’t suss out whether it is a false memory or not, that the treatment for syphilis – the malarial treatment for syphilis – was that discovered at that pathology lab, or was it just , is that some weird memory that I’ve come up with?

Halter: It was not discovered there, but that was kind of their claim to fame. That’s one of the areas that I researched quite a lot. I don’t like this, but people sometimes refer to me as the Queen of syphilis. But yeah, it was introduced there in 1925 by doctor Walter Bruetsch, who was the chief pathologist there at the time, and he had learned about it from – he was from Germany – and he had learned about it there an brought the treatment to the US. He was one of the first in the US to use it and he used it so much and so successfully that when the US public health service started their research on the topic in 1936 they invited doctor Bruetsch and Central State Hospital to participate not only by testing the efficacy of various treatments, but also by supplying all of the data that they had accumulated over the decade or more that they were using this treatment. And then when penicillin was available for research beginning in 1943, they also participated in penicillin trials. So, though malaria therapy –

Beckley: So, just for listeners at home, what is the malarial treatment for syphilis if they have never heard of it, what all does that encompass?

Halter: It sounds like a pretty scary thing, and it was potentially disastrous. Essentially, there weren’t ways to treat neurosyphilis – third stage tertiary neurosyphilis – and that was a leading cause of institutionalization before penicillin was available. So the treatment for syphilis – the first big manmade miracle drug that was on the market – was Salvarsan 606 , which was introduced in 1910. And it was pretty effective, though it had some pretty horrible side effects, and even killed some people. It was an arsenical compound that would be injected into the patient. It was more effective with primary and secondary syphilis infections, but because it couldn’t penetrate the blood brain barrier, it was useless against neurosyphilis. And so, throughout the late 19th century and into the early 20th century, there were a couple of doctors who were sort of dabbling in this idea that you could use one disease to treat another.

So, we could intentionally infect patients with malaria, which induces a high fever, and in fact cycles of fever, and at the time they thought that it was the heat from the temperature of the fever itself that was killing the spirochete, but it was actually discovered later to be an immunological response of the body. But at any rate, they had noticed over the decades that people who had recovered from bad fever diseases often saw improvement in their psychiatric symptoms. And so, by the mid World War One and into the early 1920s, this was sort of being developed into an actual therapeutic option for patients with tertiary syphilis.

So, you would infect the patient with a particular strain of malaria that was pretty weak and fairly easy to treat with quinine – this was before penicillin, this was before any of the sulfa drugs – there really weren’t any antibiotics at the time and malaria was one of the few infectious diseases that they could actually treat because of quinine. So they used this week strain – they would inject the patient with malarial blood, so someone else’s blood who had malarial infection in their blood, would be injected into the patient to kind of give them the disease and then after 8 or 10 or maybe 12 cycles of fever, again they thought that was the mechanism by which it worked, they would then treat the patient with quinine, but not before drawing blood from them to inject into the next patient. So, that’s where it could have been really ugly, and there were instances over the years where contamination was a problem, and there were at least three instances that I know of where patients died from other infections that they contracted that way. But that was the idea that you are using one potentially deadly infectious disease to treat another.

Beckley: That’s so interesting and kind of sounds medieval to a lot of people’s ears, but it was such an advancement from absolutely no treatment to a disease that was almost a death sentence and to at least you have some hope to recover from an awful disease.

Halter: Right.

Beckley: I guess this is a good time to kind of turn to some of your work that you’ve been doing incorporating the stories of the patients of Central State into your interpretation of the museum. Because, I know that you all have a lot of specimens and I know some of maybe the more popular ones are the brain slides that you can see the tumors and stuff. Could you talk a little bit about your reinterpretation of some of those things and how you’re introducing a little bit of humanity into what goes into your interpretations?

Halter: Sure. Well, we have those because when the laboratory closed in 1968, within the year it re opened as a museum and so, there wasn’t a lot of time in between for all of this wonderful stuff to be lost. So, when it reopened in 1969 as the museum it had all of the original furnishings and equipment and some of the chemical jars and records and all of these things. And it also had all of these specimens. So, we have histological specimens, we have tissue blocks, we have some skeletal material, and then what we’re really known for are these specimen jars. They are like glass specimen jars that are on display in the museum with various organs – most of them are brains, but there are a few other organs sort of here and there – and these are organs that were collected from patients to study these different physical causes of mental illness, and also to teach students about them, about the research that was being done there. So, for the first 40 years or so that we were a museum, a lot of the interpretation of those was based on how they were interpreted when it was a functioning lab.

So, it was a place for medical students and practicing physicians could come and learn about these different problems that can develop in the brain and spinal cord and to learn about the research that was being done. So, the labels that were next to these specimen jars were very clinical descriptions of tumors and lesions. Most of them did not really give you any sense that it was even a person that was being referred to in the label. They didn’t have names, only initials and an autopsy number. They had the year and then they had these very technical descriptions of what it was that was preserved and why it was important for the students.

And so, in the last five or six years, we’ve been doing a lot here to kind of expand our focus beyond the science and the technology that was used in the building and beyond the doctors and administrators who worked here at the hospital and beyond the architecture of what, really is a pretty amazing and well preserved 19th century laboratory, to really focus more on the patients themselves and their experience. You know, this was a very vulnerable an often forgotten – and all too often mistreated – group of people who were isolated and stigmatized from their lives. There were very few people who would speak up for them and they had no real voice of their own. And so, we’ve done a lot to kind of shed more light on what their experiences were like, what their lives were like, and this was just one component of this larger effort. So, when we were working to rehumanize these specimens, it started with just a lot of research. We have a lot of records here and a lot of the medical records and autopsy records are also at the Indiana State Archives . So, we started with what we knew, and then used more genealogical and historical methods to find out more about these people. We wanted to know who they were as people, what their lives were like, what their family dynamics were. We wanted to know about their diseases, but from their perspective. So, not what went wrong inside of their brains but what were the symptoms that impacted their daily lives and their ability to build friendships and raise families and hold a job and all of those things? And we were also very curious about how their prognosis, diagnosis, treatment, and all of those things would be different today. We’ve come a long way since many of these specimens were collected and when many of these patients died, so a lot of things that might be a death sentence today – or would have been then – are not really so much now. Some of the diagnosis have changed, there are things that patients were diagnosed with which are no longer accepted diagnosis, and for a lot of things our understanding has changed. So, a person with a particular type of tumor today would have a very different experience than someone who had the same kind of tumor 100 years ago. So, we just wanted to kind of tell those stories.

It took us about five years to get all that research done. We have 53 specimens on display in our anatomical museum, and we learned a lot more about some than others, but we have information about each of them. And, last year, July 2019, we unveiled this new interpretation of the specimens. We kept the old labels, those are important too, it’s part of the specimen’s history in terms of kind of the specimen as an object, if you will, and it’s important for the medical folks who come to visit the museum to see those as well because they understand more of it than a layperson who comes in. So, we didn’t want to get rid of that interpretation, but we wanted to tell the whole story. And so, the new labels tell the human story next to the old labels with those clinical details.

Beckley: That’s an amazing project and I imagined visitors can connect on a whole different level to your new labels, even if those two labels are side by side, you’re going to learn one thing from the older labels but then you’re going to connect at a whole different level to seeing the details of somebody’s life and how their diagnosis affected their daily life and their relationships and everything like that. I imagine it just brings a whole new depth to the museum.

Halter: Yeah, I think it does. I like to kind of listen in when groups are in there. It’s very interesting. I mean, the project is something that I tried to do before I was the director, but it wasn’t a priority for the organization, so until I was the director of the museum, we weren’t really able to move forward with it, but it’s something that has been really important to me personally for a very long time . And the process of learning about these people, I mean it was emotional and it was overwhelming at times, it was just very inspiring, and it felt well worth the effort. So I like to see how other people kind of relate to these stories. It’s very interesting.

Beckley: If our listeners are wanting to learn more about these stories and see them than ourselves, could you tell them how to do that, whether that be online during covid era or whether that be in person if you guys are open – do some plugs. Where can folks find you guys?

Halter: Sure, we have reopened. We have a pretty limited capacity at the moment because we have small spaces in the building and we have an older volunteer core and want to make sure that we keep everybody here safe and all of the visitors as well. We also want to, frankly, set a good example for the community as a medical museum. We felt a responsibility to do that. So we can’t have drop-ins like we used to, but we are open by appointment. You can call to make an appointment or visit our website for more information . It’s IMHM.org. You can see all of the specimens here on site. We also are adding new stories to the website periodically. If you go to www.imhm.org/speciman, you can find an online version of this exhibit and there is a lot of interpretive material and all of that, but also all of the individual specimens, and you can see photographs of the specimens and then read both the new labels and the old labels right there on our website and we add a few of those every once in a while. I think there are maybe 10 or 15 of them right now.

Beckley: I will make sure that we will go in and link all of those links in the show notes which can be found at blog.history.in.gov and we will make sure that we get all of those in there. Thank you so much, Sarah, for coming on the show today. It was a real pleasure to talk to you.

Halter: Thank you.

Once again, I want to thank Sarah for taking the time to talk with me today. Remember, if you are interested in learning more about the work being done at the Indiana Medical History Museum, you can visit their website at IMHM.org or find the links to their site in the transcripts for this episode which can be found at blog.history.in.gov. We’ll be back next month with the final episode of 2020. In the meantime, follow the Indiana Historical Bureau on Facebook and Twitter for daily doses of Indiana history tidbits. Subscribe, rate, and review Talking Hoosier History wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks for listening.

In the fall of 1902, a crime syndicate was uncovered in the city of Indianapolis – not a syndicate of gambling, booze, or other illicit activities. No, this was a gang of “ghouls,” or men who robbed graves and sold bodies to medical schools on the black market.

Practitioners of this trade have been called many things – grave robbers, body snatchers, resurrection men, ghouls. Regardless of what they go by, they have a long and dark history tied inextricably to the advancement of medical science. In the 14^th century, a professor at the University of Bologna began teaching anatomy using dissection as a tool of instruction. Soon after, four students at the university committed the first documented case of body snatching. The need for corpses had outpaced the legal means of obtaining them, driving students to procure cadavers by unlawful means. The rest, as they say, is history.

As medical education advanced, the need for human specimens rose at a dramatic pace. For centuries, however, the supply was met mostly by legal means – largely, the remains of criminals condemned to death. However, in the 17^th and 18^th centuries a confluence of two factors – a reduction of executions and the proliferation of medical schools – created a massive shortage. One which would be filled by a barely underground network of so-called “Resurrection Men.”

While illegal, the practice of stealing corpses to sell to medical schools often went unprosecuted as it was perceived as being “for the greater good.” The dissection of cadavers – weather obtained legally or otherwise – has been used to train new physicians in anatomy, lending them an unprecedented level of understanding of the human body.  This, along with the fact that most of the victims were poor or people of color also helped law enforcement turn a blind eye. However, as the practice continued and more prominent families were victimized by the traumatizing act, states began expanding the legal channels through which medical schools could procure specimens. These acts are referred to as anatomy laws.

Indiana’s first anatomy law was enacted in 1879, perhaps not-so-coincidentally a year after the grave of John Scott Harrison, son of former President William Henry Harrison and father of future President Benjamin Harrison, was robbed and his body discovered at the Ohio Medical College. The 1879 law provided that:

the body of any person who shall die in any state, city or county prison, or jail, or county asylum or infirmary, or public hospital, within this State, shall remain unclaimed. . .for twenty-four hours after death. . .may be used as a subject for anatomical dissection and scientific examination.

While the law was meant to provide a morally sound avenue for medical schools to obtain bodies for dissection,  that avenue still took advantage of the poor and mentally ill as it was highly unlikely that any of the deceased were ever given the opportunity to consent to their remains being used in this way.

But even with this law in place, there were still sometimes shortages. The early 20^th century was one of those times. In 1902, at least five institutions in Indianapolis needed a steady supply of corpses. As the winter semester of the 1902-03 school year approached, these institutions vied for the inadequate lawful supply and eventually turned to the black market to fill their needs.

Dominating the black market was Rufus Cantrell. Having been a driver, porter, clerk, and even an undertaker, in 1902, he added a new title: The King of Ghouls. He, along with approximately seven other men, ran one of the most successful body-snatching syndicates in the city. According to the September 30, 1902 issue of the Indianapolis Journal:

He did not use hooks in pulling out corpses, as was done years ago. He only used hooks when a corpse was fastened in a coffin. Instead of digging down at the head of the grave, as was the former custom, he adopted the plan of digging in the center. The covering of the box was then sawed through and the small lid on the coffin shoved back. No lights are used by the ghouls . . . except an occasional match, which is lighted down in the grave.

It was hard, grim, and dirty work, but it paid off. Cantrell reported that between July and September of 1902, he and each of his men had earned $420 from their nighttime exploits, nearly as much as the average American made in a whole year. But their profits wouldn’t last long.

At least three different Indianapolis residents received anonymous tips that the graves of their recently buried loved ones may be found empty. Upon further investigation, the families discovered that this was indeed the case, and, more horrifying still, they discovered the missing remains in the basement of the Central College of Physicians and Surgeons. Panic gripped the city as newspapers published these stories. Families began guarding the graves of their recently interred relatives. Citizens called for investigations. Detectives staked out cemeteries and medical schools, waiting for the Ghouls to show themselves.

However, a break came from an unexpected source. A pawnbroker by the name of Emil Mantel grew suspicious of a customer after loaning him $28 in return for four shotguns. Mantel contacted his attorney, Taylor Gronniger for advice on the situation. When Mantel gave the name of the suspicious customer as Rufus Cantrell, Gronniger connected the dots. He had heard rumors about Cantrell’s unsavory practices, and here Cantrell was, pawning off more shotguns than any one person would need – shotguns that could be used to scare off any unwanted observers intruding on illegal happenings – and just when the grave robbing business was too hot to continue. So, Gronniger relayed his hunch to Detectives Asch and Manning of the Indianapolis Police Department. By the end of the next day, the detectives had arrested Rufus Cantrell and six of his associates and extracted full, corroborating confessions from each man.

Cantrell, the leader of the “gang of ghouls,” gave his confession in excruciating detail, seemingly proud of his escapades. He and his assistants had plied their gruesome trade at Crown Hill Cemetery, the German Catholic graveyard, Mount Jackson Cemetery, Traders Point Cemetery, and the Old Anderson graveyard, as well as the cemetery at the Central Indiana hospital for the Insane, where, Cantrell confessed, he and his posse had emptied over 100 graves.

He went on to implicate Dr. Joseph Alexander of the Central College of Physicians and Surgeons as his principal buyer. However, while most medical men simply feigned ignorance of the source for the bodies they were buying, Cantrell described Alexander as playing a much more hands-on role in the operation. Not only did Alexander knowingly buy stolen bodies, he identified potential targets, accompanied Cantrell on scouting missions, and even joined the gang in their nightly expeditions. Alexander was arrested, but quickly posted bail.

As Cantrell’s confessions continued, more empty graves were unearthed. The various medical schools around the city were searched thoroughly, but the bodies were nowhere to be found. Detectives Asch and Manning received a tip that Dr. Alexander had commissioned twenty pine boxes from a local box-builder to be delivered to the Central College of Physicians and Surgeons just days after the arrests had been made. This seemed like just the break they were looking for – surely the boxes had to be connected to the missing bodies. However, upon further investigation, it was discovered that Central College was in the process of moving locations and the boxes had been commissioned for the mundane purpose of packing away delicate medical instruments.

In mid-October, just as a grand jury was called to make indictments in the case, the mystery of the missing bodies was solved, at least in part. On October 14, 1902, the Indianapolis Journal reported:

Amos Smith . . . on his way to work, yesterday morning about 6 o’clock, partially cleared up the mystery of the bodies recently spirited away from the medical colleges. He found two bodies tied in sacks in a dry goods box at the side of Hibben, Holloweg & Co.’s store . . . The same young man, in walking farther south noticed two more bodies at the rear door of the Central Medical College.

After being positively identified by family members, there was speculation that a competing medical college in the city had disposed of the bodies near the Central Medical College in an attempt to throw all suspicion on that institution while dissuading further investigation. While these grizzly details were being spread in newspapers throughout the city, the grand jury received its instructions and began hearing testimony in the case. By the end of the grand jury’s investigation, twenty-five indictments were handed down and allegations had been made against seventy-five different people who were all part of three additional body-snatching syndicates in the city. Among the indicted were Cantrell and his associates, Dr. Alexander, four physicians from other schools, cemetery workers who facilitated the robberies, and various low-ranking employees of medical schools who had played some small part in the operation.

After several delays, the first Ghoul Gang trial, that of Dr. Joseph Alexander, began in early February. Alexander’s defense attorney’s strategy seemed to be to cast as much doubt on the character of the star witness, Rufus Cantrell, as possible. First, they attempted to link him to the unsolved murder of a Chinese immigrant who had been killed a year earlier. When that didn’t stick, the defense brought into question the sanity of the King of the Ghouls by introducing evidence that Cantrell had been diagnosed with epilepsy, at that time a broad diagnosis encompassing several mental illnesses.

Multiple physicians were brought to testify on Cantrell’s mental health. Each in turn pronounced Cantrell “insane.” Cantrell and the state begged to differ. Upon cross examination, each doctor admitted to having ties, past or present, to the Central College of Physicians and Surgeons, the same college which employed Dr. Joseph Alexander. Coincidence? Perhaps.

Coincidence or not, the evidence presented by the defense seems to have been enough to sway at least some of the jurors. The February 16, 1903 issue of the Indianapolis Journal reported:

Dr. Joseph C. Alexander’s status in the community is unchanged. He is neither the convicted felon of the heinous crime of complicity with ghouls and neither is he wholly absolved from the accusations made against him by the state’s attorney. . . Yesterday morning at 10 o’clock, after deliberating since the same hour Friday morning, the jury reported through its foreman . . . that it had not arrived at a verdict and undoubtedly would be unable to do so, and it was discharged from further service.

The result of one of the most anticipated trials of the year resulted in a hung jury. While the state’s attorney promised a retrial, it never came to fruition. Cantrell, who had all along hoped that his cooperation would result in a lighter sentence, saw the writing on the wall and refused to testify in the retrial. With their star witness gone, the state had little evidence against the doctor – or any of the other four physicians originally indicted, who had maintained their innocence throughout and whose only accuser was the now silent Cantrell. The next big trial was that of the King Ghoul himself.

Taking a page from Dr. Alexander, Cantrell’s defense team entered a plea of insanity at the onset of the trial. The state, of course, used the testimony of Cantrell himself given in interviews with police as well as during the grand jury investigation. The question of the trial was not if Cantrell had robbed graves, but why? Was he a greedy criminal just trying to make a buck, or was he criminally insane?

To make the case for the latter, Cantrell’s own mother was put on the stand. Through her testimony, the defense told the jury:

that they proposed to show Cantrell to be insane . . . that while Cantrell lived in Gallatin, Tenn., from the age of one to fifteen years, he suffered from epilepsy; that when twelve years old he was thrown from a horse and his head was injured; that when he was ten or twelve years old he had a delusion that he was called by God to preach, and told his friends that he talked with God face to face; that while at work in the field he would kneel at the plow and pray and preach from a Biblical text; that he still suffers from delusions and in the jail has preached to prisoners; that when taunted by his friends in Tennessee over his inability to preach he would become profane and once assaulted a minister with his tongue when he refused to ordain him; that he has a violent temper and has attempted the lives of himself and others; that he delighted to call himself the “King of the Bryan campaign,” and had cards printed with the words, ‘Rufus Cantrell – the Democratic hero;’ that he suffered a sunstroke in Indianapolis, which incapacitated him for work in hot places, and that he succumbed to heat while employed in the Malleable iron works. All these things, Cantrell’s attorneys would prove.

It should be noted that traumatic brain injuries can affect the mental health of those who experience them – they can cause mood swings, agitation, combativeness, and other cognitive symptoms. And both epilepsy and sunstroke were used in the 19^th century to describe various mental illnesses. That being said, it’s difficult to tell from newspaper reports alone how much the testimony given was exaggerated in an attempt to keep Cantrell out of jail. After all, he did deny having any mental illness during the trial of Dr. Alexander.

Yet another topic that may have played a part in the trial, and certainly played a part in the sensationalized coverage of the case, is race. Rufus Cantrell and his associates were all Black men. Alexander and the other physicians, all of whom would eventually walk free, were white.  It’s important to note that people of color, facing systematic discrimination, were often driven to find income in alternative ways. These alternative ways were, in some cases, illegal. This could have influenced Cantrell’s decision to enter the profession of grave robbing. However, there were gangs of white ghouls in the city working right alongside Cantrell’s gang – grave robbing was a lucrative business if you could get past your moral qualms.

So, the influence of race on Cantrell choosing this line of work isn’t clear. What is clear, however, is that his associates, and not the white physicians, were prosecuted for their crimes. It’s also clear that newspapers took every chance they could to point out the race of the accused. In the end, race can’t not have played a role in the trial, but it’s difficult to tell through reports – all written for white newspapers – how extensive that role was.

On April 26, 1903, Rufus Cantrell, the King of the Ghouls, was found guilty of two charges and sentenced to three to ten years in the Jeffersonville State Reformatory. In the end, Cantrell and four of his associates were convicted and sentenced to between one and ten years each. The twenty other men indicted by the Grand Jury were cleared of all charges due to lack of evidence.

Convictions weren’t the only thing to emerge from this tale, though. The system of public institutions delivering the unclaimed bodies of the deceased directly to medical schools was clearly not working as desired. As a result of this and other similar trials, the Indiana General Assembly passed the Anatomical Education Act in 1903, establishing the State Anatomical Board, which would oversee the distribution of bodies to medical schools. The State Anatomical Board is still in existence today, continuing to oversee the distribution of donated bodies to medical schools. According to anatomist Sanjib Kumar Ghosh, body donation constitutes the sole source of cadavers used in teaching anatomy in the vast majority of the world, including in the United States. Learn more about the history of dissection here.

Find all sources for this blog post here.

Transcript for Giving Voice: Susan Hall Dotson and Kisha Tandy

Beckley: I’m Lindsey Beckley and this is Giving Voice. On today’s installment of Giving Voice, I have the pleasure of speaking with Susan Hall-Dotson, the African American history collections coordinator at the Indiana Historical Society, and Kisha Tandy, the curator of social history at the Indiana State Museum. After our two-part series covering the women’s suffrage movement in Indiana, we wanted to take some time to talk about the suffrage movement in the African American communities at the state and national level.  In this episode we talked about inclusion, storytelling, and the importance of telling a richer version of the suffrage story than what is often heard.

And now, Giving Voice.

Alright, I’m here today with Kisha Tandy and Susan Hall Dotson and I’m so excited to be talking with the two of you today and thank you so much for coming on.

Tandy: Thank you.

Hall-Dotson: Thank you.

Beckley: Of course. So, I think that starting with a little bit of the national context of the relationship between white and Black suffragists would be a good place to start. Susan, could you talk a little bit about how that how that relationship between white and Black suffragists evolved over the decades leading up to the 19th Amendment?

Hall-Dotson: Big question!  But a brief answer is that in different places and at different times it was minimal. It is less inclusive, accepting, embracing than we would like to think about in modern times. It’s really hard to have a backward glance and say that people were marginalized – that people were left out. But they were.  Because if you look at the bigger scope of the country and how people were, say from the post-Civil War to 1920, there was lots of segregation. There was lots of discrimination. And it went from slavery and enslavement and who was free and who was not and where you could live and where you couldn’t and what legal privileges that you were able to enjoy. Which didn’t happen – Black men didn’t get the right to vote until after slavery, after emancipation. And there were white women who were upset that Black men got the right to vote before women – before white women – got the right to vote.  They didn’t live, work, play, worship in the same spaces, so it’s really hard to imagine that we had this level of camaraderie out of womanhood that superseded other modes and means of relationships.

Beckley: Yea, and I know the same goes for here in Indiana. We were still segregated up until well past the 19th Amendment, so I know that a lot of the same can be said for here in Indiana.

Kisha, could you introduce us to some of the prominent African American suffragists here in Indiana?

Tandy: Yea, so, there were many women who had been working to achieve the right to vote, who had been working for suffrage. And many of those women we’re individuals who were active in clubs and the temperance movement. And so, African American – Black women – had been fighting for so many things leading up to this and working just for suffrage – not only for themselves but just in general African American suffrage. And some of those women who were doing that were individuals like Naomi Talbert Bowmen Anderson, who was born in Michigan City, Indiana. She was born in 1843. she would leave Indiana in 1868 and go to Chicago. She would have a long history of working in the suffrage movement. And it’s interesting because she went to Chicago in 1868 and by 1869, she was speaking at a national suffrage convention. And it was also interesting because this was one of those presentations in speaking where there was some issue with her speaking there and I love to use quotes so I’ll use a quote from her – it’s one of the things said speaking in 1869, and this comes from the Chicago Tribune, from February 13, 1869. It’s – the heading from the article was “Progress of the Female Suffrage Movement in Chicago, and the Chicago Tribune reports this. They say:

“She came on behalf of the colored women of Chicago and of the State of Illinois, believing that God was on their side, and that the day was not far distant when the opponents of universal suffrage would [illegible] before the wind. The power of women would be felt and she would have the right to vote.”]

Because, when I started looking into this, this was very much a research project. This individual, Naomi Bowmen Talbert Anderson, there was information about her in a book by Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, and she looked at African American women and the struggle for the vote from 1850 to 1920. She talks about her, so it was great to already have information by an African American female scholar already in place so that I can go in and find and look for other information. And she notes in her research and in her efforts that there was – her  appearance at this convention had some issue and that because the Fifteenth Amendment hadn’t passed yet and there was some contention there and that there was some concern. So, you know, even as early as 1890, this had been written about. You know, her being there at the –  this moment and speaking about it and she did come back and have, you know, explain why she was doing and try to explain herself and different things like that. But, she was not deterred and she continued to press on towards the vote – pressing on, working in various areas. For example, she moved to Ohio, she later moved to Kansas, and to California. And she continued to speak for suffrage, continued to work towards getting African American women the right to vote – for women to vote – and we are able to follow her –  to follow what she is doing just looking through newspaper articles and getting different Snippets and different pieces of information from her in there. And even just being able to get additional information about her story, so she is one of those individuals very early on that was out and sharing and fighting for the right to vote.

Another individual, Martha Mary Harris Mason Mccurdy. She was an advocate for temperance, for a span she was a writer, and she was a suffragist. She was born in Carthage, Indiana in 1852 and her belief, what she believed in, was that the temperance movement aided in the work for women to obtain the right to vote. And she believed that ridding alcohol and having temperance would help her community, would help the African American community, the Black community. And her writing allowed her the opportunity to share and to speak out and to call attention to what was going on. She would be a writer, not only in Indiana but also she would move to Georgia and she would write for a newspaper there. She was part of the WCTU, at one point she was president of the local chapter where she was living in Georgia. And so, she was using all these various uses to, again, help to get the right to vote for African American women and she would work for a very long time for this effort. So, she was writing as early as 1895, talking about getting the right to vote. But even over 20 years later, she would still be attending a suffrage meeting after – and I should step back, after she left Georgia she returned to Indiana and was in Richmond, Indiana. By 1917, she was attending a suffrage meeting here in Indianapolis giving a presentation, so you can see that she had a very long history of working for the right to vote. And again she was one of those people early on who was identified as a suffragist and someone who was working for African Americans to have the right to vote and being able to find information about her, again through the newspaper, but then also and one of the early examinations of African Americans in history. And so those were two of the earlier women that were working – you can see that both of them have the temperance movement in common as well.

Another individual would be Lillian Thomas-Fox and here in Indianapolis we know a lot about Mrs. Fox. We talked a lot about her. She wrote for the Indianapolis Freemannewspaper, which was the first Illustrated Black newspaper in the country, she was a correspondent for the Indianapolis Newsand she was a very active woman in the club movement. She established the woman’s Improvement Club in 1904* and the state Federation of colored women’s clubs and 1905*. She worked for her community she worked for the people of Indianapolis and not only of Indianapolis, but nationally as well. Again I like quotes so I’m going to share one. Gurley Brewer, who wrote for the Indianapolis world, he was the editor, and he said of her and 1905:

“By the success she has made in a field until recently closed to women, removed the false idea of the intellectual and executive inferiority of women and has shown that fame is attained by a single standard, the standard of excellence she has demonstrated the fact that she is a woman of great force of character, will, and strong intellectuality.”

I paraphrased a little at the end, but you can get an idea of the respect he has for her. And that is great. And I go back to her involvement and being very active, she was involved in the National Afro-American Council, and this was an organization that did work for suffrage. Looking at the Indianapolis Recorder, September 1, 1900, she was elected as a vice presidents – one of the vice presidents – of the organization. And during this – this happened during the third National Convention, and in the Recorderthey had different fragments of some of the speeches and things that were made during this convention and one of the quotes that I just thought was so – that so fit the moment – I don’t have the actual person but it was recorded in the Recorder:

“Let the Afro-American people set unflinchingly by their suffrage rights. It is a life-and-death struggle.”

And that was going back to 1900. So, you can see that these early women were really working to achieve at various levels.

Beckley: Yea, so I’m that we could get a little bit of an introduction to some of those women and then the national context and we’ve met some of these women. Could one or both of you talk a little bit about how the African American suffrage movement at the national level compares to the state level? And what the relationship between the Black and white suffragists here and Indiana look like in comparison to that National level.

Hall-Dotson:  Well, I’ll take a stab for now and I’ll pass off to Kisha. I think that they looked very similar. The evidence that I’ve seen from the scholarship that’s been done, says that, although there was some  inclusion – more tokenism, if you will, van full sisterhood, inclusion, and the rallying of all the women, if you will, to join. Women of certain classes did not go and get women of other classes, whether they were Black or white to necessarily come into the fold – into the fray. And during the suffrage eras, white women from the north and the Midwest were concerned with ruffling the feathers and alienating their white sisters from the south if there was too much integration and inclusion of African American women in the movement.  So, if you look at the images, when you look at the pictures, not just the stories, but use the imagery of the day that we have, that way see, you don’t see the fully-integrated march. You don’t see large swaths and pockets of Black women at meetings, in pictures. Because we were largely, not to say can white women could not and did not ever work together or get along, but in general, the society was so polarized and separate that even in the struggle for womanhood –  for women to vote as a big block, there was still a large segment that suggested that, “No, let us get this and we’ll give it to you later.  this is not for you.”  And many white women – Northern as well as Southern, if you will – weren’t happy that Black men had received the right to vote. So, I think they paralleled – there’s not some anomaly in Indiana that suggests that it was any different than New York or Mississippi and Atlanta, as far as how people came together. So, people were working, even within the white women in the suffrage movement, there wasn’t just one monolithic group that –  maybe one group was bigger than the other in a certain place, but all types of women and different clubs and in different segments of the society were working toward achieving the right to vote. And enfranchisement, if you will, meant the same and different things to each. I would say some wanted to have voice, and particularly after Black men received the right, if you don’t see yourself as below all men, you’re fighting for that right even harder. And Black women are fighting for the right the same as they were still fighting for the right for the right to vote for the men in their lives. So, their right to vote didn’t mean that they got it. The moment they got it, they were being disenfranchised.

Beckley:  I mean, obviously, a lot of the times when we think about disenfranchisement, we’re thinking of Southern Jim Crow laws and things like that. Would you say that this applies just as much here in Indiana as it did in the south?

Hall-Dotson: I would say so, in different ways. And I think that when we use modern terms, right now we talked about implicit and explicit bias, so you may not have walked up to the courthouse and had a big sign that said, “no coloreds,” “coloreds only,”  I believe there was intimidation –  you don’t have this run on people being able to vote that’s changing the electorate –  and we could talk about that a little later –  what happens because we vote? So, people’s jobs were on the line. People were threatened with unemployment and arrested for vagrancy or some other make-up, trumped-up, charges that created this environment where everybody didn’t vote. And there were poll taxes. And there were literacy tests. And I’m sure some of those existed – and I’m not a scholar on voting rights in Indiana, but I can’t imagine, especially with the Resurgence and the emergence of the Klan in Indiana –

Beckley: Yea, On the heels of the 19th Amendment –

Hall-Dotson: Right, so, it didn’t just happen in an instant – in a vacuum. People’s beliefs and behaviors existed before even the establishment of maybe organized organizations. And if you look at 1851 and the amendments to the Constitution that say no Negroes and mulattos should enter the state, it was really clear that it was not a welcoming inviting environment. Weather was enforced and how it was enforced, it changes from place to place and date today thereafter. But even after emancipation, it took until 1874 a vote – back to why we need to vote – vote to overturn that Amendment, to have it in line with federal guidelines and amendments at that point. And in 1869 it was overturned. So, there was already this overarching, codified behavior in laws in the state to suggest that African Americans were not fully vested, fully privileged voting and other laws –  where you could live, where you can work, where you could  play, where you could worship. So, segregation and discrimination were heightened and real. And it was really no different throughout anywhere in this country. There is no place that we can look to that is some utopian state that did not have all of the above. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have to have kept fighting until 1965. So, the bull Connors of the 50s and 60s in the South existed in the North, just in different ways. And maybe and more subtle ways, but just the same.

Beckley:  I think that what you said about all of this not happening in a vacuum and  acknowledging what was going on around these women or men, just in general African Americans trying to vote, is really important to contextualize some of this. Even if there aren’t outlaw right laws like there were in the South prohibiting  r obstructing the vote, it was nonetheless intimidation and job security and things like that that are less visible, especially to historians, but still very important to keep in the context.

Hall-Dotson: Yes.

Beckley:  Kisha, did you have anything to add?

Tandy:  Yes, listening to Susan speak about this reminded me of another quote, and bear with me, Adella Hunt-Logan, and she said the following and the crisis magazine in September 1912. It was looking at Colored women as voters. Listening to Susan talk about everything that Black women and African American women were dealing with just in their lives it made me think about this cool idea that Black women have always been active, always doing, always emoting, trying to get better not only for themselves, but for their family. And so, Adella Hunt Logan really expressed this:

“More and more Colored Women are studying public questions and Civics. As they gain information and have experience in their daily vocations, and in their efforts for human betterment, they are convinced, as many other women have long ago been convinced, that their efforts would be more telling if women had the vote. Having no vote, they need not be feared or heeded. The right of petition is good, but it is much better when well voted in. Not only is the colored woman awake to reforms that may be hastened by good legislation and wise administration, but she is reported as using it for the uplift of society and for the advancement of the state.”

I mean, and that’s going back to the Crisis, which was part of the NAACP from September 1912. This idea just working not only for yourself but for all. And listening to Susan speak about that – that just stuck out to me again. And then also, just talking about that it was, you know, that, yes they were parallel, but there were also different things that were going on. So, for example, we know here in Indianapolis in June 1912 that there was a call for an African American branch of the suffrage association, so, going back to the Indianapolis recorder, African American newspaper here in Indianapolis that continues to be published today, there was a call for a suffrage meeting, and this quotation came from F. B. Ransom, he was of course, the attorney for Madam CJ Walker, and the goal of this meeting was to consider the organization of a branch colored people to be affiliated with the state organization among white people. The object of having a separate organization. It goes on explaining it is only because it is believed that the idea will be more heartily entered into, and so we look at this great call to action and we see the additional women who would work for suffrage, but in the Indianapolis Star, also in 1912, I believe the day is June 22, 1912, there was a letter that was written anonymously that was unsigned to dr. Hannah Graham who at the time was president of the Equal Suffrage Association, and the individual who wrote this letter expressed that,

“It was with deep regret that I read the announcement that a woman’s franchise League of Black women was to be formed in the city. And that you, the president of the Equal Suffrage Association, are going to show your approval of such an action by addressing them.”

So, you can see in this moment there was at least this one person. Dr. Graham expressed being more determined after receiving the letter and ridicules this unsigned note, but at least one item was published in the Indianapolis Stargoing against that, and I listen to Susan talk about and that brings up that point that you know, it was not all, as Susan said, we weren’t all living, playing, worshipping, doing all these things together. there were some concerns there. At least by some people.

Beckley: Yea, I’d never heard that quote before, so thanks for bringing that to us. That’s really interesting. I think something that a lot of especially white historians are struggling with, here in the centennial of women’s suffrage is how to celebrate the accomplishments of both white and Black suffragists while also acknowledging this unsavory part of it that Black women were excluded and that white women did make the choice to exclude them. It wasn’t just happenstance. And kind of acknowledging that the fight for suffrage wasn’t over with the 19th Amendment. How do we balance those two narratives, how do we make sure that we are telling a more full story?

Dotson: Well I suggest, what you just said though, is an interesting word choice. That because of unsavory behaviors. And as much as I agree with that statement, I also posit that it was also the lay of the land. It was how it was. So, to suggest that all of the sudden this one movement for the common good of all women eradicated, eliminated, all these other structures and systems and mores and behaviors of the day, so that women could vote – women behaved the way society behaved. And I think the narrative is what it is. The narrative will speak for itself. And I think that’s where we get caught in this emotionalism. When we are doing a backwards glance at things that are less than flattering to a group or a society or an individual –  nobody wants to be that one. Nobody wants to be that bad guy. And it’s not so much being bad guys, it’s just how people were. It is how they country and individuals, municipalities, states, how people behaved. And you may not dislike me and one suffragist didn’t dislike the other on a personal level, but they weren’t friends. They weren’t colleagues, generally speaking. The newspapers were separated for a reason, where you could live was separated by law and by de facto, de jure segregation and by behaviors. So, why are we upset about what it was? That’s what it was. And, even when someone, I’m going to take it to a national level and then bring it back to local. Let’s look at Ida B. Wells. Ida B. Wells is a national figure –  Is traveling around the country –  she was a woman, a writer, a journalist, an author, an activist, a wife, a mother, and she knows some of the leaders of these suffrage movements. She knew Frederick Douglass. She knew Stanton, and others. And guess what? So what? They were not totally embarking and embracing on her friendship. She was asked to march during the 1913 suffrage march at the back of the line. She said no. And so she waited and, as the story’s been told often, that she waited on the sidewalk until the delegates from her state of Illinois came past and then she got off the sidewalk and got in line with them. It changes what? It changes nothing. Now, there were other women who marched at the back of a line. Who did – do we know all of whom they were? No, sadly we don’t. But we do know that the founding members of Delta Sigma Theta sorority, who were collegiate from Howard University, and their advisor Mary Church Terell, was also and activists and a suffragist in her own right, marched – they decided to March at the back. Now, who else was there, we don’t know unfortunately. Do they get more credit for coming? No. In an overall National narrative? Generally, no. in the southern women, that was one of the reasons, that was the main reason why they were being asked not to come,  was as not to disenfranchised the women and I sat the women in the Southern States from coming. So, then you have Ida B. Wells who was an activist, and not just for suffrage, fighting for anti- lynching legislation, and writing about it. And traveling the country. And she too, is friends to madam C.J. Walker and they are contemporaries and their fight and struggle for equity, parody, anti-lynching legislation, anti-racism. And because of our dividing line and how we live – as I said, how we live, work, play, and worship – there are lots of people in the general populace who don’t know who Ida B. Wells is. Who may not know who Madame Walker is, right here in Indianapolis, besides from the theater Legacy that has been left behind on the footprint. And that Miss Barnes and she and others were colleagues, compatriots, writing checks, putting money where their mouth is, and not just for the Black community, but for also for women. But the question then is how do you fix a narrative? I don’t know that you fix a narrative, you just tell the truth. The truth and distinctive facts. Could people get along? Most certainly. But where people encouraging each other to come and join the frey and the fight? Clearly they weren’t. Or we would see more evidence of it. And it’s not just because the documents were lost. That’s just not how people were aligning themselves. And I guess in some regards, no different than what we see even today. Where people live, although we can come and go and live and work and play relatively fluidly, but we still tend to not always intersect in these very mixed environments. So, then it was not permissible by mores, standards, laws, the written and the unwritten. So, I don’t know that it – I don’t know that there will be more evidence that has ever presented that will make the movement look like the women’s march that we saw in 2016. Because it’s just not how we lived.

Beckley:  So, I’m kind of hearing that just tell the story how they happened and we don’t need to tiptoe around it but we just need to tell the facts and, you know, celebrate what they did and include all parts of the stories and include that context of the time that is so important. We keep coming back to the context of the time and I acknowledged and how people lived influenced how they did suffrage work. So, I think that’s really an interesting and very simple way of looking at it. It doesn’t need to be some big breakthrough that we have. We’ve just got to tell all of the stories.

Hall-Dotson:  Yeah, there isn’t a Kumbaya quote-unquote breakthrough.  there isn’t a moment where we can look back and say, “see I told you, there is an equal amount of Black women and white women all and the room fighting for suffrage.”  And if there was one, it was one. Maybe a one and done. And so the quotes that we get in the scholarship where the women are included – where there were Black women at a meeting – it wasn’t often and it wasn’t unilateral across the Nation. And one or two or three or five out of, say, 55 is not an equitable illustration of integration in the movement. And inclusion. So, I’m not suggesting that there isn’t any. There is some. But, it is far and few between and it is one in a few and it is not what we saw for example, and Washington and 2016. So, it is very different. And for a very different reasons. Not just because I don’t want to be with you because you’re Black. I don’t want to be with you because you’re a working-class woman. You know, women who were sitting at the Propylaeum having tea were not socializing with the women who were their help. Whether they were Black or white. Did they want them to have the vote? I don’t know. Probably not. So, there’s layers to this moment. Because not most Black women were like Madam Walker, but there is a community across this country of affluent educated, African Americans. As well as working class and under-educated, and in some cases still uneducated, from the vestiges of it being illegal to be educated, Black Americans who have now migrated from the south clear across the Midwest and the North. And people’s relationships are based on so many other things and not just on the color of their skin.

Beckley: Kisha, Did you have anything to add?

Tandy:  I am in complete agreement with Susan and I would just add that going back to where Black women, African American women, we’re looking at their clubs, looking at their organizations, is how we tell our story. And how we share that history. I think about Lillian Thomas Fox and her involvement with the National Association of Colored Women –  the work and effort that she was doing here in Indianapolis –  helping to establish with other Black women a clinic and a camp for- a place for patients for Black patients with TB, and just all the work that she did. Those important stories and her activism that led to, not necessarily led to but helped her to be involved and working for these things. And the idea that she was fighting against Jim Crow laws. Fighting against so many things that not only she had to deal with, but Black women, Black men, her family, her community, her fighting, just fighting for all of those different things. And so, we have to look at so many things as we tell and share that story. And knowing that, I know it’s been brought up already, but 1965 is such an important moment and such an important place in time, and even looking at today, as far as the vote and African Americans and African American women having the right to vote. So, those things and, you know, looking at that time frame and at that time span and saying, I’m going historically way back and also looking forward and beyond 1920. Because that is so important to the story and to the history. And telling a fuller story. I appreciate you, Susan, for bringing this relationship and network among women and then having friendships and working together. And striving for achievement and you mentioned Carrie Barnes, who was president of that chapter that started back in 1912. But, she and Madame Walker had been in – had participated in a number of other meetings where they were together and 1911, so a year before this meeting which was called. And Madame Walker talks about having extreme care for Carrie Barnes when she died, Carrie Barnes Ross died in 1918 and there is a letter at the Indiana Historical Society and they digitized collections where it talks, Madame Walker is writing to F. B. Ransom and it’s dated April 30th 1918, and she talks about Kerry Barnes Ross dying and that she was sad and that she felt – she had this feeling  as though she had been a daughter to her. And she just had this extreme sadness. But it speaks to that point that Susan was making this whole idea of a network and community. And we see that historically, we see that continuing today. And so I think that those are very important points and things to bring up as we talk about African American women working for the right to vote.

Beckley: I think to kind of wrap up here, I was wondering if both of you would like to share one story or one and a goat that you wish more people knew about either here in Indiana or on the national stage, what is one thing that you wish more people knew about?

Hall-Dotson:  I don’t know that it’s a story about, but it’s definitely sentiments of what it means to get the right to vote and what we do with it. And as women, we are working together, in many cases, they don’t walk in a lock step. They don’t have the same beliefs. And they don’t vote the same ultimately. So there were some women who were very much against women voting. They felt that it was for their husbands, their fathers, their sons, so all women were not unilaterally working and fighting and advocating for women’s right to get the vote. And if we take that through our body politic, what I think is missing often in discussion of suffrage, is getting the right to vote and then what do you do with it. Exercising that right to vote when you can. So, throughout the hundred-year period, how many women elected officials have there been? And where? Who voted for them? Women don’t vote as a block. There’s women who are Republicans there’s women who are Democrats there are women who are independents. They are women who don’t vote at all, still. So, even in the fight what we never look at I don’t think as we celebrate women’s right to vote, there’s this assumption that all women were advocating for women’s right to vote. And I don’t believe that’s so. Cuz it’s not so today. And what did we do with it? And what was the impact and effect of our body electorate – on a national level,  the first woman elected to congress in Indiana was in 1933. The first African American woman was in 1982. That’s Katie Hall out of Gary Indiana, and Julia Carson, the first woman and Indianapolis to go to Congress. But the first Black woman in Congress was Shirley Chisum and that was in 1969. But Virginia Jencks and 1933 out of Tera ho was the first woman from Indiana to go to Congress. And how many more women can we really think about? Just off the top of our heads I think we would have to really take a deeper Deep dive and look, in general, and it’s not that many. And why is that? If we are perpetually covering at 50% of the population and if we take partisan politics out of the equation, why are there so little, so few? All across the nation. And we have come a mighty long way. Women in politics and you see us from in the Senate now even a candidate for vice president. And judges and attorney generals and city council representatives across the country. That why so few and why so hard when we are about 50% of the population and most cases.

Beckley:  Yeah, I think that well I hope, with the centennial kind of wrapping up here in the next few months, that will give us a chance to use the research done for that as a springboard into some of this, what you’re talking about, looking at voting patterns and women actually participating in the political process. Because I think that’s just as important. Getting the vote is obviously, a milestone, but it’s just a milestone on the road to what we’ve actually done with the vote. So, I’m interested to see the scholarship that is going to be coming up in the next few years on that sort of thing.

Kisha, did you have a story or an anecdote or anything that you wish more people knew about?

Tandy:  I would just like to add, tell the stories of African-American women. And invite women living today to come and to tell their stories. So that a more complete history can be shared. There is –  I was working on this project –  this was, truly, my research project for me, to see what I could find, what information was available, using African American newspapers, using African American manuscript collections or whatever I could find to be able to bring information to be able to share, and finding women who had been in Indiana, I was very specifically  focused on women from Indiana and trying to find as many people outside of Indianapolis as well to be able to help tell the stories. And finding women who have lived in Indiana, had gone on to other places and who were making a difference there. So, being able to have their voices, having their records, the narratives, being able to access that, is so important. And like you, I am also excited about the scholarship that is coming. One individual that I am looking forward to reading her book, I have not read the book yet, but it was actually just published, but I have been listening to her talk and to share the information that she has found and she did look nationally, is Martha S. Jones  and her book Vanguard: How Black Women Broke barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All. And so, I am definitely looking forward to continuing to research to see what else I can find about what happened in Indiana and looking forward to seeing what else is out there. But also, just researching and telling the stories of African American women and Indiana.

Beckley:  I know that the Indiana Historical Bureau is also very interested in those stories and we’re looking to you and to others to find those stories and we are doing our own work so, hopefully this is, while it is the centennial celebration, it’s also the spark that we needed to kind of start a lot of these conversations like the one that we’re having today, to continue into the future and the future historians will pick up the threads and be able to work off of what we’re doing now.

Thank you both so much for being on the show today and I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me.

Hall-Dotson: Thanks for having me.

Tandy: Thank you so much.

Beckley:  Once again, I want to thank both Kisha and Susan for taking the time to talk with me today. If you’re interested in learning more about what their work or about Black stop or just here in Indiana or nationally, we have some useful links in the show notes which can be found at blog.history.in.gov. we’ll be back next month with a new episode of talking Hoosier history. And in the meantime, follow the Indiana Historical Bureau on Facebook and Twitter for daily doses of Indiana history tidbits. Subscribe, rate, and review Talking Hoosier history wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for listening!

*Should be 1903

*Should be 1904

Show Notes for Giving Voice: Susan Hall Dotson and Kisha Tandy

Learn more about this topic with the sources below:

Martha Jones, Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All, Basic Books, 2020.

Christine Fernando, “Black History is American History: How Black Hoosiers Contributed to Suffrage Movement,” Indianapolis Star. 

Melissa Block, “Yes, Women Could Vote After the 19th Amendment – But Not All Women. Or Men,” NPR. 

Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, African American Women in the Struggle For the Vote, 1850-1920, Indiana University Press, 1998.

Lillian Thomas Fox, Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame.

Mr. A, Majors, M.D., Noted Negro Women: Their Triumphs and Activities, Donohue & Henneberry, Printers, 1983.

Afro-American Encyclopedia; Thoughts, Doings, and Sayings of the Race, Haley & Florida, 1895.

Indiana Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs marker: https://www.in.gov/history/markers/227.htm