Status Updates From A Haunted History of Invisi...

Yikes

Saying that Nick redeemed himself is a wild take, given the paragraph that preceded it.

ah, I get why the chapter on mothers and wives struck a nerve with some readers. There isn’t anything wrong here but it’s also a bit of a tone shift.

The Katie King act chapter covers:
Spiritualism and Quakers; illusions and “trickery” from the era; people seeking comfort when their loved ones died from the Civil War and natural yet now preventable deaths; Harry Houdini a skeptic and debunker; women getting a voice and a platform as a Spiritualist

“And many of them [skeptics of the past] would laugh right back at us if they saw an episode of Ghost Adventures.” Why is GA catching strays!

“Ghosts are mirrors of the times. They reflect our preoccupations…”

(I think this is a quote from another author)

“Her story resonates with so many tropes of classic ghost stories: the mourning widow, the fierce protectiveness of her living space, the over-identification of the woman with the house in classic Gothic style.”

“Modern society would rather not see the homeless, rendering them invisible, ghosts among us, even though in housed populations are only growing… those with mental illness are especially displaced and forced even further into the margins. Would Luce face pity, welcome, or a place by the fire today?“

“Luce’s tale combines many loaded feminine tropes of maiden, spinster, mad woman and crone, but she herself has seemed to glide through these archetypes unfazed.”

“she is a very strong symbol of the kind of guilt that makes us most uncomfortable; not the dramatic, obvious guilt of the assassin, which is reserved for Booth himself, but the icky, awkward guilt of everyone who ever stood by when something morally reprehensible was going on and did little to stop it—in fact, may even have aided its course in some self-serving, material way, even as they knew it was wrong.“

The Lady of the House is a somewhat rare and true ghost story in this collection. Ghost hunting and flickering lights with questions, cold presences, and reverence for the lady of the house!

“The two women are the keepers of these stories. While the better-known stories such as Zona Shue's have passed into national fame, some of the smaller local tales may have faded away without them. They are the ‘Granny Women’ of ghosts, those who keep old tradition and knowledge alive for the next generation.”

“Any mother would die for her child in a heartbeat, and any mother would struggle to go on living after the death of a child. The impulse toward Spiritualism in the mid-nineteenth century was prompted in significant part by the high child mortality rates of the era, so it is no surprise to see that American ghost stories of the last two to three hundred years are littered with these sad spectral mothers”

“For a society that has a lot of sympathy for serial killers, we’re pretty harsh on moms.”

“But perhaps considering a tale such as this, however spun throughout history, could prompt society to take a look at who they may be scapegoating and why, and what indelible mark may be left into the future.”

A connection between traumatized young girls, girls coming from a bad home, and poltergeist activity. Carrie was brought up but I also think of Matilda!
When denied agency or feeling powerless, or even violated, this can be a source of power—much like eating disorders or other responses felt by girls who are sexually assaulted

“Where does the pain and rage go when there is no earthly outlet for it?”

“A child reaching out is so understandable, so universal through any era. The heartbreak of it should serve as a cry, a demand into our modern era to beware the pitfalls that befell Salem. Beware a zealous, paranoid mob. No innocence can survive it, only a ghostly echo can remain.”

“When in the historical narrative that power is stripped away from her… she comes back from beyond the grave to prove that nothing can stop her.

…Of all the female ghost tropes we have encountered while researching this story, the witch is one of the strongest. Nothing can silence her. Not accusation, not punishment, and certainly not death.”