Transcripts For CSPAN3 Edgar Allan Poe Museum 20180106

Famous it has an nfl team named after it. He also was instrumental in the concept of art for arts sake. The idea that it didnt have to teach you something, didnt have to make you a better person. It was enoughf that a terror story scares you because its doing its job and this also meant that because a story didnt have to teach you something, virtue didnt have to be rewarded. The villain could win in the end. Richmond is where poe spent more of his life than any other city. He referred to himself as a virginian. This is where he was orphaned at the age of two and grew up with foster parents. So if not for richmond, we dont know what his middle name would have been. Tis is where he first fell in love, wrote his first poetry. This is where he had a lot of his formative inspirations that inspired literature for years to come. This is where he was married, got his first job in journalism. So if it hadnt been for richmond, poe wouldnt have produced a lot of his best work and had that chance to experiment and find his literary voice. The poe museum has been open since 1922. This is the Worlds Largest collection of edger allan poes art facts, manuscripts, clothing, personal items. It consists of four buildings in all, surrounding a an enchanted garden. It recreates this poem to one in paradise. The lines for which my soul did pine a green love of fount squn shrine, all wreath in fruits and flours and all the flowers are mine and with had the founders opened it, it was virginias first museum and monument to a writer, not to a military political leader but to a writer and showed that they really cared about the power of words and imagination to shape our destinies. This is edger allan poes boyhood bed. This is where he used to dream dreams no one ever dared to dream before and its been passed down from his foster father to his Business Partner down through that family until it came to the poe museum. The pieces of furniture in our collection had those kinds of stories that chain of ownership, that prom nonce that leads them here so we can verify what they are and we have chairs from his boyhood. Including this piece with the original cover material on it. So this is the upholstery that would have been in poes day. We have artwork and life portraits of john and frances allan. Theres only one other known portrait and thats been lost but were the only place that has life portraits of both his foster parents together. And thats quite appropriate because richmond is where they lived. They lived in homes all over this neighborhood. This is a street that poe would have known very well during his lifetime. Would have walked up and down this street, would have seen this house multiple occasions. But better yet we have the bed and this is where he would have slept. Poes foster father, john allan was a wealthy tobacco exporter. He was worth about 3 4s of a million dollars. He had a huge mansion in downtown richmond, a plantation, property in rockbridge county. And he could afford the finest things in life and he had Extensive Library and that was a great advantage for poe. He was able to read from the allan library. But allan never quite warmd up to him. It seems to be the foster mothers idea to take in edger. Frances was from the wealthy planter class. She had had been orphaned with a child. So she could siympathize when se heard the famous actress, elizza poe died, she jumped that chance to take in little eddie. She wanted somebody to take care of, she couldnt have children and she lavished him with with children. Unfortunately john already had other children and paying for them and keeping it secret from his wife. He even mentions two children hes never seen before but some lady told them theyre had his so they deserve something but edger was never included in the will. He refers to poe as that devil actresss son, doesnt show a spark of gratitude for all the charity i show him all these years. Theres just not one good thing about that boy. Poe seems to developed an interest in story telling early on. One of his friends fell out of a a tree and broke his arm and before the arm had a chance to heal, fell off the bed and broke his arm again and his mother told him well, dont go outside. Stay home and just entertain this little kid, edger. So they entertained each other by telling stories and John Hamilton mckenzie recalls telling edger the standard stories, robinson curuso and poe would tell stories and embellish them and he would create new stories. But eventually poe got an interest in poetry and by the age of 13 he already compiled enough of his poetry that he wanted his foster father to help him get published and the head master at the school said hes already head strong, the last thing you want to do is fuel his ego by publishing the group of poet poetry. But by 18 he published his book. Much of it was probably written while he was attending the university in charlottesville. Poe probably thought he would be like most writers of the day and live off of family money or a teaching job and a government job in the Customs House but he became the first major American Writer to make his living solely off his writing and i dont think it was entirely by choice. He would have loved to inherit john allens fortune but it wasnt left to him. And after poe had been expelled from west point, allan wouldnt take him back, wouldnt fund his wild dream of becoming a poet, so poe started entering literary contests and submitting stories to magazine and then got job that literary messenger and before you knew it he was editing different magazines in philadelphia and new york. And he had to struggle. His salary was about 500 a year, which is equivalent to today of about 17,000. He worked a grahams magazine. In a years time he brought it from a circulation of 6,000 to about 40,000. Made the most popular journal in the country. The First Magazine with a truly mass oaudience in america and making salary of 800 a year while the owner was getting 25,000 a year. So the owner was getting fabulously wealthy off of poes works. So he had a dream of getting his own magazine and doing things his own way but it didnt work out. But there were years at a stretch where he might make 5 off of this poem, 10 off this story. The tell tale heart 10, the raven, 15. Longer stories would get more money. The murders in the room morgue brought about 50. He entered the gold book in a short story contest and won 100 had. But from the time he was 18 until 40 he made a little over 6 6,0 6,000. So he wasnt fabulously wealthy but he was famous. As soon as his works got printed in one magazine, other magazines reprinted it with inefecktual copyright laws, nobody hesitated to reprint his stories and even in europe making him a household name in france while he was still struggling to feed izhad family in the united states. But even during poes lifetime he was a celebrity, made it into the newspapers and magazines at the time and people report on every little thing he did, it seems as he was a public figure. And one of the events today from poes life t seems scandalous to us but wasnt quite as scandalous at it time was poes marriage. When he married virginia clem he was 27 and she was 13. He was over twice her age. He was also her cousin but back then it was fairly common for cousins to marry one another. But the age difference was pretty unusual. But in virginia at the time a girl of 12 could get married with her fathers permission. Her father was dead though but her mother here, maria clem, who is poes biological fathers sister, she encouraged the match. And when she was finding a home for her daughter, she was also finding a home for her hadself because poe took in both of these women and gave them a home. Now heres poes marriage bauon and if you look closely, she didnt sign the marriage bond. As a woman she didnt get to sign the document. Poe married his cousin. But he does say that she was a full 21 years of age. That way she doesnt have to get a male guardians consent to marry because by this time her father and her brother are both dead so she doesnt have somebody to give her permission to get married to edger. But heres a portrait of the minister who performed the ceremony and he recalled poes wife did look younger than 21. But there seems to have been genuine affection between edger and virginia, even though poe had bouts with depression, it seems virginia was very cheerful and lift him up in that and no matter how poor he was, at night he made sure she had a piano to play and they would have little concerts together. So it seems like a fairly happy home life while youre writing stories about chopping your wife in pieces. This addresses rumors of poes alcohol and drug use and dur his time that made the news. And the journal right here is the john daufy edited by one of poes bitter enemies Thomas English and theres an article in here where english says hes seen poe passed out in the middle of broadway and english loved to ridicule poe and portray him as a drunkered and in one of his novels he portrays poe as the drunken author of the black crow and portrays him in the doom of the drinker. So poe, during his lifetime was developing a reputation as a heavy drinker but people who knew him said he went most of the time without touching alcohol. Even a single glass of wine he was a staggering drunk and hed be sick for days afterwards. So we dont know what kind of inhad toleranall inhad tall intolerance he had. But it seems he drank a lot less than people nowadays think he did. But after his death, his first biography was written by fellow named rufus w. Griz walled who could not stand edger allan poe. He was simmering just beneath the surface waiting for poe to die and he wrote an obituary that said few will be grieve by few or no friends and with went on to portray poe as a opium, manic, horrible, destickable person, episode after episode of portraying him as a drunk. But Family Member said this isnt the poe he knew and even his own enemy thds rumors of his opium use are just a baseless slander and over here we have a letter written by john 13, one of poes good friends. And he recounted a very strange episode in poes life. In the last summer of 1849 poe is passing through philadelphia and showed up at his house terrified that people are trying to kill him. He said he heard people conspiring against imhad and wanted sar tain to cut off his mustache so no one would recognize him and later poe said it wasnt real. Never mind. And sartain wrote about this account. And someone at this point has written him asking well, was poe drunk . Was he on drugs . And this is his response that he didnt appear to have been drinking, to have been on drugs. He was calm and measured. So they were trying to figure out why was poe hallucinating or maybe there were people after him. We just dont know. But even though the evidence seems to support an idea that poe didnt drink quite as much as they think he did and that he really didnt find inspiration from his writing by using opium, thats the popular reputation that poe has. Poe left richmond to go to the big cities up north. Richmond, that time he was working here had about 15,000 people. New york already had 3en had,000 people. Philadelphia had over 200,000 people. Poe needed to go to the big cities and make a name for himself. But after his wife died, he was struggling to make a living and he found a financial backer who was willing to start his magazine for him. It was going to be called the styles and poe was raising money by selling subscriptions on a lecture tour and his lecture tour eventually brought him back to richmond where he encountered an oldal he was edger, the raven poe and he gave two very successful, well attended lectures here in richmond. One of the people said the audience was spell bound and poe left the stage to unbound applause. He gave private readings of the raven round town. At one of the readings the lady hosting him said that at the end of the poem when me got to the part get theback to the tempest, half the people in the room ran and idhad. It said little kids would follow him around going never more, never more and hed flap his wings like a big bird. So he showed up at elmirea sheltons house. By now she was a wealthy widow. Shed gone through six years of mourning and was probably about ready to remarry and he showed up one day unannounced and her servient wouldnt let him into the house. And he started arguing with the servients until elmira came out and saw him and he looked up and said elmira is that you and she said go away. I to go to church. But kept coming back and finally convinced her they should be married. They were set to be married here october 17th, as soon as he returned from a business trip on philadelphia from which he never returned. On edger allan poes last night in richmond, he spent most of the time with his new fiance, elmira shelton. But afterwards said he was very sick, a fever and a sick pulse. After leaving, he visited a dr. John carter and left his Walking Stick here at dr. Carters house, taking the sword cane with him instead. We dont know why poe tooking the sword cane, what happened to it. We do know he was going to philadelphia the next morning. We have this letter, one of the last letters he ever wrote from september 18th, 1849, and hes writing to a poet in philadelphia whose book he want to edit. Hes going to make 100. So he could really use this money and it would go a long ways towards helping him with his upcoming marriage. But unfortunately he caught the steam ship from richmond to baltimore, which was about a twoday trip. He was catching the train in baltimore to philadelphia but he just disappeared for five days. We dont know his whereabouts until he was found at ryans fourth ward polls. It was a polling place on a voting day and poe was found semiconscious dressed in somebody elses clothes. Cheap, ill fitting rags, nothing like he would have worn and people were at a loss to figure out what happened. One of the theories was that he was a victim of couping. That was the practice in which thugs would find people who just got off the boat, drug them and use them as repeat voters, just changing their clothes over and over again and drag them to another polling place and maybe they left poe for dead. Now, this theory was published as early as 1860 right here by poes friend john r. Thompson who delivered a lecture about poes life, his genius and his death and helped popularize the theory that poe was the victim of couping. He went to Washington College hospital for four days. His doctor was john carter who wrote this account of poes final days. Poe is deleerious, in and out of consciousness, not making any sense. He couldnt remember what had become of his luggage, where were his change of clothes . Why was he dressed in these other clothes . He seemed to lack any memory of it and started screaming in riddles over and over again. We never figured out who reynolds was. And his last words were lord, help my poor soul. The doctor said it was a case of nervous frustration a loss of nerve power. Newspapers said anything from a drug reaction to brain feever or congestion in the brain. The statistic said frenits which means inflammation of the brain. A medical term we dont use anymore but the symptoms are similar to meningitis. So that gives us more theories about what could have happened to poe. But his doctor was emphatic in saying he didnt appear to have been drinking, so then it makes us question what exactly did kill poe . This is edger allan poes trunk. At the time oif his death it held most of his worldly possessions. But he left it in richmond. When he was traveling to baltimore it said the key to his trunk was found in his pocket after his death. We know before he left richmond, hed been staying at the American Hotel on main street but this was found in the swan tavern, Still Holding some of poes possessions and people have wondered for years why did he have this trunk here . Maybe he a smaller piece he carried to baltimore. So maybe he had two drunks. But his sister eventually acquired this and had had a big legal battle over who got to have his trunk. Poes mother in law, who is actually his aunt and his sister who is his closest living relative fought over the literary estate and finally the mother in law kbhoo whoicidant have it had the rights signed over it the literary writes. And it was only recently discovered in one of poes letters that had been in a private collection in italy that the reason poe left his trunk at the swan tavern was that he hadnt paid his hotel bill and said they wouldnt give him back his luggage until he paid it remainder of the money. So that does explain why his trunk was still here and why his sister eventually got ahold of it. After her death, she passed it down to her foster niece who sold it for 35 and now its one of the prizes of our collection. Well, this area addresses another one of the scandals about poe. Who is buried under poes monument . For years people have questioned did edger allan poe get buried in the monument . And a lot of the confusion stems from poe was originally buried in an unmarked grave. And it was years after his death a teacher started the pennies for poe campaign to get the nicest monument in the if tire cemetery which is pictured here and they thought it would be appropriate if instead of having him back in the poe family plot if he were next to had sidewalk as a place of honor. He was the most famous resident of the cemetery so hes the one people should really want to see. And the sects in the cemetery moved him had across the cemetery. His coffin had been in the ground 26 years already. So as you can imagine it fell apart and newspapers reported seeing him. They said most of his skin had dried up and was gone. His mandible had had fallen off. They complimented his teeth. Apparently he had very good dental hygiene. They skuped up the pieces and put them in the new spot and some people said the sexten moved the wrong body. This isnt where we remember poe being. And that caused a lot of confusion over the years and to make matters worse, a poe collector placed this monument on the site of poes original grave but he got the location wrong and originally placed it over the wrong spot that wasnt poes original grave and finally the sexten had had to clear up all the confusion. What really happened was he already moved the body once so he knew exactly where poes body was before he moved it. He knew what pbody he was movin. So no need to worry, poes buried under his monument. His mother in law is also with him and his wife, they moved her down from the bronx. Now his wife died two years before he did. And by the time it was decided to build poes monument, theyd already built over her cemetery but poes biggest fan ever personally went to the cemetery and rescued virginia poes bones. Buddy took them home with him and he would invite people to come and thuch bones of ann bell lee and now theyre buried next to her husband. So thats why the poe toaster leaves three roses because theres three people under the monument. And edger allan poes one of them. This museum is the only Literary Museum in richmond and one of only few in the country. So it helps preserve our literary heritage. It remind us a big part of what makes us who we are is our culture, not just the visual arts but the literary arts. Its part of the history of our collective imagination. Theres people who come to museum whos never heard of Patrick Henry or Thomas Jefferson but they know edger allan poe. And we cant say he belongs to baltimore or richmond or new york as he belongs to the world. Hes everybodys writer and thats the great thing about this museum. Its a place that brings together everybody. We are inside a working public building that has hosted the oldest elective law making legislature active in the western hemisphere today. I think in terms of architecture since we have the First American State Capitol to open after the revolutionary war and the first monumental roman temple style