Unsung History18 Nov 2024

Lily Dale

In 1879, a group of Spiritualists purchased 20 acres of land, halfway between Buffalo, New York, and Erie, Pennsylvania. The gated community they created, now a hamlet of Pomfret, New York, became known as Lily Dale. Each summer, people came to Lily Dale (and still come) to speak with the dead through Lily Dale’s many licensed mediums. In its early years, modern Spiritualism, which began with the young Fox sisters (Maggie and Kate), often intersected with Women’s Suffrage, and suffragists like Susan B. Anthony were frequent visitors to Lily Dale. Joining me in this episode to help us understand more about Lily Dale and Spiritualism more generally is Dr. Averill Earls, Assistant Professor of History at St. Olaf College, Executive Producer of Dig: A History Podcast, and one of the authors of Spiritualism's Place: Reformers, Seekers, and Séances in Lily Dale.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Night Whisper,” by by Sergio Prosvirini, Free for use under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is a photograph of “The Lily Dale Museum,” by Plazak, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, and available via Wikimedia Commons.

Additional Sources:

Lily Dale Assembly
“In Good Spirits: Lily dale, New York, is a curious little village where the still-quick commune with the once-quick,” by Bil Gilbert, Smithsonian Magazine, May 31, 2001.
“Lily Dale, the Town That Speaks to the Dead,” by Bess Lovejoy, Mental Floss, August 26, 2015.
“This Community Welcomes Mediums, but First You Have to Prove Yourself,” By Anna Kodé, The New York Times, October 27, 2023.
“The Art of Belief: On Talking to the Dead in Lily Dale,” by Laura Maylene Walter, LitHib, March 23, 2021.
“In the Joints of Their Toes,” by Edward White, The Paris Review, November 4, 2016.
“The Mystery of the Three Fox Sisters,” by Arthur Conan Doyle, Psychic Science, October 1922.
“The Fox Sisters and the Rap on Spiritualism,” by Abbott Kahler, Smithsonian Magazine, October 30, 2012.
National Spiritualist Association of Churches.

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