This week, Mabel and Madeline dig into the painting that has appeared most frequently in Mandylion’s visual glossaries, Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog from 1818. She’s in The Gadfly, The Morgesons, The Hill of Dreams, and our upcoming title, Love Days. Listen to find out why we can’t get enough of this Romantic masterpiece.

**note: Madeline got basically every first name she said in this episode wrong, just listen to last names. Thank you for understanding, she’s doing her best.

Yoohoo,

Welcome to America, the sequel. In this episode we look back at the Centennial Exhibition held in Philadelphia in 1876. We talk about the giant engines and sexy corsets on display, the unfinished revolutionary projects in civil rights and labor movements, and what, exactly, an acre is. Like, subscribe, drop us a line. XOXO,

M&M

Show Notes

* The Flying Horses, Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts.

* Paine, Thomas, and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Of The Religious Society Of Friends. Meeting For Sufferings. Common Sense. London, J. Watson, 1850. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/18016803/.

* Bordewich, Fergus M. Centennial: The Great Fair of 1876 and the Invention of America’s Future. New York: Random House, 2026. [1]

* Eliot, George [Mary Ann Evans]. Daniel Deronda. 1876. Ed. Graham Handley. Oxford: Clarendon, 1984.

* Oldest continuously operational carousel: Flying Horses Carousel. https://vineyardtrust.org/property/flying-horses-carousel/

* An early (circa 1789) French carousel where the riders speared the ring. From Fried, 1964. https://vintagecarousels.com/briefhistoryofthecarousel.htm

* Early “Flying” Carousels. From Benjamin, William and Barbara Williams. 2016. Andrew Christian and Charles W. F. Dare. Carousel History.

* Frank Leslie’s Historical Register of the United States Centennial Exposition, 1876. Library of Congress.

* Invention of the Dewey Decimal System. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/dewey-decimal-classification-ddc

* Party Girl (1995) Dewey Decimal System Clip.

* Hubert, Rosario. “Sinology on the Edge: Borges’s Reviews of Chinese Literature (1937-1942).” Variaciones Borges, no. 39 (2015): 81–101. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24881628.

* Centennial Exposition

* Railroad Tycoon Thomas Scott. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_A._Scott

* 1-800-1800 First Episode: 1851

* Bennett, Tony. 1995. The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics. London: Routledge.

* Michael Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. A. Sheridan, London, Allen Lane, 1977, pp. 115-16

* Bennett, Tony. “The Exhibitionary Complex .” Columbia University Libraries , 1996. https://www.columbia.edu/itc/anthropology/schildkrout/6353/client_edit/week1/bennett.pdf.

* “World Exhibition.” Free Library. Accessed July 14, 2026. https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/feature/centennial/exhibition.

* “National Unemployment Rate.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026. https://www.bls.gov/cps/.

* Foner, Eric. Reconstruction and the Constitution - YouTube, 2020.

* The Electoral Vote Count of the 1876 Presidential Election | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives. Accessed July 14, 2026. https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1851-1900/The-electoral-vote-count-of-the-1876-presidential-election/.

* The bust of Richard Allen, displayed at the Centennial exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876. http://elfrethsalley.org/blog/2020/8/13/centennial-or-bust

* Foner, Eric. Reconstruction America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc, 2015.

* Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, 1989.

* Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States, July 4, 1876. Susan B. Anthony Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (035.00.00)

* Jeff Bridgman Collection. “The 1876 Centennial Celebration in Philadelphia - Museum of the American Revolution.” Museum of the American Revolution. Accessed July 14, 2026. https://www.amrevmuseum.org/virtualexhibits/when-women-lost-the-vote-a-revolutionary-story/pages/the-1876-centennial-celebration-in-philadelphia.

* Lueth, Elmar S. “Centennial Exposition (Philadelphia).” The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 14 July 2026.

* “Financial Panic of 1873.” U.S. Department of the Treasury. Accessed July 14, 2026. https://home.treasury.gov/about/history/freedmans-bank-building/financial-panic-of-1873.

* Victoria Woodhull. First publisher of the Communist Manifesto in English. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/victoria-woodhull.

* Women’s Pavilion. The National Cookery Book.

* Centennial Photographic Co. “The Sons of Temperance. Temperance Fountain.” Free Library of Philadelphia Digital Collections.

* Centennial Photographic Co. “Main Building-north entrance.” Free Library of Philadelphia Digital Collections.

* Royal Worcester Corset Company, Corset, 1876. On display at the World fair in 1876. Won First Prize. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

* Corliss Centennial Steam Engine. https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/1715

* Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone patent.

* “Memorial Hall (Philadelphia) .” Wikipedia. Accessed July 14, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Hall_(Philadelphia).

* Edmonia Lewis, The Death of Cleopatra, 1876. Submission to the World Fair. Smithsonian Museum of Art.

* Edmonia Lewis. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/edmonia-lewis

* Japan Pavillion at the World Fair

* Forseth, Irwin N., and Anne F. Innis. 2004. “Kudzu (Pueraria Montana): History, Physiology, and Ecology Combine to Make a Major Ecosystem Threat.” Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences 23 (5): 401–13. doi:10.1080/07352680490505150.

* Cattelino, Jessica R. “Loving the Native: Invasive Species and the Cultural Politics of Flourishing.” Essay. In The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities, 2021.

I’m a yankee doodle dandy and you’re on the precipice of learning all that Mabel and Madeline have to say about the American Revolution in this special episode about 1776. Its a World War, its a Civil War, its a tax scheme, its an inspiration to us all! Enjoy it and have a happy fourth of July, k <3

M&M

This week we are very excited to welcome the brilliant Sara Hinkley onto 1-800-1800 to discuss her forthcoming novel The Red Sacrament. Sara’s brilliant debut tells the story of a theater troupe of vampires, set against the backdrop of the Siege of Paris and the Commune. We had simply the best time discussing the book, Sara’s research process, and our shared obsession with the last days of the Second Empire.

Pre-order The Red Sacrament here!

and find Sara on:

Instagram

Bluesky

Twitter

XOXO,

M&M

Madeline and Mabel discuss the founding of Punch Magazine, the most popular satirical magazine of the 19th century, and muse on its enduring influence. The girls also touch on a sensational murder/botched abortion case, Summer House, a US president you’ve never heard of, and more!!

Show notes:

Births, Deaths

* Renoir, Blousy Nudes

* https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/26/renoirs-problem-nudes

* Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr

* https://www.mandylionpress.com/shop/p/elsievenner

Mary Rogers Murder, Restellism, and the Great Moon Hoax

* Mary Rogers Disappearance and Murder

* Great Moon Hoax of 1835

* Madame Restell “Lunar animals and other objects Discovered by Sir John Herschel in his observatory at the Cape of Good Hope and copied from sketches in the Edinburgh Journal of Science.” An illustration for The New York Sun, credited to Benjamin Day, 1835.

* Penny press image of Madame Restell, “The Female Abortionist, March 13 1847. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Restell#/media/File:National_Police_Gazette_Restell.jpg

* Poe, Edgar A. 1842. The Mystery of Marie Roget.

The Thirty-Day Presidency and Questionable 19th-Century Medical Practices

* Nathaniel Currier, Death of Harrison, 1841. https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.81.49

* “US Const”. Section 1, Article 2, Section 6. https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-2/

* Gran Columbia https://www.britannica.com/place/Gran-Colombia#/media/1/241012/99781

* The Election of 1840, National Park Service

Tyler receiving the news of Harrison’s death, [April 5, 1841]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/00650917/

Punch Magazine; Revolutionary Satire & Cartoons

* Punch was founded by Henry Mayhew and Ebenezer Landells in 1841; it was a magazine of humour and satire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch_(magazine)

* Sketch of Henry Mayhew, Co-Founder of Punch Magazine

* Maidment, B. (2013). The Presence of Punch in the Nineteenth Century. In: Harder, H., Mittler, B. (eds) Asian Punches. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28607-0_2

* Sperrin, Dan. State of Ridicule: A History of Satire in English Literature. Princeton University Press, 2025. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.22679818.

* Ebenezer Landells (13 April 1808 – 1 October 1860) was a British wood-engraver, illustrator, and magazine proprietor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebenezer_Landells

* Mark Lemon

* The Illustrated London News https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illustrated_London_News

* Punch Magazine Archival Listings: browse through! https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=punch

* Ye olde morality-enforcement brigades. https://daily.jstor.org/ye-olde-morality-enforcement-brigades/.

* Le Charivari: European Folk Custom of Public Shaming

* Cashmere, John. “The Social Uses of Violence in Ritual: Charivari or Religious Persecution?” European History Quarterly, (1991). Accessed July 13, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1177/026569149102100301.

Punch & Judy

Book illustration of Pulcinella in 1700 (1860) by Maurice Sand, found in Masques et bouffons: comédie italienne. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulcinella

* Mr Punch depicted on the cover of Punch magazine, 26 April 1916. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch_and_Judy

* Punch or May Day, 1829 painting by Benjamin Robert Haydon depicting a street scene in London including a Punch and Judy show

* “That’s the Way to do it!” A History of Punch & Judy . Accessed July 13, 2026. https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/thats-the-way-to-do-it-a-history-of-punch-and-judy.

* Photograph of a Punch and Judy show at Ilfracombe, by Paul Martin, about 1895, England. Museum no. PH.1900-1980. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

* The History of Punch Magazine

* The Punch Prospectus: The text of the Prospectus is repeated in the first issue, published on July 17, 1841. https://archive.org/details/sim_punch_1841-1846_1/page/4/mode/1up

* Punch Prospectus.

* Punch, “Boots” Chapter.

Vanity Fair

It was printed in 20 monthly parts between January 1847 and July 1848 for Punch by Bradbury & Evans in London.

Book Club Alert !! This week the girls recap Henry James's The Princess Cassamissima, the story of a young man of mysterious parentage who tries to take on the world's inequities but instead just ends up smoking cigarettes on a magenta divan. We were delighted, we were puzzled, we were forced to ask "are beauty and revolution compatible pursuits."

On this week’s episode, Madeline takes us back to her material culture roots to tell the story of the British abolition movement through one object, the Wedgwood “Slave Medallion.” Join us to learn about the object that made abolition a fashionable cause in the 18th century and why 1787 is a part of the long 19th century !!

Mandylion now has a book club at McNally Jackson called the Minor Works book club. Each month we read a forgotten novel from the nineteenth century (brought to you by Mandylion Press), or a minor work of a major author. This month we read Ethel Lilian Voynich’s The Gadfly, one of our first Mandylion books and many people’s favorite. This 1897 novel is a…

What Hath God Wrought, indeed!

This week on 1-800-1800, Mabel tells Madeline what a telegraph is. She starts in 1792 with the one and only Claude Chappe, a man so passionate about the optical semaphore telegraph that he threw himself into a well, and then moves onto Samuel Morse, who gave the world not only the single-wire electromagnetic telegraph, but also this insane painting of Hercules:

This week, Madeline and Mabel discuss the origins of Mormonism and how its founder, Joseph Smith, continues to influence the modern day iteration of the religion. Hypocrisy, hucksterism, hats, bad bets, and talking to God. What more could a girl ask for?