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Meredith Henne Baker
photo by Amanda K. Gille
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I was recently able to read a very interesting and well written book by first time author Meredith Henne Baker titled The Richmond Theater Fire: Early America's First Great Disaster published by LSU Press. What a great read! Please see my review here.
Ms Baker has been kind enough to answer some questions about herself, her book, and her writing process and I am honored to share this with my readers.
Please be sure to check her website here or the book Facebook page here. Both are great informational resources.
CBR: Welcome and thank you for taking time to
answer a few questions. First, can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Thank you for
hosting this interview! I'm a writer with an interest in history because of what
we can learn about the present from the past. My particular interest is American
religious history. I previously taught at a girls boarding school, worked in
museum education, and developed educational programs for urban charter schools.
Although I've won grants and awards for my historical work, I currently spend a
lot more time hanging out at teeter-totters than archives, thanks to my
toddlers. My husband and I do tote them around to lots of museums though.
CBR: Your book
deals with what I consider to be a little known event in American history. What
sparked your interest in the Richmond fire and led you to write a book about
it?
I ran across
about a dozen sermons about the Richmond Theater fire when I was a graduate
student at William & Mary. They included sermons from the founder of
Princeton Theological Seminary, from an English Quaker abolitionist, from a
suicidal Unitarian schismatic--and I wondered "it was clearly an international
incident...but whoever heard of this fire in Richmond?" The more I dug in
local archives, the more amazing sources I uncovered besides these
feisty sermons--sheaves of letters, unpublished and heartbreaking
memoirs, riveting survivor accounts, and candid obituaries in the local
papers among others. Here was a trove of fascinating primary sources
about this fire, ample evidence that it directly affected influential men and
women of the time (Monroes, Marshalls, Madisons, among others) and I couldn't
find a single book about it.
I became
completely taken by this story and the people who experienced it. (If I
didn't find it fascinating on a personal level, I never could have stuck with
it for the past seven years!) I went on to write a thesis focusing on the
changes the disaster brought to Virginia's religious climate and culture, and
over the next few years, various professors and writer friends urged me to be
the person to write that first book about the Richmond Theater fire. It was
such an amazing opportunity, to be the one to unpack the story of a
long-forgotten but very significant event in American
history.
CBR: Can you
describe your research and writing process? Were there any particular obstacles
that had to be overcome in telling your story? Any groups or people that
particularly helped you that you would like to thank?
I relied
heavily on Virginia archives--the Virginia Historical Society, the Library of
Virginia, university libraries, and the Library of Congress. Their staffs were
unfailingly helpful. Once I left graduate school and was employed full-time, I
had to make day trips to these places from a distance and became really
efficient at cramming a lot of research in a short time. I'd pack a sandwich and
a bottle of water in my purse, show up with those triplicate request forms
pre-filled, and just plow through stacks of material until the place closed. It
made a huge difference when libraries began to allow digital photography,
because then I could skip time-consuming transcriptions or expensive copy
machine tabs and just snap a shot of a letter or document and deal with it once
I arrived back at home.
As for my
writing process, I treated it like a job and made myself write for x hours a day
for about a year until I had the manuscript finished. My goal was to have it the
book ready by the 200 year anniversary of the fire (December 26th, 2011),
although I missed it by a few months. There were a few reasons for this, but I
will say the writing process slowed down considerably after my two
children
were born. I wrote mostly late at night then, or whenever I had an hour or two
where someone kept an eye on the kids for me. I have a new found respect for
writers with young children. It's not easy! Especially when working on a
manuscript that requires a lot of original research. In my acknowledgements I
probably thank as many people for pitching in with child care as I do historical
institutions.
CBR: You point
out the connection of the Richmond theater fire to Edgar Allen Poe. Can you give
readers a sense of this connection and do you think it played any part in his
later writing?
Poe's mother
Elizabeth Arnold Poe was a popular member of the Placide & Green theater
troupe, which was performing on December 26th, 1811, the night the Theater
burned. He probably would have been taken inside the theater on
various occasions. (Historian Martin Shockley supposes that little Edgar might
even have performed on the Richmond stage in an ensemble with other cast
children that season.) Eliza Poe had died from an illness earlier in December
although Edgar would, I understand, claim in later years that she and his father
were both victims of the blaze. In December the Poe children were taken in by
local families, and Edgar went to the family of John "Jock" Allan, who lived a
few blocks from the site of the theater. Poe was only about 3 in 1811, but
certainly this was a memorably tragic time in his life and an event that haunted
Richmond for decades. He couldn't have escaped its shadow. I don't doubt that
this dark occurrence and his family's proximity to it made a lasting impression
on him.
CBR: In
comparison to disasters today the death toll of just over 70 seems relatively
small. Can you put in perspective the impact this had on Richmond and Virginia
as a whole?
I think
"impact" is the key concept here, and that doesn’t always have to do with an
enormous body count. Percentage-wise, though, those 72 deaths
(more in the months to follow) were significant. In a town of ten thousand, this
single fire killed nearly one percent of its citizens. If 9-11 had resulted in
81,000 New York City deaths instead of around 3,000, that would be comparable.
Fires were common, yes, but (surprisingly) didn't often result in mass
fatalities.
This was like
the Titanic or the Hurricane Katrina of its day--a disaster that (to that
point) was just unparalleled. Newspapers from New Hampshire to South Carolina
printed breathless updates for weeks after the blaze. U.S. Congress wore
black armbands for a month, the U.S. Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. wore them for
two. Cities across America sent resolutions to Richmond expressing their
sympathy, and commemorative events were held in major cities like New York and
Philadelphia. It even captured international interest--Americans overseas wrote
home about it, and a
press in York, England published a religious booklet
about the Theater fire. I suspect one reason for the interest in the blaze was
that it happened in a large public building, the likes of which could be found
in many urban areas. It was easy for people to imagine that the victims' fate
could (but for the grace of God) have been theirs. Additionally, the
higher social status of most victims meant people recognized the prominent
family names of the dead. George Smith, the governor of Virginia was among the
dead. Also, the fact that many of those killed were young women captured great
public interest and sympathy—similar responses can be seen in later tragedies
like the Triangle Shirtwaist fire or the U.S. Arsenal explosion in 1864 where
teen aged women lost their lives.
CBR: What
impact did the fire have on public safety in general?
Horace
Townsend, a journalist who wrote in 1883 about the Richmond tragedy in Frank
Leslie's Popular Monthly, summed up the public response to 19th c. theater
fires rather succinctly: "Editorials are written in the newspapers, articles by
experts appear in the leading magazines; the receipts of theatres and
opera-houses suffer from a temporary diminution; the Fire Department officials
bestir themselves and present voluminous reports; everyone comes to the
conclusion that each and every place of public entertainment is a death-trap,
and that “something ought to be done,” and the general result is that matters go
on much as they did in the past."
CBR: We often
think of early America as being a highly religious society. It seems your book
actually paints a different scene. You point out the large growth in the four
main churches, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Baptist, and Methodist after the fire.
Can you discuss the impact of the fire on both the church and the
theater?
Virginia
wasn't much of a church-going society in the early 19th century. After
disestablishment in 1786, the dominant Anglican Church lost all public support
and had to be self-sustaining. It floundered, and took a real hit financially
and in terms of their membership. Other denominations struggled as well.
Richmond
wasn’t any exception. Far from
being the “city of churches” it would later be called, in 1811 there were only
five houses of worship—Episcopal, Baptist, Methodist, Quaker, and a synagogue—
for ten thousand inhabitants. In The
Richmond Theater Fire I have the chance to describe religious life in
Virginia in the Early Republic—ruined chapels, revivalists on horseback, and the
kind of world where a church service was followed by a horse race and a drink.
It's interesting--I was reading Lauren F. Winner's book A Cheerful and
Comfortable Faith where she describes how everyday faith was lived out by
gentry Anglican colonists in Virginia. Winner remarked that the church's
fortunes turned around perceptibly after 1811. I propose that the Theater fire
was the 1811 event that was the catalyst for that transformation and describe
how in the book.
As far as the
fire's impact on local theater, another wasn't built for nearly a decade. I
write about the bickering over opening another one, the resistance from
churchgoers, and the truly awful entertainment alternatives they had as
substitutes for theatrical performances. A new theater was eventually built, of
course, and John Wilkes Booth (among other notable actors) trod the boards there
for a time.
CBR: The new
Monumental Church was built on the location of the old Richmond theater. What
role did the new church play in the growth of religion during this
time?
I think
Monumental—a Protestant Episcopal Church—made evangelicalism a viable option for
the influential gentry class. To give a slapdash definition, evangelicalism (the
brand of faith practiced mostly by Methodists and Baptists) emphasized
missionary work, the preaching of the gospel, and a dramatic conversion
experience. Evangelicals emphasized that Christians were to be
separate and different from “the world.” Winner points out that Virginia’s
gentry practiced their faith in a way that was comfortable with the world. You
might play a hymn on your violin or a dance tune, and either was just fine.
The gentry
(often Episcopalians) were very skeptical of evangelicals, who were considered
“fanatics”, and their rowdy camp meetings which were spreading across the
South—with convicted men and women shrieking and flailing over their sins—were
just too over the top.
Yet when a
new Yankee Episcopal minister showed up in the pulpit at Monumental, he
gradually introduced evangelical practices, like emotional sermons and prayer
meetings in a way that the congregation could accept. Mostly.
CBR: As talk of
a new theater came about many people saw it as disrespectful in some way. Do you
see any similarity to the way Americans respond today after a disaster either
man made or natural?
Around 1816
one editorialist in Richmond argued “Four years have however now elapsed, since
the disastrous event, which called forth all our sympathies—The population of
Richmond has greatly changed, and is ever changing—Few persons are left in it,
who were the immediate sufferers in that ever-to-be-lamented calamity…If
they are convinced of [the theater’s] general good tendency … they will
generously sacrifice their feelings to the public interest.” In other words:
times change—eventually we need to switch out of the mourning garb, enjoy our
lives, and not be mired in the past. Critics thought this man was disrespectful
and callous. One suggested that every ticket for a performance at his new
theater be sold at the monument to the old one—so purchasers would be forced to
read the names of the dead.
There’s often
controversy over how to properly memorialize the victims of a tragedy—just look
at Ground Zero in New York City or the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in
Washington, D.C.
CBR: While
this time frame is generally considered a white man's world how did the fire
affect others such as women and African-Americans?
Wow, good
questions. Women made up about two thirds of the victims (which didn’t say much
for Virginia chivalry, some alleged), which drew a lot of sympathy from the
public.
But in terms
of how the calamity affected women, let’s take a look at the survivors. Most of
the adult men who died were married and were the family breadwinners. In these
days before life insurance, this meant that their wives were almost immediately
in financial peril. In the papers, auction notices go up: the Governor’s family,
now that he’s dead, is auctioning off their furniture, their slaves. A shop
owned by a prominent Jewish family that lost five people in the fire is
liquidated. And on and on. The story paints a very dire picture of how quickly
fortunes could turn.
The story of
enslaved hero Gilbert Hunt shines a light on the immense injustices suffered by
African-Americans in this time. After Hunt saved the lives of about a dozen
women who were jumping from the Theater’s windows, many expected him to be
granted his freedom. (As a member of a volunteer fire brigade, he later saved
dozens more.) Instead he labored for years until he paid for his manumission
himself. Society insisted black men and women remain in a subordinate place,
separate and unequal, even when they clearly deserved great public respect. Even
the black and mixed-race victims’ names were placed in a lower spot on the
memorial.
The award was
such an honor. What a wonderful surprise to be among the ranks of previous
awardees: four Pulitzer Prize winners and such notable names as John Hope
Franklin, Robert Penn Warren, Drew Gilpin Faust, and Lewis P. Simpson.
As for the
reception of the book, I've had a number of historians and archivists tell me,
"We've been waiting for someone to use this material and write about the
fire!" The Library of Virginia hosted a marvelous book signing event (detailed
on my blog at www.theaterfirebook.com), the lovely
staff at the Historic Richmond Foundation has invited me to speak on several
occasions, and I’m lined up to deliver a Banner Lecture at the Virginia
Historical Society this December. There’s also been interest from various
churches because of the religious history aspect of the story.
CBR: Do you
have an idea on what you will be working on next?
Right
now I am mostly writing shorter pieces—articles and the like. I can’t wait to
dig in to my next big project, though, and have a few ideas and historical
characters that have captured my interest. (And there are other books I want
someone else to write. For instance, I don’t have time or know enough French,
but could someone please write a good biography of Louis Hue Girardin? That man
must be one of the most dashing, fascinating, pulled-up-by-his-bootstraps
characters in the Early Republic.)
Thanks
for the interview, Robert, and readers are always welcome to send me questions
or contact me through my website.
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