washington journal. at 4:00 p.m. on book tv on c-span 2, discussion on race in america. >> voter suppression is real. let's just name a couple of states, florida, georgia, texas, north dakota. today in 2019 still dealing with this issue on dr. king's birthday. >> on american history tv on c-span3 on railamerica, the 1957 film a time for freedom documents the civil rights rally at the lincoln memorial. longer pre-to the -- pray to the federal government for passage of an anti-lynching law. we will write the law in the statute books of the south and

bring an end to the violence. >> watch american history tv today, martin luther king jr. day. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> this week on "q&a," patricia miller discusses her book"bringing down the colonel."

brian: patricia miller, author of "bringing down the colonel." matalin pollard came along at a time of profound coulterville transition as a woman the flooded into formality and public places were force to grapple with new questions. give us the rest. patricia: matalin pollard came along at a time where there was a lot of questions about women in public spaces, being respectable. this was kind of version 1.0, women were just coming into the workplace. people did not know how to deal with where they were going. madeline pollard dropped a bombshell on society that was already in a lot of turmoil. what would that mean? what would be due be in society? brian: what time frame are we talking about? patricia: like 1894, right at the end of the gilded age. people are starting to say maybe we need to think about the way we thought about the economy, women, dissipation in society. brian: people refer all the time that you took a decade to write

this book. go to the beginning, when did it come into your site? patricia: i was working as a journalist in washington and covering politics around the reproductive rights. i got really interested in this question on women's respectability. a lot of the pretenses of the more conservative takes on social policies around sexual education, abstinence only sexual education, and access to birth control seem to be predicated on the thought that we should be go back to the good old days. when everybody knew that women who had sex outside of marriage were bad. i was thinking, maybe that was not such a hunky-dory world. i was interested in finding a woman who personified that stereotype, someone who got caught on the wrong side of the line of respectability in exploring what the world look like and felt like for her.

through a series of research, or lucky accidents, i stumbled on madeline pollard. brian: what was one of the lucky accidents? patricia: katharine hepburn had passed away and in the "washington post" obituary it mentioned she had done a movie in the early 1970's. well out of her prime. it was called breach of promise. it was a tv movie, it was not very good. i had been looking for a scandal that would have a court case that would personify the idea of the ruined woman. i had tried divorce cases, i thought that would be interesting. i started researching breach of promise cases and stumbled on a case in washington and involve the same politician and a woman who brought suit in a very surprising manner for the time. brian: who is the colonel. patricia: the number of middle

name she has should signify that he was in the southern elite. he had been a confederate colonel. he was about -- he was a very well-respected cavalrymen. at the time of the lawsuit, he is in his fifth term in congress and served on the ways and means committee, his family went back and politics to the jefferson administration. his grandfather had been a jefferson's attorney general. he was as well placed politically as anyone. it was expected he would end up in the senate and had been mentioned as a possible speaker of the house and probably had his eyes on the white house. brian: what relationship was he to john breckenridge? the former vice president? patricia: he was his cousin, he is the more famous confederate officer. he was the last confederate secretary of war. interesting, his cousin was with him at the last confederate

council of war when they convinced jefferson davis to lay down arms and walk away. jefferson davis wanted to take whatever was remaining and keep going. it was william, his cousin, and another character from the book who convinced him it was over. general basil duke. he was therefore really critical moments in history. brian: who was madeline pollard? patricia: by contrast she was nobody. she was a poor girl from kentucky with literary aspirations, who was hungry for an education. her father died when she was quite young. it left her orphaned and it was a huge disadvantage for a young woman in those days. it disadvantage her in making her a good marriage and there was no money for her to get a secondary education. that was generally not free in the south of the time. she was this hungry young woman who ran into breckenridge at a time when she was desperate to make herself something in the world.

and get an education. brian: i know there is an issue over age, when she met the colonel how old was she? patricia: she believed she was 17, based on my research she was probably close to 20. she was presented as a young woman. her dress was up to her boot tops her hair was long and down , her back. those were the signifiers of those days who was someone not of age yet. she looked quite young when she met him. they met on a train going from lexington to frankfort, kentucky. brian: what happened? patricia: she was going home to see her sister. she was dying of tuberculosis. she was about to get kicked out of school for not having money to pay her tuition. she meets is very dashing, former cavalry man and a well-known kentucky lawyer who was a just running for congress. she says he approached her on the train and introduced himself. one thing led to another. she asked him for legal advice regarding a contract she had

made with an older gentleman who would educate her in exchange for her hand in marriage. he comes to the college to give her legal advice and suggests they talk more about her troubles that evening. they go out that evening. he comes in a closed carriage on a very hot night. that turns a lot of heads. this married, older man is coming to got this young woman -- to pick up this young woman in a closed carriage. from there, they go on a carriage ride and that is the beginning of the relationship. also, 10 years later, she says he seduced her when she was a 17-year-old student that night on the ride. brian: how much older was he? patricia: he was 30 years older than her. brian: how often did he win as congressman from kentucky? this will eat breckenridge. patricia: he was undefeated. he was in his fifth term.

from the second he announced he was running, he was in. brian: what happened, in the relationship between these two? william breckenridge. patricia: at first it started out very much that he was a predator. she was young, he did not have much of a sexual relationship with his wife, i believe. they had not had children. it appears she had done what many southern women do and take to her bed and cut off any more childbearing. after having seven children. i think he was very much using her as a love interest at first. very fascinated of this question of what did older men think about when they take up with these younger women. i often think they don't think they are being exploited. they think this is a relationship and it was in madeline pollard's interest to be with this powerful man. he gave her access to things, people, and ideas that she never would have had. over time, she became a force in

washington on her own and made her own contact. moved into the upper class of the washington the southern social circle without help from breckenridge. she becomes are on person. brian: how long were they together? patricia: on and off for almost 10 years. he was married the entire time. brian: tell us the background on his marriage. 1859 he was married, who was his first wife? she was lucretia clay? patricia: henry clay's granddaughter. they were married for a year, she died shortly after. delivering their first child. brian: in 1861 he is married again. issa deshay.. what was that marriage all about? patricia: she was the granddaughter of a kentucky governor. he married these very well placed women, which was the condition in the southern elite.

-- the tradition in the southern elite. you married people within your social class. they were married for -- the marriage produced seven children. a long marriage, not a particularly happy marriage. she dies it sounds like of cancer in 1892. that precipitates a promise trial because he's promised madeline pollard that if he ever could, he would marry her. his wife passed away and she says we could finally be married and be together after an acceptable period of mourning. brian: in 1893 he marries louise scott wing? patricia: she is very well-placed in washington's diplomatic circles. she is a distant cousin of his. he has known her and the family has known her for years. when the wife dies, he starts courting her. she is a more socially advantageous marriage.

brian: how did madeline pollard and the colonel lived through those years, what were the arrangements? patricia: she literally met him as he was campaigning for his first term in the house. he is elected that fall and comes to washington the following winter. she remains in lexington and lives in a boarding house. he comes home when he can and they go to what was called and assignation house. it wasn't really a brothel. it was more for freelance women or four people that were having illicit affairs. there was a former slave he knew that ran e-house three blocks -- ran and assignation house three blocks from his house. he would meet madeline pollard at this assignation house. it was a convenient set up for him. his family came with him to washington. his family was in washington and madeline was in lexington. then they are sneaking around

after her second pregnancy, she decides to go to washington. then they are sneaking around washington, he is quite well-known so he is often recognized. he has a silver beard and is very dashing. figure so people recognize him. brian: she had two children by the colonel? patricia: correct. brian: is there proof of that? patricia: there is proof from both the places she went to. she went to the kinds of places women were put in those days to hide these illicit pregnancies. the first one she goes to a hospital where catholic nuns run a charity hospital for illegitimate babies. the second time she goes to a private home. it's called a lying in home. a place where you could go to

put someone who is going to have an illicit child. in both cases there was evidence that came out of doctors who treated her to certify that she had these children. brian: what happened to the children and what did the colonel agree to do? patricia: what he should have agreed to do -- there was a lot -- under the rules of victorian america there was a lot of men , who had affairs like this. the unspoken rule was if you had an illicit relationship and produced an illegitimate child, you had to take care of that child. you had to provide in some way. either by supporting the mother or putting the child somewhere where it could be taken care of. what he convinced madeline pollard to do was these children in what were called foundling hospitals. they were foundling asylums. they were basically orphanages that there was such an inflow of illegitimate children, people would leave them on the doorstep of these hospitals. they were overwhelmed with babies. what happened to both of her children was a fate that met a lot of illegitimate children.

they both perished within the first few months of arriving at the hospitals. brian: how much did the public know about this relationship? patricia: the only people who knew about it until the trial happened -- there were rumors in lexington about it. he had been going to the assignation house with her. people remember the carriage ride. people remember him coming to the college and taking this young woman out. he was well known at the time. there were whispers in lexington before the most part it was a secret. brian: how much of this went on and what was the attitude? patricia: it seems to have been everybody would knew it but nobody talk about it. when it finally came out it was said that everybody knows this. there was this agreement that it was not talked about. the children were put in these us islands the women were hushed , and sent away.

it was this unspoken rule. even if the women did not seem to acknowledge it it came , out when this becomes public. they understood these things were happening. brian: chapter five, grover cleveland, what is the story? patricia: it is a horrifying story. many people know the story of grover cleveland and the woman in the famous political cartoon where is my pa? gone to the white house ha ha ha. that is grover cleveland and --ia help run -- helper in halperin. the woman he supposedly had an affair with and it is treated as a lighthearted manner. i researched the story like i believed her version of the story. if you read the republican newspapers it is not hard to figure out. she made a credible allegation that while she was dating grover cleveland, he raped her. when she became pregnant, he not only took the child from her but when she complained, she at this

point had a drinking problem because he had taken her child and she was living in this terrible neighborhood and had lost her good job. he tried to have her committed to an insane asylum. brian: at what time in his life was this? patricia: about eight or nine years before he came to the presidency. brian: what is the story of how -- how did the public find all this out? patricia: the public did not find this out. halperin did swear the allegation testifying he had raped her. most newspapers would not print the allegation. he was very powerful and had his cronies do an investigation into the allegations. it was widely reported in the media and believe that grover and two of his best friends happened to be having a relationship with her.

obviously she was a slut, and he was the only one who was unmarried and he took responsibility for doing something for this poor child. he was painted as the good guy. brian: how much of this was new in your book? patricia: none of this is new, it exists in newspapers by don't know if anybody has told the story of her quite this way before. host: where did you find it? guest: i found it mostly in republican leaning newspapers. brian: grover cleveland was a democrat? patricia: he was a democrat. the democrats were more like the republicans at the time. very fiscally and socially conservative and the republican party was becoming the progressive party. brian: what kind of things did you learn in the newspaper stories? over the years, the story has been told but not to the degree you are telling it. patricia: you learn that she was able to produce a number of credible witnesses to her side

of the story. she was able to produce the woman who was there the night she was taken away by a paid detective to the insane asylum. she was able to produce the doctor who delivered the baby and brought her to another family. she was able to produce the family who took care of the baby. they knew it was grover cleveland's baby. she was able to produce a compelling series of witnesses that her story was accurate. grover cleveland, his only denial was it did not happen and there were these other guys and she was a slut. brian: how did he ever get elected with this story? patricia: he really what we call now slut-shamed her. he went all out to make it seem like she was the bad woman. it was very believable to victorian society at the time that the woman was the bad person. when men had affairs, they were

in trapped by a woman. the investigation into what happened, which was done by the friends determined that she was a widow and a bad woman. people all knew what that meant. it meant she in trapped cleveland and other married men. that is why what madeline pollard does is so interesting. she is able to flip the trove of the ruined woman on its head. host: joseph pulitzer played a role in this? guest: the pulitzer paper was behind cleveland. they originally tried to argue that a candidate's private life was not up for debate. only their public life. brian: the pulitzer is huge because of the award. why is their award named after joseph pulitzer? patricia: i cannot give you an answer to that. host: didn't he do a lot of this kind of journalism? guest: his paper was whatever is needed to be for the person he wanted in power. he backed cleveland wholeheartedly.

brian: as long as we're talking about grover cleveland, what about the ward he took over four at 11 years old? patricia: it is ironic because at a time it was seen as a romantic story. grover cleveland was close with his law partner, oscar folsom. he died a year or two after the scandal originally happened. he left a young daughter. she had a mother but not a father. grover cleveland served as a ward for this young woman. this was as she was growing up and he was very close to her and supposedly is said to have joked that cleveland was a confirmed bachelor about town. his sister asked him why he never married. he said i am waiting for my wife to grow up. he started dating francis folsom when she was in college, he started sending her roses every week when she was in college.

as soon as she graduated, he proposed and married her. it was in the blue room in the white house in an ivory wedding down. -- wedding down. wn.ding down -- go she was 21 years old. brian: he was our 22nd and 24th president. after all this, how do you think he did and why are we so upset today about today's activities if they were not upset back then? patricia: i think women really -- and there was a small number of women who tried to get upset about grover cleveland and people turned a blind eye to things like that. they were powerful men who seems to know what they were doing. the idea that powerful men could be corrupted in that way or predatory was really hard for people to imagine. i think we see a lot of parallels and discussions nowadays where people think someone's ascent to a power position is evidence of their outstanding this or lack of predatory behavior. conversations we have now have

shown that is not true. people were inclined to believe powerful men who controlled newspapers, political patronage, they basically controlled the world at that time. brian: who was mary oliver? patricia: she filed a suit in the 1870's. it was a breach of promise suit. she had a very compelling case from a legal point of view. she had taken up with a senator after his wife had died. he promised to marry her. there were letters to that effect. a breach of promise suit is a contract suit. it is a contract lawsuit based on the idea that an engagement to marry was a contract in those days. that's how it was thought of. if you could prove the contract had been broken, a woman could recoup damages for presumably having her reputation swallowed.

-- soiled for the engagement being broken and she had a good evidence. she had letters from the senator, testing that he would marry her. after a number of years goes by, he does not marry her. she brings a breach of promise suit. she is practically laughed out of the courtroom. the lawyers tell her that when a woman drags her filth into this courtroom, she does the work of the devil. i believe it was a two week trial, the judge gives a charge to the jury that became legendary. he says gentlemen of the jury, take this case and dispose of it. they spent a few minutes before they came back with a verdict not in her favor, even though the evidence was clear that she had an engagement. brian: as you are learning this story, what is happening to your own thoughts about the world of women back in those days? patricia: originally when i started i thought i was writing about the bad old days and writing a book that said look how far women have come.

it is important to understand where women have come from. i was confident i was saying look, this is a long time ago. somewhere, especially when i was in the intense part of writing this book, i started to realize that was not the case. even though on the face of it, women had many more opportunities. i write about breckenridge's daughter who desperately wants to be a lawyer. at the time there is only 200 lawyers and it is hard for women to be admitted to the bar. obviously we have come a long , way. women can be lawyers. i became cognizant of the power structures that are still in place today that often limit women's opportunities. when i was originally writing about grover cleveland i thought are people going to believe this? this is grover cleveland and has not been presented in this way. this man allegedly raped someone and then used the power of his office and private detectives to try and shut someone up and destroy them.

then, the allegations come along about harvey weinstein doing what he had done, not only with allegedly raping them using private detectives to try and destroy them. it sounds like almost the exact same thing. brian: what happened to mary oliver? patricia: she lost the suit and disappeared from history. she literally gets left out of the courtroom and disappears. brian: what happens to maria halperin? i know you said she went to an asylum? patricia: she was not kept there. luckily the doctor looked at her case and said she was drunk at the time but not insane and they had no legal right to keep her. i center out of the asylum. eventually, her brother-in-law comes to town and signs an agreement with cleveland that for $500 she will give up all claim to the baby. she never sees her son again. when cleveland isn't running for -- when cleveland is running for

election in 1884 and the scandal pops back up, she is dragged back into the public light unwillingly and is completely humiliated all over again. brian: does she talk during that time? patricia: very reluctantly and in little bits. she is reluctant to tell the story. she is a fallen woman, she has been socially disgraced. what happens to women like her in those days, social disgraced is not get added. -- social disgraced is not really get at it. she lost her job, her home, she lost her other child by her first marriage, she ends up living in a broken down part of town with no job. she was already destroyed. when it comes through the election, she is dragged through the mud again. brian: as you are researching, when did you come onto some of these stories? patricia: i knew thehalperin

story before that. these other stories about the reach of promise i had never heard of. you really start to see this pattern building with these women and they are abused in public it made me understand what madeline pollard as being extraordinary. brian: what is your own background, where are you from? patricia: i am from new jersey. my father was in the legislature so i have always had an interest in politics. brian: how long was he in the legislature? patricia: 20 years. i grew up in a family that was interested in politics and history. i kept a running story a lot of the political things in my head, dipped back into the cleveland administration and things you have been curious about. when you write a book you have time to dig down and get the real story. brian: where did you get your education? patricia: la salle university for undergraduate and new york university for my masters in journalism where i did work on historical journalism and old newspapers going back to the war of 1812 and the civil war.

i started to understand the power of reading these old newspapers as primary sources. seeing that you could find things both as whole stories but also as societal attitudes that you can gleam from going back into these papers that really bring the story to life. brian: what did you do after getting your masters degree? patricia: i came to washington and worked in journalism about reproductive rights and politics. a lot of the battles on controversial things like abortion and access to birth control. brian: who did you write for? patricia: daily health care briefings for a while, the reproductive health report. brian: when you set out to write this book, how hard was it to get a publisher? patricia: it was hard. it took a lot of backward. -- back at work. you have to do a lot of work on

work.took a lot of back you have to do a lot of work on a book like this to sell it. you have to do 80% of the research in order to be able to sell the book like this. you are talking about a story that is unknown. you are talking about a topic that at the time when i first started working on this and pitching this, people did not see the relevance. brian: how surprised were you that you got good reviews in both "the wall street journal" and the "new york times." patricia: the fact that the papers -- i came at this book is a historian and tried to tell the facts as they are and bring things to bear that people from different sides of the political aisle could glean from. i wasn't trying to write this as a polemic. the more information i found, the more i realized we just don't have a lot of information about women and cultural attitudes about sexuality from this time. i just put in everything i could find out. brian: where is the breach of promise legal thing today?

patricia: it is pretty much dead. it started to die -- a lot of states banned it in the 1920's and 1930's. were able to get jobs and move into the workforce it , became less compelling to argue that they did not have a way to make a living if they weren't married. marriage becomes more about romantic love's. they would make and break engagements. it became less of a big deal if people got engaged and broke up. it was not seen as a contract as it had been in earlier times. it outlived its usefulness as a legal convention. brian: state of the united states in 1893? patricia: very unsettled. one of the most surprising things for me to find out is how much it had been unsettled since the civil war financially. there was a series of financial busts and rooms every seven or booms every seven

or eight years there was a recession or depression. the biggest was in the winter of 1893. it was the biggest depression until the great depression. the country was reeling. it was no central bank to question a financial shock. there were supposedly 100,000 unemployed people in chicago. 200,000 unemployed people in new york. people were roaming the countryside, begging for meals. the country was in an extremely dislocated position at this time, which is one of the reasons why i think the trial was able to break through. it was a distraction and also naming the uncomfortableness people were feeling. it was the rules of the overlords, so to speak. brian: the trial in 1894, where was it held? patricia: here in washington at the old state hall. -- the old city hall at the time. brian: when you researched it, how much publicity was there on it? patricia: a lot. i was shocked. it really made me question the stories we tell in history and why this story disappeared from

history. there were 50 articles in the new york times, 80 articles -- there were 60 articles in the new york times and 80 articles in the washington post. the kentucky papers, boston, philadelphia, the wire services, the west coast covered it. it was front page news for weeks. it was all over the country. it went to trial because they refused to settle. matalin pollard refused to settle. that was the most mystifying aspect of this, breckenridge offered her a settlement. he did not have a lot of money, but he would try to settle if she would go away. people knew he was not rich. so they could not figure out why she was suing him. for her to sue him, she had to expose yourself as a fallen -- expose herself as a fallen woman who had a long-term affair

and elicit pregnancies. she could have just walked away and not done anything. so it comes to trial because she refuses to settle. brian: where does she get the money for the lawyers? patricia: that is the enduring question of the scandal. i have concluded she got money from wealthy, mostly widowed women who were able to extend the money and make a statement about people like breckenridge doing what he did to young women and getting away with it. they expect the young woman to disappear. she had great lawyers. they put together an impeccable case. that was what did breckenridge in. brian: who was jane tucker? patricia: jane tucker was a young woman from maine, from a formerly wealthy ship owning family in maine who was hired by breckenridge to spy on matalin

pollard. madeline pollard. she had worked as a secretary for him and he hired her to come to washington to spy on pollard and took refuge in a home for fallen women. she snuck into the home for fallen women and gave a story about how she was a fallen woman. she got to see how this -- these young women who have elicit pregnancies are treated. they get bread and water for dinner. it was a most like a penal institution. at this young -- at this point, women had given up their babies and are being rehabilitated from being fallen women. so she looks at this place and meets pollard and tries to win her over so she could find out what she is really up to. what she finds out is what she

is really up to is she is suing breckenridge because he said he would marry her and he married some one else. brian: what happened to that relationship? patricia: it ends on a strange note. she goes to see pollard after the trial and pollard still does not know she is a spy. by the time jenny writes a book, the book comes out and they never see each other again. i would have been -- i would have loved to have been there when pollard found out she was a spy. i'm not convinced she didn't suspected. brian: did you read it? patricia i use her book in mind, : because she gives an account of being in this house of mercy with madeline pollard. the book did not do well. by the time it came out, the trial was over and people really felt like madeline pollard was justified in winning. there was no big demand to revisit her at that point. brian: what happened to the colonel? patricia: he loses the trial.

but he is still politically powerful. grover cleveland survived the scandal and most people survived he would survive the candle. -- most people assumed he would survive this scandal. he is primary at home in kentucky for the democratic primaries so he goes home to run for reelection thinking he will , have to win the primary but it should not be a problem. but all of the women in lexington, kentucky, especially the most well-off women take off against him and hold rallies against him and tell their husbands and boyfriends and suitors and sons not to vote for reckoned rich. -- they better not vote for breckenridge. that summer of 1894, the kentucky democratic primary becomes the biggest political story in the country as these women campaign openly against the colonel. brian: who was julia blackburn? patricia: there were three politically powerful families. this was in kentucky.

the clays breckenridge, and , blackbirds. she was the sister-in-law of joe blackburn and the widow of luke blackburn, the former kentucky governor. a very connected family. she takes matalin pollard's side of the case because reckoned rich had come to her that spring and said he was going to marry madeline and asked her to be her social chaperone around washington. so she agreed to look after her until they got married. so she goes on to testify that breckenridge did say he was going to marry madeline pollard. brian during the trial, what : happened? patricia during the trial, what : really happened is madeline tells her side of the story, especially about being a vulnerable young woman and beating breckenridge in a carriage ride. he seduced her and she presents a succession of witnesses, julia

blackburn, the doctor who delivered her children, other people who she spoke about the engagement to. her lawyers are great. breckenridge comes in for his side of the trial and basically says, it happened, but she was kind of chasing me, she was that kind of woman, what could i do? he had no evidence. he had no case. he had no defense except she was obviously a fallen woman and could not be trusted. brian: in the end, who made the decision that he was guilty, or that it was not a breach? patricia: they found for her. a jury of 12 men. brian: how long was the deliberation? patricia: 2.5 hours. it was interesting because many people thought it would be a hung jury they would be out for quite a while. but the trial wrapped up at 3:00 on a saturday and they had a verdict that afternoon.

brian: anything interesting about the judge? patricia the judge was : interesting. he was very, he was not pro-breckenridge. he went out of the way to make sure madeline pollard was hurt and that people kept -- heard and that people kept an open mind about when they heard about fallen women. at one point when they are arguing for the orders to the jury breckenridge's attorneys , were trying to argue that if they could prove she had sexual relations with other men, that would let him off the hook for the breach of promise suit. her lawyers were arguing, that is not true. and the judge says to breckenridge's lawyers, if you can prove that she had relations with four men and relations with a fifth men -- a fourth man and relations with a fifth man, will that make it better?

it's a next-door very thing for a judge to say in 1894. brian: did you read the world's coverage of this trial? how did they cover it? patricia: they were pro madeline because it was a really good story and a big story. a reporter from the new york world came down to kentucky early on. right after the suit was filed, for anyone thinks it is going to trial. and tried to get a statement from breckenridge. his people shoe him away and he is in washington -- shoo him away and he is in washington. he goes to madeline and her people rode out an account of her relationships, her life. the world, the sunday world is a big tablet and publishes her account.

so it becomes her official paper. brian: as you are reading the newspapers, what was your conclusion about the quality of journalism around the story? patricia: there are two things. on one hand, they're writing a lot. there were evening additions and a lot of -- editions, and sometimes you could see names spelled randomly. sometimes you can see sloppiness. there was a lot of information. that in bother to check on how they were consistently spelling names. the facts could be a little loose but the quality of the writing in these papers is so extraordinary. it is beautifully written. in certain papers like the new york times, it would be much like that. the washington post still reads like the washington post. but the washington evening star, they had amazing reporters and

the dispatches read like fiction. they were beautifully done and it is a pleasure to read these old newspapers. brian: what happened to them after the trial? patricia: the colonel was disgraced and lost 200 votes in the primary. -- he lost by 200 votes in the primary. so he is out of congress. he was a well-known speaker and he supports himself by lecturing. he is a lawyer and his son buys a newspaper and he writes editorials. but he ashamed and he never comes back to his glory. -- he is shamed and never comes back to his glory. he dies within 10 years. madeline pollard goes to europe as the traveling companion of a wealthy woman. she settles in oxford. she is supposedly going to write a book. she never really wrote a book. that was always her big goal. and there she meets a wealthy irish widow who becomes her companion and friend and she

spends the rest of her life traveling all over europe. she goes to paris in the 1920's, was to egypt and turkey, and comes back to the united states to visit family. she had an interesting life. brian: did you figure out why she never wrote the book? patricia: i think she was not an author at heart. she loved the literary life but i do not think she was a writer. brian: what happened after that time? what changed? patricia: what changes is this incredible movement of women into the workplace picks up over 1890, especially for secretarial work. the typewriter has been invented. stenography has been invented. those were the hot new inventions but women enter the workforce. what they tried to do at first was segregate them. the government did this

prominently. there were apartments in the u.s. government, the women's department. but that became impossible to do. women started working in offices and it no longer becomes an issue that women working around strange men, you just see the world opening up for women in ways that is hard for us to conceive that there was a world before that. brian: what was the difference between the rights of women and the rights of men and that time -- in that time? patricia: women did not have the right to vote. and a married woman was still considered part of her husband's legal persona. so you had no rights as an individual. but there were unwritten rights that were social conventions.

it was improper for a woman to work with men, or be introduced to a man she was not related to if it was not through another man they knew. she could not go to an office full of men and work with the men. everything was predicated on what it would be in the domestic sphere. they would stay at home where they would go with friends and family. so this idea of women moving freely through the world, it was one of the ways maria helprin was denigrated it she had gone out with grover cleveland on the streets and walked with him to a restaurant without the chaperone. so they could be used against you, if you were seen in public with a man that way. brian: was there abortion and why did maria helprin and madeline pollard not have them?

patricia: around the time maria helprin was pregnant by cleveland, she wanted him to marry her, even after accusing him of raping her. that would solve her problems. she could not have an illegitimate pregnancy. she wanted cleveland to marry her. there had been a move starting in the 1860's to make abortion legal. -- illegal. the american medical association and other powerful figures really started moving in state legislature to make abortion illegal. so it would have been illegal and dangerous for maria to have an abortion. so i can see why she did not use that option. madeline pollard, the first time she becomes pregnant i am not sure if she knew where to secure an abortion. clearly there were abortions, because later in the story,

although breckenridge claims he would support what would have been a third child, she eventually miscarried and they speak to local doctors and it is in breckenridge is papers -- breckenridge's papers he agreed to perform an abortion on her. abortion was available through the right people. i don't know why that was not carried through. brian: when did you find in the way papers for the colonel? patricia: the colonel had excellent papers. that is what made this story fascinating to research. he kept everything. they are at the library of congress. he kept not only his political papers, every letter from every constituent asking for every favor. all of the papers from the trial. they were neatly labeled in a folder. it's a breach of promise trial. the irony is his daughter, according to legend, she brought his papers into the library of congress.

she said here they are. she obviously never went through them. there was a lot of incriminating things in there. she was a fascinating figure. she becomes a prominent feminist social scientist. i was fascinated at how she became that, coming from breckenridge. it speaks to the multifaceted element of everyone. breckenridge gave her every opportunity in the world. he really did believe in education for women. the same man who did this to madeline pollard also gave his daughter a lot of opportunities. brian: when you go to the library of congress to look at his papers, do they show you the actual papers, or do you look at copies? patricia: in his case, they will show you the actual papers.

if they are papers there is not a huge demand for you can , actually go to the papers. it is amazing. you find calling cards people gave him, a one point in the middle of the trial he must have thought of something, because he has letterhead that says house of representatives, and he ripped a piece of paper off and scribbled something on it and gave it to a lawyer. it's just scrawled in pencil and that ends up in his papers. you can feel people when you see papers like that. brian: did you wait until the end to send it to your editor? patricia: i wrote the whole book. brian: what was the initial response when they read your book? patricia: they knew the path i was taking so they were not surprised about anything i wrote. but because current events have caught up with history, and the times i sold the book they were like, this is incredibly relevant. brian: were you feeling that as you went through the 10 years?

patricia: i felt it the last couple of years. i was writing about this women's rally in an opera house in lexington as the woman's march, people were pouring into washington for the woman's march. people in the papers were talking about how the trains to lexington were packed and no one had ever seen women so agitated. literally, people were coming in here for the women's march at the time. history was reverberating at that brian: in one of your last point. chapters, you write, you're talking about the open discussion of sex had gone too far with the book teachers, lecturers, story writers militants, tremendous is -- , dramatist, now talking freely about sexual vice.

patricia: that is someone complaining 20 years after the trial. everyone was talking about sex all the time. there was a play on broadway about prostitutes. you moved from this time but what i think happened was before madeline pollard, nobody talked about these things in public. and people said it during the trial, people would not talk about these things and now everywhere you go, people are talking about this. so a floodgate opened up and some people wanted it to close again. brian: what happened to julia blackman? patricia: she lived with her widowed sister in washington and they traveled to europe every summer. as far as i know she lived a , comfortable life for another 10 years. brian: what happened to jane tucker? patricia: she returned to maine after she finished spying on madeline. she was very excited because she made a great deal of money. she came to take this job because it was so hard to find a

job during the depression. she returns to maine all excited about her book and making all this money and it turns out breckenridge never paid her. he was a terrible deadbeat with debts. her book did not sell. so she has to make a living for years and eventually turns the mansion in maine into a summer tourist hotel. brian: why did you write about madeline mcdowell reckoned -- breckenridge, why did you write about her? patricia: in some ways it is the women who redeemed the family. this family produced some very amazing, influential women. the brother and the son was present at the trial. he was a fledgling lawyer. jerk and heof a

spends the whole trial trying to challenge people to duels. he had no constructive role to play. during the reelection battle, he falls in love with his best friend madeline mcdowell from an elite family. very smart woman interested in socialism and suffrage. they get married and he is completely switched around by the marriage. he is converted to her liberal politics. they by the lexington herald -- buy the lexington herald and become a crusading couple. so if anything, it is the woman in the family who redeemed the colonel at the end of the day. brian: any characters you found that you want to write a book about? patricia: the colonel's daughter deserves a book of her own. her name is nispa. her contributions to social

science in the progressive era, in the 1920's, were very incredible. i didn't have time to go into that except in shorthand. brian: what was the hardest part of this book? were you ever stymied? patricia: a lot. the hardest part was structuring, you are talking about a trial from 1894 you have to get the back story from all of the characters and i really wanted to talk about maria halpern and cleveland. so it was hard to structure it in a way that kept the narrative slow -- flow but got all of the pieces of the story in. brian: you mentioned the breckenridge archives. what was the most valuable thing that you found in the process? patricia: the newspapers. they gave an incredibly rich amount of information. brian: what is next for you? patricia: i would love to find another great scandal to write about. i am looking around, hoping to stumble upon a great story.

brian: how do they determine at your publisher whether or not this is a successful book? patricia: you will have to ask them. it has not been out long. i guess what determines that can be different. sales, reviews. i will find out. brian: what book was this for you? patricia this was my second : book. my first book was called "good catholics," and was about abortion in the catholic church and the birth control mandates. brian: what impact did that book have? patricia: it started a conversation about the political power of the catholic bishops. a lot of people were not aware there is a catholic ships organization.

-- bishops organization. in many ways it was a merger of foot soldiers and the political acumen. brian: what has been your reaction to what happened to the bishops group? patricia: not surprised. i think a large institution that is very self protective and has made taking a very conservative stance on sex issues involving women and homosexuals an excuse for hiding their own issues about abuse and scandal. i was raised catholic. brian: did that make it difficult to write about? patricia: no. it gives you an insider understanding. i went to catholic school my whole life. you have a love for the institution, the educational

institution and the nuns and priests i knew, but you also see the institution can do way better than it does and continued frustration that women are kept back in the church. brian: the cover for the book is on your screen. "bringing down the colonel". our guest has been patricia miller. thank you very much. patricia: thank you. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] . ♪ announcer: for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q&a.org.

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