Author Archives: Mollie Bowman

The Reality of Religious Frenzy

By: Mollie Bowman

When I first started looking through databases, I was not entirely sure what exactly I wanted to look for, so I ended up just searching whatever would come to mind on many different platforms. Eventually, I found myself on Readux’s American Historical Newspapers database where I searched up the phrase “religious frenzy,” a subject that fascinated me while reading Wieland. This search brought up quite a few results, but I ended up finding a very interesting article that related the results of an investigation into a man who attempted to murder the King in London. This same story was printed in many American newspapers in the database, but the one I will be referencing is from the issue of the Connecticut Journal printed on July 16th, 1800.

The newspaper itself has quite a lot crammed into one page. It consists of four columns filled with stories in a relatively small typeface, which allows for a lot of information to be on a singular page. The article about the attempted murder takes up a column and a half of the page, which is quite a lot considering that no other story on this page goes over half a column. The type itself is really easy to read, as the only real difference that it poses to contemporary lettering is the use of the long s. Additionally, the newspaper seems to have been well-kept and was scanned nicely for the database. There seem to be almost no blemishes on this archival piece, save for a bit of faded ink along the outside of the newspaper. Though the database did not list the dimensions of the newspaper, it seems to have been relatively large. It seems clear from the layout of this piece that this newspaper is doing what it is meant to do: deliver as much news as possible without using too much paper.

The content of this article is just utterly fascinating. It is an update on the completed investigation into a man who attempted to assassinate the king at a London theatre. The report tells that the man, Hadfield, had been previously deemed insane but had been let back out into the world. He soon met another man, Truelock, who was “touched with a religious frenzy” and “filled the brain of Hatfield with some incoherent and frantic superstitions.” The most interesting part of this article is when it relates how Hadfield is convinced to go through with this treasonous attempt: “[Truelock] told him of a divine commission which he had to perform for the good of mankind––that he was appointed to purify the earth––that in truth [Truelock] was God, and that he wanted a second God to assist his work, and he would appoint Hatfield to be his son.” I personally find this fascinating, and its parallels to Wieland are quite evident. Though this article was printed two years after Wieland’s publication, it shows that this idea of being spoken to by an apparent God and pushed to kill was actually a reality (and one that, importantly for the novel, was occuring in Europe). I think this piece is totally interesting on its own, but it also reveals so much about the fears of that world that Charles Brockden Brown was writing within.

A Visit to the Charleston Museum

By: Mollie Bowman

Despite living in Charleston for almost four years now and having visited many times prior to moving here, I had never walked through the doors of the Charleston Museum. Recently, I decided to finally cross through the doors and learn more about the history of Charleston. The museum was––unsurprisingly––filled with many interesting artifacts from throughout history. 

While walking through the Lowcountry History Hall, I came into contact with many items from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. These pieces ranged from works of ornate pottery, to pistols, to Native American artifacts, and to items that were connected to the institution of slavery in Charleston. While I have lived in South Carolina for most of my life and therefore feel that I understand the state’s history quite well, it was truthfully rather strange and surreal to see many of these physical items. I have learned so much about their context and have been fully aware of many of the artifacts I saw, yet actually seeing these items added a new layer of recognition on my part of the true reality of the history I have been taught about.

What really caught my attention while in the museum and what I have continued to think about since visiting was the display of “slave badges.” I had previously seen photos of similar badges, but seeing them in person was rather shocking. I think it is important to preserve and display these items because they really embody and display the horrific reality of the lives of enslaved persons in Charleston, as well as how many lives and stories were both lost and subjected to this horrifying reality. Something I did not know about these badges was that they were unique to the city of Charleston which displays just how ingrained slavery was here during this period. It was just pretty overwhelmingly horrific to look at the many literal tags (though few in comparison to how many there really were) that people were forced to wear, and I think it is important to expose that reality to our contemporary society. 

Alongside these slave badges was another badge called the “free badge,” which any free black people in Charleston were forced to wear. If it was not visible, they would be faced with charges or a sentence of hard labor. This badge was similarly grim, as its being made at all clearly displays that “freedom” was clearly not free. This badge displays the liberty cap and pole that we have discussed in class and was only utilized in Charleston from 1783 to 1789, making it really relevant to the period we are studying. This badge was not something that I was aware of––unlike the slave badges––but that seems quite telling not only of their limited use time-wise but perhaps of their limited use in general. 

These badges as a whole really struck me because, as mentioned earlier, they add a stronger sense of physical, concreteness to the realities I have learned about through my life. It is crucial to see artifacts like this because they force us to think about the horrors of history and expose us to the realities of the not-so-far gone past.