Walt Whitman’s Super Gay Love of Music Makes Us Cry This Week

September 1, 1850: Lindmania Shapes the American Middle Class

This Week In Fandom History Episode #179

Jenny Lind Portrait — **Portrait Credit:** Eduard Magnus via Wikipedia

Never enough! This week, V and Emily travel back to TWIFH’s oldest historical event thus far: opera singer Jenny Lind’s landmark 1850 tour in the United States and its accompanying “Lindmania.” Did you know that the fangirls of 1850 were Just Like Us? They sobbed, they squeed, they schemed to meet their faves, and they spent way, WAY too much on concert tickets. The quotes from antebellum Lind fans reacting to hearing secular music for the first time give us the chills. Come wait outside the stage doors with us for a glimpse at the Swedish Nightingale.

ABOUT THE EPISODE

Listening & Longing

I loved doing the research for this episode! I initially added it to the calendar almost a full year ago when I was researching the coinage of the term “fan” (in a fandom sense, not an HVAC sense) and found the article “Fandom Before ‘Fan’” by Daniel Cavicchi. I didn’t do a deep read at the time, though, so in the intervening year I forgot about the depth of information available. I was so sure before diving in that the episode would largely be about The Greatest Showman and its mainstream fandom!

Instead, I found Cavicchi’s full-length book, Listening & Longing: Music Lovers in the Age of Barnum. Like I said in yesterday’s episode, it isn’t necessarily a book that I would recommend to everyone. It’s definitely aimed at an academic audience. But if you like academic language and paragraphs dense with information, it’s a really fascinating read.

I adored reading the excerpts of 1850s music lovers — music fans — discovering live, secular music for the first time. What a treasure to be old enough to understand the power of music in your life when first encountering it. What a treasure that they recorded their feelings so we can read them today!

Now I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice—the revelation of the singing voice! What a strange charm there is in the human voice—so far ahead of instruments, to produce certain effects. What an indescribable volume of delight the recesses of the soul can bear from the sound of the honied perfection of the human voice, the great, overwhelming, touching human voice—its throbbing, flowing, pulsing qualities. I am particularly susceptible to voices of range, magnetism—mellow, persuading voices.

— Walt Whitman

I also loved reading about the ways that music lovers in 1850 were, truly, Just Like Us. They sobbed at their blorbos’ pain, they waited outside of backstage doors to catch a glimpse of their celeb crush, and they wrote fantasies in their diaries about meeting their faves.

[I] should like to know her, I’m sure she is charming, she must be, with her face…

— Lucy Lowell on her idol, Etelka Gerster

Fans have always been fans, and people have always been people. And I will always love that.

Jenny Lind Poster — **Poster Credit:** Jenny Lind by P.T. Barnum, courtesy of University of Sheffield via Wikipedia

Jenny Lind Fic Recs

Since it’s our first newsletter, we were not able to solicit recs from all of you listeners/readers for this week. Here are three fics that V found! If you have any Jenny Lind-centric fic recs, please send them our way and we’ll do a Part II.

his family, his circus by Anonymous
Autistic!Phineas and the difference between how Jenny treated him to how Phillip does.
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Told within the Greatest Showman version of Lind’s tour with PT Barnum.
Finally Enough by inkheart9459
When the curtain rises on Jenny Lind, Charity feels her breath freeze in her throat. When she sees how Phineas is looking at the other woman her heart stops. She could lose everything, she can see it in his eyes...but maybe it doesn't have to be that way. Looking back at Jenny an idea forms, and perhaps instead of losing everything they could all gain something that's so much more.
—
Told within the Greatest Showman version of Lind’s tour with PT Barnum.
Scorch by inkheart9459, Valnixyrie
Anne's never been one to get attached. She's had far too much hurt in her life for that, but then Charity Barnum strolls in and crashes through her once impenetrable walls with little regard for their careful construction. She almost, almost gets far enough away from her, and that's when Jenny Lind walks in and Anne knows she's well and truly ruined. How could she possibly choose between the two? What if she didn't have to?
OR
The 1800's F/F/F OT3 that absolutely no one asked for.
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Told within the Greatest Showman version of Lind’s tour with PT Barnum.

For the next month of newsletters and episodes, please send us your fic recs for…

Xena: Warrior Princess
Supernatural, especially pre-Castiel!
Dan & Phil
Mean Girls

Send us your recs (and self-recs count!) at our website and check future newsletter editions to see recommended fics!

Other events that happened This Week In Fandom History…

And also posted this week:

Batman Wouldn't, Spider-Man Would || Episode #009: A Shaking Were-Chihuahua with Paul Caiola

This episode will be available to all listeners for 7 days before access is locked to our $5+ Patreon donors.

That’s all for our first edition! We’ll see you next week with another recap of what happened… This Week In Fandom History.

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