Madeline Pollard vs. Breckinridge

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to Podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy me Wilson. So, the story of Madeline Pollard's relationship with Congressman William C. P. Breckinridge became a national story when it went from a romance to a bitter and quite dirty court battle. To some, Madeline emerged as an icon of the women's movement, but to others, she became a cautionary tale. And we're going to talk about all of that on today's show. Yeah, I had not heard of this before and now I'm mad about it. That should be our show's new tagline. So, Madeline Valeria Pollard was born in Frankfort, Kentucky, in the eighteen sixties. The exact year has reported differently from source to source, usually sometime between eighteen sixty three and eighteen sixty six. That variation her birth year is also going to be significant to her story later on. Her parents were Nancy Ellen Herin and John Dudley Pollard, and the family included six other children. They moved to a town called crab Orchard in Lincoln County when Madeline was still quite small. Her father, John Dudley Pollard, served in the Confederate Army as a saddler and then went on to open a store as well as to hold several different public offices. But the family was not wealthy. They kind of got by, and John, who was an avid reader, shared his love of literature with his children, even though he himself had not had a particularly robust formal education. Madeleine, who went by Maddie as a little girl, had the same love of stories as her father, and they were quite close. Madeline always described her childhood as very happy. In terms of her education, most of it came from reading on her own or with her father, and this was to deficient education. She learned Latin history the works of Shakespeare. Most of this learning was through memorization, and that was something that Madeline was very good at. In eighteen seventy six, John Dudley Pollard died suddenly, and that meant that his wife, Nancy, was left to care for Madeline and her siblings without any money. Madeleine went to live with her father's sister in Pittsburgh immediately after the funeral. The oldest and youngest Pollard children stayed with their mother, Nancy Pollard, and the three of them moved in with Nancy's sister, but the rest of the kids went to a Louisville home for orphans and widows. About a year and a half after John's death, Madeline spent four years in Pittsburgh. She attended public school during that time, and then returned to Kentucky. She lived with her mother and aunt for a short period and then moved on to the home of another aunt near Lexington. She helped around the house and took music and language lessons, but she really wanted more out of life than what most women of the time had access to, specifically seeing how her mother had struggled after her father's death, she did not want to be in a position where her fate was dependent on a man. There was a man in the mix that Madeline depended on to get the additional education that she felt she needed to achieve her goal of ultimate independence, and that man was James Rhodes, who was a farmer who was several decades older than Madeline and was also quite taken with her. According to Pollard's account, he had proposed marriage, and instead of accepting, Madelene worked out kind of an unusual deal with Rhodes. If he would pay for her further education, she would, upon completing that education, get a teaching job and repay him. Rhodes agreed on the condition that if she did not repay him, she would marry him. This was not just like a banter discussion deal that was struck up between a love struggolder gentleman and a coquettish She knew this was actually a written agreement. Madeline's mother served as witness to the documents signing. Rhodes was of course hoping that Madeline wouldn't stick with it, either she wouldn't finish her education or that she would not be able to repay him back, and he actually believed that she was not going to hold up her end of it. He basically just wanted her to fall in love with him, and she knew that. In three Madeleine enrolled at a convent school outside of Cincinnati's was the Mount Notre Dame Academy. She asked Rhodes to limit his contact so as not to dismay the nuns, but he wrote to her all the time that had the expected effect. The nuns were concerned, and it's believed they were planning to expel her from the school, but Madeline got ahead of that by withdrawing. She was not giving up on her education, though. After discussion among Madeleine Rhodes and Madeline's mother, Nancy, they made the decision that Pollard would enroll at since Sinnattie Wesleyan College. This is one of those things where, um you will often see in write ups that she attended Wesleyan, and there are of course other schools by that name, so no, any time it comes up in relation to her attendance, we're talking about Cincinnati Wesleyan. Another older gentleman enters the story here though, that is ranking our Russell and prospective students at Cincinnati Wesleyan needed to be introduced to the president of the school formally. That was part of admission, and that needed to be done by a man of good standing. Since her father, John Dy Pollard was deceased and James Rhodes stepping into such a task would have been pretty problematic due to both his romantic interest and his fairly humble social status. Madeline had to get a friend of the family to serve in this regard, and Russell new Madeline's cousin, Nelly Oliver, So that was how it worked out that he was going to be the one to introduce her to the college president and this sun association that would come back to bite her years later. So Madeleine was admitted to Cincinnati Wesleyan after having been determined to be of good character by the college president's wife. She started her classes in November three, and for Pollard, this really seems like she was living her dreams. She studied elocution, French and Latin, among other courses. She won recognition for her essays. She was described later as an exemplary pupil. She participated in debate events and did very well. Despite not having a primary school degree and dropping in in the middle of the semester. It really seems like Madeline Pollard fit right in with her classmates. She was popular with her peers and teachers alike. Six months into her time at college, Madeline took the train to visit her mother and her sister, Rosalie, who was in very poor health and expected to die at any time. And that train ride would prove pivotal to the young woman's life because it was on that train to Frankfort Kentucky that she met William Breckinridge. So a bit on Breckinridge. William Campbell Preston Breckinridge was born in August eighteen thirty seven in Baltimore, Maryland. During his childhood, his family had moved from Maryland to Pennsylvania, and then Breckinridge attended school in Kentucky, where his father was originally from. He attended Center College in Danville, Kentucky, and then went to the University of Louisville for law school. He graduated started a law career in eighteen fifty seven. During the U s Civil War, Breckinridge served in the ninth Kentucky Calory for the Confederate Army. He was one of Jefferson Davis's bodyguards. He also got married in eighteen sixty one to a woman named is Adesha. After the war, we shouldn't Know, Breckinridge made a pretty significant ideological about face and became an advocate for racial equality. He represented black clients in court, and he used his platform as the editor of the paper Observer and Reporter to promote the idea that racial equality was actually the key to the entire country moving forward. In four he ran for office as a Democrat and one becoming a member of the House of Representatives. He was reelected four times, all during the time his life was entwined with Madeline Pollard. We'll talk about that after we take a quick break and hear from some of our sponsors. When Madeline Pollard took her train to see her family, Breckenridge was, as we said, also on that train. How the two became acquainted is not known. We have stories, but we have two different stories, each claimed to be entirely truthful by the person giving the account. According to William Breckenridge, Madeline approached him and introduced herself, and according to Madeline Pollard, Breckenridge feigned to recognize her, acting as though he thought that she was the daughter of a colleague, and he started a conversation. According to both their accounts, they only talked for a few minutes. At the time, breckon Ridge had just started a bid for Congress, so Madeline knew who he was. She told her friends about having met the candidate often enough that they teased her about it. They started calling her Madeline Breckinridge Pollard. Soon she adopted that name herself, claiming her father had so admired John Breckinridge, that was William's grandfather, that he had given her that middle name. Yeah, William's grandfather was also a senator and and a person of note, particularly to Kentuckian's. That chance meeting between the two of them, though, happened in April of eighteen eighty four, just a few months later. James Rhodes, remember that is the man that Madeleine had this contract with to pay for her education, and if she didn't finish and pay him back, she would have to marry him. James Rhodes started to put some pressure on Madeline that they should just go head and get married. He had already spent more than he anticipated on her tuition for college, and he was frankly ready to have that money back or to have a wife. As the situation with Rhodes closed in on Madeline Pollard, she reached out to the most powerful man she knew, or at least sort of new. She wrote to William Breckinridge. Since he was a lawyer, she thought he Breckinridge could maybe help her out of this contract that she had signed with Rhodes. She explained the situation she found herself in and justified it by telling him that she just wanted a good education and she took the only chance that she thought she would have to get it. She also invited her new acquaintance to visit her if you should ever find himself in Cincinnati. A couple of months later, on August first, four, he did just that. He visited Cincinnati, and the two were soon sitting together in the college parlor having a chat about her situation. They were not alone, there were other students in the parlor as well, and a member of the school's faculty, but that level of propriety apparently did not last long. The pair left. They went out to a concert together. Apparently there was some kissing in the carriage, and then they started a sexual relationship within a few days of his arrival in Cincinnati. By the start of the fal semester, just a few weeks later, Madeline Pollard was no longer enrolled at Cincinnati Wesleyan. She was instead attending Sayer Female Institute in Lexington, Kentucky, where Breckinridge lived. He was paying her way at the school, as well as her room and board at the home of a Mrs m A. Catchum, and miss Mary Hoyt, who were two aged sisters. But in early five Madeline's education paused when she became pregnant. In February of that year, she withdrew from school and she returned to Cincinnati. She gave birth to a daughter at St. Joseph's Infant Asylum in Norwood, Ohio, and she left the child there, although the baby died very soon thereafter. Throughout her pregnancy, she was telling James Rhodes that she was visiting family in the South so that he would not try to visit. In the fall of eighteen eighty five, Madeline returned to say her Female Institute as a student, although she was never really able to be consistent in her attendance after that, and she did not earn a degree. She did stay in Lexington, though, and for a while she worked for a newspaper there as a typist. In late eighteen eighty seven, Madeline was once again pregnant. While she and Breckon Ridge had continued to see one another, he was often in Washington, d c. Instead of in Lexington, and she moved to the capitol to be closer to him. The Congressman paid for all of Pollard's medical expenses, including a doctor to look after her throughout the pregnancy. A baby was born in February of eighty eight, and Madeleine again left it at an orphanage. This was something that breck and Ridge had demanded. By her account, the second baby also died in infancy just two months later. Madeline stayed in Washington, d c. She worked briefly for the Department of Agriculture and then for the Census Bureau. Breckon Ranche had used his influence to assist was securing both of those jobs, although she had to pass a civil service exam on her own to be eligible, which she did, although her grade was apparently kind of like you squeaked through. At the Census Bureau, she worked first as a computer and then she was promoted to copyist. But just as with her time at Sayer, she missed a lot of days of work, reported sixty two days in eighteen ninety and seventy one days in the first half of eighteen ninety one alone. We only have numbers for the first half of one because she was let go from that job in June. At that point, the ninety census was completed and the workforce was being reduced, and the inconsistent record for Pollard surely made her an easy candidate to dismiss. Throughout all of this, she was still receiving money from James Rhodes. He had continued to send her funds for her expenses. He had visited her from time to time, still believing he was investing in their future together. As always, Madeline promised him that she would repay him, but James Rhodes died in eighteen ninety. Madeline had never paid him back, but at this point she no longer had to be worried about that marriage clause. To be clear, Madeline Pollard was not some isolated other woman who was living only to go to her job and then moreover to be with her paramore. She had a rich social life in Washington, d c. Which was often completely separate from breckon Ridge, and she managed to make friends with some influential people thanks to that charming personality that she had. She met people like novelist, essayist and friend of Mark Twain, Charles Dudley Warner. She also met an innkeeper named Joseph Battell, Who's bread Loaf in famously hosted and still hosts Writer's retreats. Betel asked Madeline to be his guest at his expense at the two summer retreat, and during that summer she captured the attention of many of the other guests, who really believed that she was super bright and that she was destined for greatness. That same summer, as Pollard was finally moving in the circle she had really always dreamed of, and was accepted and even lauded for her talent in those circles. William Breckinridge's wife, is Adesha Breckinridge, died, so to Magdalene, this seemed like all the pieces of her life were falling into place. She was on her chosen career path. The man she had been with for years, even though he was married, would now be able to marry her after a suitable morning period. But as soon as Madeline started to push the congressman for a marriage plan, his affection for her cooled. She suggested that she attends school abroad for two years, after which she could return and they could get married. That way, she would be more educated and worldly, and he would have, you know, done the appropriate time of of being a widower. And breckan Ridge was willing to pay for the additional education. He actually wanted some distance from the relationship because he was afraid that if he publicly acknowledged his involvement with Pollard, it was all going to come out that they had actually been together for a long time while he was still married. But then when he refused to agree to an official engagement before Madeline went to Europe to study, she called the whole plan off and instead she stayed in Washington, d c. Madeline was pregnant again in the winner of two and ninety three, and this was something that breckon Ridge welcomed, not because he wanted a child with Madeleine, but because he saw it as a way to postpone any talk of marriage until after the baby came. Madeleine had a pregnancy loss, and may of she went to Virginia after that to stay with friends. But then she did something rather rash. In June, Madeline reached out to the Washington Post and had them run an engagement announcement for her and Congressman Breckinridge. This was actually not the first time an engagement between them had been noted in the papers. It had been rumored even before that. Uh and some historians have interpreted this to have been not a rash or sneaky act, but something Madeline simply thought it was time to do. There are also some accounts that make it seem like this was maybe more of a back and forth between the two of them, where she was pressuring him, like the rumors had come up. He had denied those rumors, and she had been like, I'm just gonna put it in the paper and make this a done deal. What she did not know, though, when all of this was happening, was that in April of eight, so before she lost her pregnancy, Breckinridge had already secretly remarried. His new wife was, of course, not Madeline Pollard, but instead a woman from Louisville, Kentucky named Louise Scott Wing. So when the Post ran this thing engagement notice, Breckenridge immediately denied any involvement with Madeline Pollard, claiming that she was just some woman who had a crush on him, kind of suggesting that she was stalking him. And then he announced his engagement to Louise Scott Wing in July, and they had a second public wedding right away. Yeah, Louise Scott Wing had come up as a topic between the two of them because people had reported to Madeline like, oh, I saw Breckenridge at an event with this woman and she had questioned him about it. He was like, no, no, no, I'm not involved with her. Uh So, after all of this came out publicly in August, Madeline Pollard sued William C. P. Breckenridge for breach of promise he had per the plaintiff promised to marry her and had not. Her filing read quote, the plaintiff averse that the defendant, by wiles and artifices, not only won her affections, but finally and fully dominated and controlled her and her life, and that the defense then about the month of August eighteen ninety two, promised plaintiff to marry her, and that the plaintiff confided in the defendants promise and remained single. Pollard was seeking fifty thousand dollars in damages. We will dig into the lawsuit and the trial after we hear from the sponsors who keep stuffy missed in history class going. So, the type of suit that Madeline filed was really not all that unusual at the time. This offered an opportunity for a woman, at least a white middle class woman, to recuperate her social standing after the embarrassment of having an engagement broken. It also gave a woman who had been sexually involved with their fiancee a way to possibly rehabilitate their reputation to a small degree by placing the responsibility for their relationship on the man. And since a woman in such a circumstance was likely to find difficult to find another suitor, and since a recanted engagement, even without any sexual scandal attached, also meant that the woman in question was left without the financial support she had likely been counting on, it also offered a way to get a payout that might cover her financial needs at least for a little while. But this case was, of course much different than most such filings. The man involved was a congressman, and the woman claimed they had been in a romantic relationship for years. The mechanism of breckon Ridge's defense went into action to defame Pollard quickly the same day that the suit became public knowledge. As this case heated up and the spotlight was shown on Breckenridge, he turned from denying the relationship to acknowledging it. And smearing Pollard, particularly taking up the idea that she was promiscuous as a way to discredit her. But Madeline took matters and her reputation into her own hands, and she wrote her life story up for publication in the tabloid New York World. She insisted in the article that William Breckinridge was the only man she had ever been sexually involved with. She also sought to establish that she was not some woman that the congressman merely sought out for a physical relationship, but that they had lived fully as a couple and in many ways his companions, and that she had even worked on his speeches with him. Breckenridge decided to dig into his long time mistress's life as well as to see what could be found to use against her, and in this effort he hired a spy. That spy's name was Jane Armstrong Tucker, those she presented herself to Madeleine as Agnes Parker. At the time, Madeline was staying at a convent in Washington, d C. To try to keep out of the public eye, and Jane or Agnes appeared as a fallen woman in need at the same convent. She made friends with Pollard. Jane, who went by Jenny, only stayed at the convent for a week. She fund it frankly awful, but she kept in touch with Madeleine. She realized that Pollard's life story was sort of a pastiche pieced together from other people's life stories. Jenny passed every scrap of information she could get to Breckenridge and his lawyers as the trial played out. She gave them heads up about upcoming plans from Pollard's legal team and witnesses they expected to call things like that, Yeah, Jenny's whole story is also interesting. We might touch on it a little bit. In the behind the scenes, Madeleine was represented by former Congressman Jerry Wilson and called her on Carlyle, a member of a powerful Kentucky family of lawyers. Breckenridge, unsurprisingly had a large team led by former Congressman Benjamin Butterworth and Philip B. Thompson Jr. Which also included Breckenridge's partner in his law firm. Remember, he would have been very lawyered up, and that was John Shelby and Short. The defenses plan of attack was to smear Idle and Pollard. Her family's poverty was invoked as some kind of proof that she was morally corrupt. It was suggested that Breckinridge was one of many men she had been sexually involved with, and that her goal was always to get money from her romantic partners. The entire case was one that attacked Pollard specifically, but also made clear that women were either virtuous or adulterous, with no nuance in the matter. One of the congressman's defenders wrote, quote, every well informed physician who has had much experience with the treatment of diseases peculiar to women knows that a woman who will have illicit sexual intercourse with one man will with another. The steam that came out of my ears when I first read this a statement from the congressman's legal team about Pollard's character read quote, it is a natural evolution, a gradual and symmetrical development. A forward girl, then free and fast in her conduct, then permitting liberty, then selling herself, then living permanently and regularly on her unchastity, a life of merchandise in which she obtained support, et cetera for her favors, and always a life of deception and lying and finally a mere adventurous gloating in shameless notoriety. The entire case of the defense was built on the idea that Pollard had been in a sexual relationship with a lot of men before she met Breckinridge, and there were plenty of people who wrote testimonies to support that case. Some were merely repeating gossip that they had heard about or claimed to know about Pollard having been involved with other men, but some were written by men claiming that they themselves had been involved with her at one time or another. Some of this testimony was described in the papers as quote very vulgar, even indecent. In the language used by the opponents. Many of the men who gave depositions described her as quote a woman of the town. That was a euphemism for a sex worker. One man, an alderman from Lexington named W. T. Jones, deposed that he had met Pollard at Cincinnati wesley In College while she was there. Jones was a friend of the college's president, and he said in his deposition that Pollard had told him about James Rhodes, and that Rhodes was quote an ignorant old farmer. That she did not intend to marry him, although she did, even, per his testimony, intend to pay him back for her school tuition. During the trial, the question of Madeline's age was brought up. Breckinridge said that Pollard was several years older than she claimed, in her twenties when they met, and that she was not an innocent schoolgirl, but an experienced woman who was using him for money. She was described as a quote disappointed, vindictive, adventurous. Breckinridge himself, of course, was characterized by his defense as a noble gentleman who had just made a mistake. For nine years, his defense made him out to be this man who had caved into the seductions of a woman who was then held hostage by that secret and her threats to reveal it. She was described by his legal team again in many ways, but also as quote utterly depraved where morality is concerned. As Pollard became the subject of countless articles covering the trial, she was characterized in two ways in the press. To some, she was a woman who had been an immature student when Breckenridge, who was a man in his late forties, had lured her into a romantic relationship. To others, she was as Breckinridge's defense had cast her a schemer and a social climber who was trying to use a man well above her station to advance her own position in life. And Madeline Pollard had wanted to move upward in society, but her version of the story focused on her desire well before she met Breckenridge to have a career. What she wanted was to be a teacher or a writer. But while that is a perfectly reasonable thing to want, it came with its own baggage in the courtroom because she was seen as wanting to be an independent woman versus being put in a position where she had to support herself, and so that was cast in a negative light by a large portion of society. It just didn't fit the widely held ideal of a woman who wanted to be a mother and a wife. Breckon Ridge's defense, of course, exploited this social moray in their case, using Pollard's independence against her as some sort of moral failing all on its own. Pollard was characterized as a woman who had no real literary ambitions, but who had merely claimed that to be the case as part of her scam. As part of this depiction attorney Charles Stull, who represented Breckinridge, read some of Pollard's writing allowed to the court to show that she was a talentless dilettante, just feigning literary interest as part of the fake person as she used to trick men and get them to give her money. Yeah, there's some interesting talk about that writing that was read because her legal team is like, she was very young and had not had like the same degree of education as other people that you know would write things like this at the time, so of course it is not as refined and beautiful as someone who does have that benefit. But they were like, no, she was just faking it. The testimony in this trial went on for almost six weeks, and there were legitimately plenty of instances that were truly damning for Pollard. Uh. If you'll remember that friend of the family who introduced her to the Cincinnati Wesleyan president so she could be admitted to the college. Uh. It turns out that Rank and Russell and Madeline did have some sort of romantic relationship after they met, and that relationship was brought up in the breck and Ridge trial to establish that she was no innocent girl when she met the congressman. Russell had made frequent visits to the school to see Madeleine. They had discut traveling together, although it doesn't appear that such a trip ever took place. It came out that the two had been engaged, which was especially bad for Pollard's image, that she was contractually bound in sort of a pseudo engagement to Rhodes at the time. Russell testified that when he visited Madeleine at school, she would sit in his lap in the parlor, sometimes for as long as an hour and a half. This particular point was greeted with some incredulity by the judge. He thought it odd that nobody at the school would have interrupted them, but Russell was adamant that he told the truth. When Pollard was questioned about being with Breckinridge and entangled with Roads and engaged to Russell at the same time, she acknowledged quote, yes, as bad as it sounds, that was the condition. Madeline had appeared in court for her testimony, accompanied by a nun. She was very aggressively questioned by the defense, of course, but she was always consistent in her accounts of events. When she spoke of of her children. At Breckinridge's insistence, she said she did it because she loved him and she wanted to be with him, but that it also deeply hurt her. She believed that the babies had died because she was not there to care for them, and while talking about her to see son, the second child, she fainted on the stand. Things really did not look great for Madeline Pollard in terms of her reputation. Unlike breck and Ridge, she had witnesses who corroborated her story, but the real strength of Pollard's case rested on the testimony of one woman, Julia Blackburn. Mrs Blackburn was one of the influential friends that Madeline had made during her relationship with Breckenridge. Julia Blackburn was the widow of Luke Prior Blackburn, who had served as a representative and as governor of Kentucky. She was well connected and well respected in Washington, d c. Society, and she told the court that breck and Ridge had indeed said to her that he intended to marry Miss Pollard. This was something that breckon Ridge initially denied. He told the court under questioning that he believed that Mrs Blackburn had confused some dates and some events, and that she was attributing things to him that had actually been said by Madeline Pollard. But he shifted that confident assertion under further questioning and later said that he had, in a moment of excitement, told Pollard that he would marry her, but he insisted that that was not a promise and thus could not be something that he was held to. The salacious nature of this case had drawn a lot of attention, and the courtroom was continually packed with spectators waiting to hear the next juicy piece of information. Women were not allowed by Judge Bradley when evidence was anticipated that might not be appropriate in the judge's opinion for ladies to hear, but the men who showed up to watch were often rowdy. This really irritated the judge to the point that he chastised them in early April, as reported in the Los Angeles Harold quote, Judge Bradley has meantime been smothering a growing feeling of disgust. Tonight, his emotions past the safety gauge, and he gave some of these people such a pointed tongue lashing as has rarely been heard in a courtroom in April of the trial ended, and despite the avalanche of depositions and testimonies given to discredit Madeline Pollard, the jury found in her favor. They may have even believed every single one of the accusations against her character, although in a lot of them she did have uh people who were like that couldn't have happened. She wasn't involved with that man. I knew her at this place, at a different at the exact same time. So even so, none of that mattered because the testimony of Julia blackburne, a woman whose integrity was believed to be above reproach, had been all that was needed to establish that William Breckinridge had acknowledged and understanding that marriage was in the future for him and Madeline. Breckon Ridge placed the blame for the outcome squarely on Julia Blackburn, later saying quote, there would have been no scandal but for Mrs b Madeleine was awarded fifteen thousand dollars, but her life after the trial was not all rosy. She had won the suit and had garnered a following and offers for lecture circuit bookings. She had also gained a number of gentlemen admirers who wrote her poetic letters. But though to some she represented a moment in time where the role of women was changing, there was still a big portion of society who just saw her as damaged goods. Her name became a sort of a shorthand for women who had been ruined by men and discarded. It was not exactly a legacy anyone would want. She made families reconsider the idea of sending their daughters away to school for fear that they might similarly fall in love with an older man. It made women keenly aware of how easily they could be deemed unsuitable for marriage or society through their romantic associations. And for many that's where her story just sort of freezes in time. But she actually lived a long time after the trial. Yeah. Madeline traveled to Europe after the trial concluded. Although she had not and would not ever receive her money from brecon Ridge, she was living in London by Pollard actually built a life for herself that sounds honestly delightful. She shared an apartment in Chelsea with a wealthy widow named Violet Haszard, and she traveled with Violet throughout Europe. She also returned to the US to visit on several occasions. She always identified herself as a student or a writer on her passport. She enjoyed a healthy social life. She had interesting friends, and while she didn't ever publish anything herself, she did continue to be friends with a lot of artists and writers. And the aftermath of the trial, Breckinridge became a target of women's groups. His cavalier attitude and how he spoke about Pollard during the trial, as though he were somehow entitled to her companionship and that she was causing his trouble when she should have accepted her lot in life. I really did not help him. There were protests against the obvious moral double standard that was revealed in the court proceedings. Some wanted Breckinridge to lose his congressional seat on the grounds of immorality, and people reached out to his voter base to campaign against him. Some groups pressured Breckinridge's new wife to leave him. She certainly had the grounds, given that he was still involved with Pollard, who was pregnant at the time that they married. Breckinridge lost his next election to Congress in eighteen six. A number of different women's groups had campaigned heavily for his opponent. He died on November nineteenth of nineteen o four after having two strokes. Madeleine's dear friend Violet died in the summer of nineteen forty five, and Madeline died in Devon six months later on December nine. She maintained that her year of birth had been eighteen sixty six and that would have made her seventy nine when she died. I have so much anger to discuss during behind the scenes, but I have um a fun and a very sweet and brief Listener mail which I wanted a feature because it involves pictures of animals and not just kiddies. It is from our listener Colleen, who writes Deer, Holly and Tracy. I have written to you in the past, and I was featured in Listener Mail, but I just wanted to thank you again for all that you do. Like many others, I have struggled during the pandemic. The constant worrying, vigilance and frustration has not been easy for me, as I know it has not been for literally millions of others. Stuff you missed in history class has been a lifeline for me. Especially recently is the spread of Oh Macron makes it feel more like two. I always learned so much from the podcast, and I have really enjoyed the behind the scenes episodes as well. They're so fun and dishy, and I love hearing your different perspectives and stories. So thank you again for teaching me, inspiring me, and keeping me and many others company during these difficult times. I've attached a couple of pet photos of my cat, adorable and horse that I hope will brighten your days. Naru is my dear old lady cat who we called Tutor because she is truly full of musical fruit. Duchess is the pony I always wanted, and while she makes you earn her love, it is so worth it. Um okay, I love listen I have. I'm running a geriatric cat home. I understand her her cats gas issues. Um and uh. Duchess is absolutely beautiful. So thank you so much Colleen for sharing these pictures. They are absolutely lovely and I always love a delightful little pet interlude. And we don't often get horses, so that's always a fun one to add. If you would like to write to us, you can do so at History podcast at i heart radio dot com. You can also find us on social media as Missed in History, and you can subscribe to the show on the I heart Radio app or wherever you listen to podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.