AMY POST
Amy Post and her husband Isaac were Quakers living in Rochester, New York who actively promoted social reforms such as the abolition of slavery and women's rights. They were also two of the earliest supporters of the Fox Sisters and Spiritualism.
It seems strange that people as educated and intelligent as the Posts would have been taken in by a fraud. However, when one considers just how useful those spirit messages could be—how often they advocated the abolition of slavery, and how positively they asserted the rights of women—perhaps it makes more sense. In fact, Spiritualism became so entwined with the twin reforms of rights for women and African-Americans that slave states began to blame spirit circles for fomenting the Civil War and tried to link the movement with witchcraft. In High Spirits, I have chosen to make Amy Post a knowing participant in the fraud who supports Spiritualism as a useful tool.
In real life, whether Amy Post believed in the rapping spirits or whether she saw Spiritualism as a vehicle for political expression, she proved herself a true friend to the Fox Sisters on several occasions. She stood on stage with them at the Corinthian Hall demonstration and faced an angry mob. And when the "Ladies' Committee" stripped Leah and Maggie down to their undergarments in an attempt to find some mechanism by which they created the rapping, Amy stepped in and threw the offending women out of her home.
Learn more about Amy Post and her politcal activities by following the links below:
A Biography of New York Suffragettes
The Underground Railroad in Rochester, written by Amy Post
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