Every once in awhile I abandon methodical research and do some desultory internet browsing related to a research project, just to see what Uncle Google has to offer. I find a rabbit-hole and fall through, clicking links in a sort of inattentive, lazy way. I was, in fact, rabbit-holing just last week, trying to find a new angle on my exploration of Spiritualism and childhood.
I found this article from the Chicago Tribune, dated 1 November 1909:
SPEECHES BY LITTLE FOLKS. Perfection. Speeches by little folks are definitely my jam.
And after spending a few weeks eyeballs-deep in Spiritualist periodicals, searching for the children’s columns in newspapers with titles like Carrier Dove and Banner of Light, it was refreshing to read an article that certainly did not take the mediumistic powers of young people seriously. While (according to this Tribune writer) each young person participating in this “children’s meeting” was instructed to delay speaking until prompted to do sp by a “control,” or spirit, most did not have such patience and instead began immediately.
It really feels like an old-timey marshmallow test, and these child mediums can’t help themselves. They are ready to testify, and they don’t need to wait for some spooky voice from beyond.
But what I really appreciate about a find like this, aside from the fact that it clued me in that such meetings of child Spiritualists took place — to the library! — is that it offers me the first of what will likely become many counterpoints to all those sources I’ve already found that take child mediumship very, very seriously. I’m not particularly interested in making child mediums ridiculous, something this writer obviously delights in doing. (Later in the article, the writer notes that the children’s “hurried efforts to get rid of their orations reminded some of the elders present of the ‘last day of school’ programs they had seen in the primary grades.”) But now that I have in place two contradictory takes on child mediums in place — reverent and ridiculous — I can start filling the nuanced space between.
Victoria Ford Smith 