Welcome to Unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky.

Today's guest interview is author and journalist Mary Gabriel.

Her books have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National

Book Critics Circle Award.

For nearly two decades, she worked in Washington and London as an editor for Reuters.

Her biography of Victoria Woodhall, notorious Victoria, isn't the only book that sent Mary

Gabriel into the past, though.

She also wrote a dual biography on Carl and Jenny Marx, and when researcher Carl Nellis

talked with Mary, they explored beyond the life of Victoria Woodhall's radical comrades

to discuss how Mrs. Satan's political career fits into the bigger picture.

It's a fascinating interview, and I can't wait to share it with you.

So without further ado, here's Mary Gabriel.

This is the Unobscured Interview Series for Season 2.

I'm Aaron Minky.

A spiritualist, you know, I think from our point of view, you think of someone raising

tables and sitting in a darkened room with a group of people, communing with the dead.

And that was part of it, but really interestingly, spiritualism in the 19th century was a way

for people who didn't have a political or a social voice, i.e. women, to have one.

So that's in the case of Victoria Woodhall.

That's what spiritualism was for her.

What that meant was that she could almost act as a therapist or any of the spiritualist

healers who were traveling around the country, almost acted as spiritualists, sorry, as

...