About the Author
BARBARA SOUTHARD grew up in New York City, holds a PhD in history from the University of Hawaii, and has served as a professor of history, Chairperson of the History Department, and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at the Río Piedras Campus of the University of Puerto Rico. She is the author of a book on Indian history, The Women’s Movement and Colonial Politics in Bengal, 1921–1936, and has also published numerous articles in history journals. Barbara has also published short stories in literary journals, and she is the author of The Pinch of the Crab, a collection of ten stories set in Puerto Rico, exploring social conflicts of island life, mostly from the female perspective. Differing concepts of gender roles and conflicting political and social ideals are important themes. In Unruly Human Hearts, her new novel based on the Beecher-Tilton scandal, Barbara once again explores personal rises embed in social conflict from the point of view of a woman protagonist, but in a different place and a different epoch. Barbara has also been active in raising funds for the Shonali Choudhury Fund of the Community Foundation of Puerto Rico, helping local community organizations working to protect women from domestic violence. She does this work in honor of her daughter, a public health professor who died of a brain tumor.
What inspired me to write Unruly Human Hearts?
It all began in the classroom. While teaching a seminar on the history of women in the United States, I became intrigued by the trial of Henry Ward Beecher, the most famous Protestant minister of his day for “criminal conversation” with Elizabeth Tilton, a member of his congregation and the wife of his intimate friend, Theodore Tilton. I remember telling my students that this trial caused as much sensation in 1875 as the impeachment of President Clinton in 1998. One student pointed out that Bill Clinton went on with his career, whereas Monica’s life was devastated. What about Elizabeth?
This classroom discussion transported me back to my own youth. My journey to adulthood took place in the 1960s and 1970s, a time of radical movements for racial and gender equality as well as sexual liberation, including open marriage. Elizabeth’s journey took place in the 1860s and 1870s, a hundred years before, an epoch when radicals fought for suffrage for women and freed slaves, and a smaller group advocated free love. The parallels fascinated me.
I began to explore the historical sources in earnest. Elizabeth was a puzzle to her contemporaries, who followed the church investigation and the civil trial with avid interest, because she seemed to be a conventional woman who defined herself as a wife and mother, and yet was accused of holding beliefs and engaging in conduct that challenged the core values of Victorian society. Why was Elizabeth drawn to the gospel of love and the doctrine of free love? Once the scandal broke, how did she deal with the moral dilemma of being forced to take a position against on or the other of the two men she loved as well as with the fear of losing her position in society, her marriage and her children?
I remember a student remarking to me that there seemed to be more depth of feeling between Elizabeth and Henry than between Bill and Monica. After immersing myself in the historical sources, I became convinced that there were deep emotional bonds among all three of the principals in the Beecher-Tilton scandal, making the affair a true love triangle. Personal ties were strengthened by their involvement, in various degrees, with the reform movements to promote the rights of women and former slaves as well as with the reinterpretation of the Calvinist religious heritage.
My first attempt to come to grips with the story of Elizabeth, Theodore and Henry was the preparation of a brief historical study of the impact of the gospel of love on the position of women. It was challenging to envision the scandal and its repercussions from the point of view of Elizabeth, the only protagonist who lacked a public platform, whose motivations and feelings were difficult to untangle. I soon decided that her life merited a deeper exploration that would only be possible in a work of historical fiction. The complexity of conflicting emotions experienced by all three participants in the triangle, as well as the shifting ground of multiple power struggles, would be best served in a novel. The next step was the writing of Unruly Human Hearts.
Lunch with my History Department colleagues who encouraged my research on Elizabeth
