Transcript

Introduction to Isabella Stewart Gardner and her museum

Music

Jake:
[0:04] Welcome to Hub History, where we go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the hub of the universe.
This is episode 2 83 the Lioness of Boston with Emily Franklin.
Hi, I’m Jake.
This week, I’m talking about Isabella Stewart Gardner, a consummate collector, generous philanthropist, and a rabid Red Sox fan.

[0:30] She’s best known today as the namesake of an art museum in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood.
And if we’re gonna be honest, the museum’s probably best known for a famous 1990 heist in just a few minutes.
I’m gonna be joined by author Emily Franklin, whose new novel, The Lioness of Boston and explores the person behind the gardener fortune.
We’ll talk about the great romance, tragedy, and scandal of Isabella’s life, the different personas that she tried on throughout different eras of her life and her obsession with the idea of a legacy.
We’ll also talk about what makes historical fiction different from biography and the freedom and limitations that the genre brings before I introduce Emily.
I just want to pause and say a big thank you to Mariana M and Carrie J.
Our latest sponsors on Patreon, Carri Mariana and listeners like them literally make this show possible.
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[1:52] Mariana I should mention is also a friend in real life so big. Thank you to Mariana.
Thanks also to Carrie and to everyone who chips in to help me make hub history.

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Introducing Emily Franklin and her novel “The Lioness of Boston”

 

[2:24] I’m joined now by Emily Franklin. Emily has written over 15 novels for both young adults and adults as well as contributing to anthologies on topics is vary to surviving high school and the films of John Hughes.
The lioness of Boston is her first work of historical fiction, recounting the life and imagining the inner world of adoptive Bostonian Isabella Stewart Gardner, as we’ll discuss in a few minutes, she was inspired to write the book by a lifetime of visits to Isabella’s museum.
And now having written the book, gives her a new perspective on the museum that she’s known so long.
Emily will explain why Boston at first turned up its nose at wealthy young Isabella, but later came to embrace the flamboyant and eccentric Mrs Jack as one of our most colorful and generous characters, Emily lives in the Boston area with, as her bio points out two dogs large enough to be lions.
Emily Franklin. Welcome to the show.

Emily Franklin:
[3:26] Thank you so much for having me.

Jake:
[3:28] The Lioness of Boston. Isn’t your first novel by any means? But is this your first historical novel?

Emily Franklin:
[3:34] It is. It is. It’s not my last. It won’t be my last, but it’s my first.

Jake:
[3:38] I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about how the process the writing or the research process for a work of historical fiction is different than the books you’ve released in the past.

Emily Franklin:
[3:49] I think for me, it was really wonderful to have the scaffolding of a real life to work with.
So we know that Isabella Stewart Gardner created this museum in Boston.
And we know the sort of mythology around her life and maybe some anecdotes about her walking lions down Commonwealth Avenue or something like that.
But there’s actually not that much else known widely about her.
And so for me, I could start with research.
Where did she live? Uh What countries did she visit?
Who were her friends, all of the Boston history that’s happening at the same time.
And so I tried to keep to the scaffolding um of her life and the timeline of her life.
And then once I had that sense, and I’m creating a character because it’s still, as you say, it’s a novel. It’s not a biography.
I’m trying to use the historical details and it’s a thoroughly, deeply researched novel.
I’m very curious and you know, I’m as interested in the history of Boston Street Lamps as I am, you know, the museum that Isabella Star Gardner created.
So I wanna give the reader a real 3 60 feeling of being 100% in that time period.
And so my job is to sort of carefully balance that historical detail and that research with creating a page turning novel that people are gonna wanna read.

Creating fictional letters based on research and source materials

Jake:
[5:09] Like you say, it’s a carefully researched novel. There are definitely letters interspersed throughout the book that I assume are, you know, taken from her papers.

Emily Franklin:
[5:17] No, they’re all my creation. Yes.

Jake:
[5:19] Oh, really? Ok.

Emily Franklin:
[5:20] So, so that’s often when I’ve done these speaking engagements and events, people are, are sometimes surprised to find out that they are not real letters, they are letters that I created that are again very researched, whether it’s Charles Elliott Norton, you know, the first professor of art history at Harvard who’s writing or a character, you know, one of her close friends is her sister-in-law Julia.
Um those letters don’t exist in real life. And so it’s like the blessing and the curse.
So on the one hand, I have to do enough research that I know the voice and I know what I’m talking about.
But then the great blessing as a fiction writer is being able to explore like that on the page and create letters that suit the narrative and move the narrative forward both in time and place and also sort of show the connections and these deep friendships that were, were being forged.

Jake:
[6:09] So without those letters, what kind of sources were you calling on to help shape the characters in the book?
And the sort of the, the voice of the characters in the book?

Emily Franklin:
[6:18] Yeah, I mean some letters exist. So there are 40 years worth of letters that Isabella Stewart Gardner exchanged with one of her best friends who was Henry James.
There is a similarly doorstop thick book of her letters with Bernard Berenson, you know, who became one of the most famous art historians in the world.
And, and he was a, a student that she sponsored when he was at Harvard.
But in terms of finding the voice of people, it’s really doing my, my fiction writer’s job, which is trying to find any source material, whether it’s an article that was written back in a Boston paper and, and hearing a, a, you know, a quotation from them or sort of finding objects and their provenance that are now, you know, at the museum and creating scenes around those and then writing letters from those scenes.
You know, there are some descriptions of Bernard Barron and being at a, an art auction in Paris with Isabella.
And so I can sort of take from that and say, OK, this is the, the basic framework of that scene and then create the voices from there.

Utilizing personal experiences and historical speech patterns

 

[7:24] And, you know, I grew up half in London and half in Boston.

[7:28] So some of the dialogue, some of the cadence, you know, was um fairly natural for me to come by.
A lot of the, the historical speech is patterned after, you know, European uh and European immigrants.
And so that was sort of uh useful, I guess my, my nomadic upbringing.

Jake:
[7:49] Speaking of a nomadic upbringing, Isabella Stuart Gardner was a transplant to Boston as you put yourself sort of in the shoes of Isabella readers.
Might be a little bit surprised how much of a, a social outcast she felt like after she arrived here in Boston, why do you think that she found herself in that position?

Emily Franklin:
[8:10] Well, I think there were multiple reasons why. And I think you’re right.
I think people sort of assume that with the museum, she was a Boston socialite, had money and made a museum.
Um But it was really not a simple journey. She was born in New York and she was born into privilege.
But she, when she moved to Boston, she was a social outcast.
So both because she was not a true Bostonian, the Boston, you know, society was pretty closed. Um at that point.
Um And the other issues that she had were that she primarily spoke her mind and that was not a welcome addition to the Boston dinner table.
And so that was frowned upon, she had opinions.
She didn’t play the sort of social game that women of her social circle were supposed to play.

[8:57] And so she failed at that. And then she also had, had a few social missteps um as a young woman and she had flirted with the wrong men and she had danced with a prince who was meant to be betrothed or have a dance with one of the old Boston families, you know, assault and stall or a brewster or a coffin or one of the names that we all see on all of the street signs still.
Um And so she and Boston had a really long memory for these social missteps.
And Isabella greatly misconstrued people’s invitations as signs of friendships, but they weren’t sign of friendships.
They were just sort of, she was invited to places only because of Jack Gardner, her husband.
And so she dealt with a lot of ostracizing as a young person.

Isabella’s social missteps and misconstrued friendships in Boston

Jake:
[9:43] Do you think if she and Jack had settled in New York instead of Boston she would have fit in better there, or was her sort of outspoken nature?
Just not a good fit for that high society lifestyle.

Emily Franklin:
[9:54] That is a really good question. I suspect New York would have been more forgiving both because newer money there was not as frowned upon as it was in Boston.
I mean, if you think about sort of the age of innocence and the Edith Wharton uh narratives, I think Isabella might have fit in better there, but she wouldn’t have been a perfect fit because again, she, she might have gone to the balls and she might have gone to these fancy dinners, but she still said outrageous things or outrageous for the time.
And she didn’t fit the mold of a sort of upper class woman at the time.
And so in that way, she was always going to rub people the wrong way and be up on the outskirts.

Jake:
[10:36] In the book, at least Jack Gardner’s painted as, as more or less accepting of Isabella’s outspoken nature and it sort of takes some of those social missteps in stride, but it shines through that sometimes, even he wishes that she would just fit in.

Emily Franklin:
[10:53] True, true. I mean, I think their marriage which lasted, you know, for so long and she was truly devastated, um, when he died.
But, you know, they stayed married, their, their marriage was a mix of admiration and tolerance.
I think as many marriages are.
And I’m sure that he was drawn to her wit and her sort of lively nature, her outspoken nature and she was drawn to his steadfast nature and his relia his reliable personhood.
And at the same time, often what draws us to people is also what annoys us later on.
So I think that they had to find tolerance for each other.
And certainly, you know, she was outspoken at the beginning and then her sort of social escapade in Boston really made her a bit of a Boston celebrity before celebrity culture.
And I’m sure that that was both um enchanting and embarrassing for him.

Jake:
[11:46] How much of that attitude, that so sort of the acceptance is your invention and how much could you find the documentary basis for?
How much of that is just the, the historical fiction process rather than the research process?

Emily Franklin:
[12:00] Well, I mean, I think the main research is they stayed married, you know, they stayed married and there’s no evidence that Jack had any alliances other than being completely obsessed with the America’s Cup, which he was and he often, you know, took his lunches or dinners at his men’s clubs, but that was not unusual.
So I think that’s the main evidence, you know, he seemed to genuinely love her.

Jack’s Love for Isabella: Creating Space for Her Collections

 

[12:22] And I think one good example of this in concrete terms is after Isabella, you know, began acquiring first rare books and then tons and tons of art.
Um, you know, master works of art and architectural finds and all sorts of things.
She had so much stuff, it, it wouldn’t fit in their Beacon Street house.
And he, as a sort of love note to her, broke through to the house next door to give more space to the stuff that she was collecting on these trips.
And these are trips that she sometimes went on without him.
So I think that is, that’s part of love too. So he created more wall space and more space for her stuff.
And then eventually when she wanted to open this museum and everybody again thought she was bonkers.
He supported her and said, ok, great. Let’s go build a museum in a swamp.
Sounds like a great idea.

Jake:
[13:15] Most of the book does take place a little bit later in their lives together, but you deal with their introduction a little bit in a, in a flashback sequence.
What was their meeting and their courtship? Like, how did Jack and Isabella get started together?

Emily Franklin:
[13:29] All we really know about their courtship was, um Isabella left New York and went to finishing school in Paris.
And that is where she met Julia Coolidge Gardner who was um Jack Gardner’s sister.

[13:44] And they became best friends.
So Isabella would visit her sometimes in Boston.
And on these trips, she got to know Julia’s brother Jack and that is the beginning of their courtship.
And we, there’s one scene that I detail in the novel, which is, um, again, everything’s really based on, on real stuff for the most part.
Um, there, there was a huge slay, I mean, it was like the size of a living room and it was called Cleopatra Barge and they went on this huge Slay ride.
There are 20 people in the Slay. So you can imagine how large it was and they slayed from downtown Boston to Milton to the Forbes Place out there.
And so, um, in that, that was one of their early sort of flirty courting dates, I guess, but it was really like a group date and everybody was in high spirits and, um, joking and laughing.
And, um, actually in that Slay was another person, um, Theodore Lyman who was a Harvard Museum of Natural History Scientist.
And he was on that trip too. And that becomes a really important friendship for Isabella because it’s through Ted Lyman that he, uh, she meets Charles Elliott Norton who is the key to the rest of her intellectual life and her art life.
Jack and, and, um, Isabella were very flirty on that trip and, and I guess the rest is history.

Jake:
[15:09] Uh it just strikes me that I’ve actually seen an engraving of Cleopatra’s barge in the streets of Boston.
It is an enormous, like, like eight horses pulling it or something like that.
So I will turn up that engraving and include it in the show notes this week for listeners to enjoy.

Emily Franklin:
[15:27] Yeah. And it’s really funny to picture going. It’s quite a long ways to go from, you know, Beacon Hill area to Milton.

Jake:
[15:32] Yeah, Milton.

Emily Franklin:
[15:34] And it is really funny to just picture like, oh, let’s all, just pile in all 20 of us.

Jake:
[15:39] You know, that takes me to a question. I was probably gonna pepper in later but you, you mentioned that they barged, they slayed, they cleopatra uh to, to the Forbes House. I think you said, right?
I recently this spring sometime I visited the Forbes House for the first time and they were having an exhibit really reflecting on the family’s involvement with the opium trade, which you have Isabella reflect on in maybe chapter nine.
She’s, and she sort of thinks about how it’s a messy way to make money in a way.
But it does, you know, it brings in this vast wealth and it enables them as collectors and especially as philanthropists.
The Forbes family is involved in a lot of good works at that point.

Emily Franklin:
[16:24] I think she’s reflecting on the Perkins family and their, their opium trade and all of all of that.
But they also, you know, fund Mass General Hospital and Perkins School for the blind.
And, you know, I wanted Isabella any time I delved into issues like that.
And we don’t know whether Isabella actually pondered all of these things.
But it’s my job as the author to sort of make sure I’m creating a character who doesn’t only arrive at the end of her life as this forward thinking feminist supporter of outcast people, people who were overlooked by society, whether they were Jewish or gay, nobody just arrives at that point, they are becoming that person.
So how are they becoming this person?
So it’s my job as an author to sort of lead the Breadcrumb trail so that it makes sense.
And it was impossible for me as a human.

[17:16] And the kind of human that I am to be writing historic fiction and not be thinking about the Boston geography that places, you know, white residents literally on a hill looking down on the African Meeting House that was built in 18 06.
And it was impossible for me to write about the Perkins family and Boston history without also delving into the intentional enslavement of people, uh, you know, in their shipping trade.
And so I had to tread again this careful line between me, Emily Franklin, my point of view and what might Isabella who didn’t fit in and who was always accused of thinking too much about things and what might she sort of express and think about? So it was, it was a combination.

Jake:
[18:03] With the Perkins and the Forbess and so many families deriving their vast wealth from the opium trade.
It, it really has some parallels to modern Boston’s struggle with the current opiate crisis.

Emily Franklin:
[18:15] Exactly. Yeah.

Jake:
[18:15] And you know, there are families out there who benefit greatly from that as well.

Emily Franklin:
[18:19] Exactly. And I think, you know, for me, a lot of the pull of historic fiction is not just delving into the actual history that this, this particular story, this particular woman, but what are the parallels that we’re drawing between then?
And now how was misogyny shown then?
How is it shown now? How was racism and anti-semitism? How was art valued or devalued?
These are all things that we’re still wrestling with today.
And so it’s really interesting and important to sort of look at the history, not only in its context then, but what we are still wrestling with?

Jake:
[18:54] You know, you mentioned her sort of arriving later in life as this sort of a feminist figure.
I wonder how she would have considered herself. There’s a moment in the book where she’s introduced to the works of Margaret Fuller.
Maybe for listeners who aren’t familiar. Could you say a little bit about who Margaret Fuller was?
And then you know how your character, at least of Isabella Stewart Gardner was affected by those works.

Isabella’s search for purpose and women in art.

Emily Franklin:
[19:20] We don’t know everybody that Isabella interacted with. She, you know, Margaret Fuller was a, a journalist, a feminist, she was a woman’s right advocate.
She actually died tragically young.
And, and I, I wanted that also to be on Isabella’s radar.
Isabella at that point is considering the role of women in art in the world.
Um She’s trying to find her life’s purpose and also feeling a little, a little bit of a race for time.
What is she going to do with her one precious life, you know, as Mary Oliver sort of talks about.
And so she, she acquires a book by Margaret Fuller um in a, in a scene when she’s at a historic Boston bookshop.
And um we know that Isabella started collecting by collecting rare books that was before she began to amass this collection of art.
And so I wanted her to see books, not only as an object but as a sort of gateway a portal into another world, which is what they are obviously.
And then to consider the way that women were using pen names, you know, later on in the, in the novel, she meets George Elliot, she meets other people who are George Sand, who’s using a pen name.
And she’s, she’s considering what it means to be a woman who writes, or a woman who tries to create meaning out of the sort of bits of life that are afforded to women at that point.

Jake:
[20:44] Yeah, it’s interesting. The number of, of names that cycle through the book, whether it’s somebody like a Henry James who there was a, you know, very well documented connection with a Margaret Fuller where there wasn’t one name that reached out and grabbed me was Doctor Rebecca Crumpler who has been the subject of at least two past episodes of this podcast most recently. Episode 200.
You sort of introduce her as a, an offscreen character.
Somebody who doesn’t really touch Isabella Stewart Gardner’s life, but has an influence.

Emily Franklin:
[21:16] Yes. So the, the woman who I have delivering Isabella’s baby at home is trained by Rebecca Lee Crumpler.
And again, I wanted to be able to create this parallel so that as Isabella is becoming Isabella Boston is becoming Boston.
And so I wanted to have this continuous growth for both of them.
And I wanted to be able to reference some of the African American history of Boston and important people who might not be as well known as I, I would like them to be and as they deserve to be, I mean, your podcast has, has referenced them.
Um But I think in general, people don’t know who Rebecca Crumpler was and I think it’s an opportunity, you know, and part of my job is to sort of try to bring awareness to people who might not otherwise, you know, have as much attention.

Highlighting the influence of Rebecca Crumpler and African American history.

 

[22:09] And so it just seem like a, a good opportunity to, to do that.
And also, you know, Rebecca Crumpler ends up writing this, this advice book which then Isabella can reflect on as she um goes through, you know, the earlier stages of motherhood and think about, you know, what she might improve upon.

Jake:
[22:28] For listeners who may not have slogged through my entire back catalog.
Can you give us a very brief introduction to Doctor Crumpler?

Emily Franklin:
[22:34] Oh, yeah. So she, um, the, the gist is that she’s the first black woman in the United States to, to receive her MD.

Jake:
[22:42] There are a couple of key plot points that we’ve been dancing around.
One of which involves the great tragedy of Isabella Stewart Gardner’s life.
And another one that involves both great joy and great pain.
And you, you paint in a very impactful love affair in Isabella Stewart Gardner’s life.
That slight spoiler alert was not with Jack Gardner.
How much of that is, is again true to life or taken from the sources and how much of that is um reading between the lines in her life.

Emily Franklin:
[23:16] What we know is she quite likely had this affair, which I will not name him here. She quite likely had an affair.
Um, we aren’t 100% sure there are letters that suggest that they probably had an affair.
And in fact, some of these letters are quite, they were quite amusing to me to find because they’re, they’re cut out.
There are little bits of letters cut out. Maybe Isabella didn’t like the word that this person used or wished that he had made a different phrase or didn’t want incriminating evidence.
So the letters are actually cut up and they look redacted.
But sort of the way that my seventh grade diary might look like crossed out or different things as an author of a, of historic fiction.
I’m left with a choice, which is on one, on the one hand, maybe she didn’t have an affair.
On the other hand, maybe Isabella who’s discovering passion in all forms of her life, collecting art intellect meets this super, you know, appealing person at a really exciting artistic luncheon.

[24:24] And could have had this big juicy affair.
Well, as a fiction writer, you’re going with that choice right, because it not only is exciting for Isabella and the reader, it really fits into everything else that Isabella was going through at the time.
So it isn’t that the affair? Is this one off section from her life?
It really fits into everything else she was experiencing. So it makes sense on a novelistic level and on a realistic level, it’s quite likely something that she did experience as she’s finding passion and excitement in her life.
She’s more open to passion and excitement and yes, you’re right.
It’s, it’s both um very exciting and, and passionate and ultimately also a little bit of uh emotional and sad for her too.

Jake:
[25:11] There are some interesting, I don’t know if exactly if there are stylistic choices or just plotting choices.
I was surprised on reading the book at what a small footprint the Civil War left in the book, you know, is Isabella Stewart Gardner would have been, I think in her earlier, mid twenties at the start of the war and in this city that was, you know, politically torn, very, politically charged, you know, had decades of abolition controversy and riots in the streets and then now the young men are being whisked away in droves into the army and navy.
Do you think it was something that had less impact on Isabella’s life?

The limited impact of the Civil War on Isabella’s life.

 

[25:48] Was it just not the focus of the story you were telling? I, I’m just curious about how.

Emily Franklin:
[25:52] I think it’s both of those things, right? So one is I had to keep narrowing my lens because, you know, if I keep broadening the scope of the novel, it’s gonna be about 1000 pages long.

[26:06] And then no book group is going to want to read it.
Um And so part of it was narrowing the scope, part of it was really sort of.

[26:14] Um trying to make sure I was keeping to Isabella Stewart Gardner’s perspective.
So do I think that it really influenced her day to day life? I really don’t.
I think there were families that were more touched by the war than the gardeners.
I mean, for example, the aeries who are in the first dinner party scene with Isabella, you know, one of their, you know, nephews or, or uncles goes off and he becomes a general and quite well respected.
And, you know, there were, there’s talk of the civil war, there’s talk behind closed doors where the men are off smoking and talking about that.
And Isabella is listening at the doorway, she’s exchanging letters with an old friend who becomes, um, you know, a soldier.
And, and we see that and we see their letters and, and she’s trying to become part of the sewing circle, which is this elite Boston social circle that she’s of course rejected from.
But she has this idea that instead of just sewing socks for soldiers, she, they could send soap and give them something to cleanse their wounds.
So there are moments where the war comes in.
But really because that’s also the beginning of the novel.
Um, and the beginning of Isabella Stewart Gardner’s time in Boston, it couldn’t be the focus, um, or it would just be a different, it would just be a different novel.
And so I needed to move her through Boston and have her see what’s happening historically through her own personal rejection and her own personal experience, which is, of course, what sort of people do at 19 and 20 years old, which is how old she is at the beginning of the book.

Jake:
[27:43] You know, her lifetime spans. What I think is one of the most interesting periods in Boston history.
Sort of the, the last few decades of the 19th century is just such a time of rapid technological change.
And it’s, you know, Boston’s annexing all its neighbors, it becomes electrified connected by telephone wires.
You know, people are experimenting with x-rays and ether and I, I just feel like so much is happening in those few decades and Boston is just so transformed.
Uh And you alluded to that a little bit as we started. But how did you try to, to capture that in the book?

Emily Franklin:
[28:19] Yeah, it was just so exciting. I mean, part of it is that Boston had all of these, had so many great thinkers there and people that Isabella truly did cross paths with whether it’s Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who’s translating Dante, you know, with Charles Elliott Norton for the first time and creating the Dante society that Isabella ends up being a part of again.
I had to keep bringing everything back to Isabella.
So, yes, the Boston symphony orchestra plays for the first time and Isabella is there, you know, and, and we see that in a letter um or the opening of the Swan Boats.

[28:52] And why are they created and make a scene there with Isabella and her nephews who are there?
But it was really an exciting time for Boston.
And as I said, Isabella is becoming Isabella this exciting version of herself, which is where she winds up later in life.
And Boston is going through this sort of transformation from this, you know, sort of quieter, um more serious, slightly dowdy old school, um closed society to this artistic intellectual, medical powerhouse um where, you know, you’ve got Harvard, you’ve got Mitmit at the beginning of the novel is um still in Boston. It hasn’t moved to Cambridge yet.
Just so much stuff is happening. And then, of course, by the, by the end of the novel, um you’ve got the History Museum, you’ve got Isabella Stewart Gardner opening Fenway Court, which is what her museum was called before her death.
And just so much happening and it was so exciting to, to research and read about and actually the electrifying that you’re mentioning, there is a brief mention of that in the book.
I don’t know, there’s a, there’s one she’s gonna go send a telegram, I think, and she’s gonna go to the electrical station and uh Jack offers to do it for her.

Jake:
[30:04] Well, speaking of Fenway Court, you know, I feel like most of our listeners probably know Isabella Stewart Gardner because of the museum that’s named after her today.
And one of the key decisions that has to go into creating Fenway Court is, is where to put it.
And you alluded a minute ago to building this new museum in a swamp essentially.
And, and one of the, the big elements of change in that those last few decades of the 19th century is the filling of the back bay.
And you know, some of those institutions you talked about with um the old MIT campus and some of the museums are all getting put into this new Back Bay neighborhood.
How did the gardeners come to set up their fancy, new place all the way on the other side of the, the fence, not in this new newly shaped neighborhood?

Emily Franklin:
[30:52] Back Bay was where they moved to Beacon Street. And here’s a funny little factoid, you know, so their house on Beacon Street, which had just been filled in and we really was just becoming this posh area where the upper crust was moving.
They lived at 1 52 Beacon Street, which no longer exists and it no longer exists because when they left after Jack had broken through to that other side that taken over the other house.

[31:18] Isabella decided that she had lived at 1 52 Beacon and nobody else should ever live there.
So she used her Isabella magic to make sure that that number doesn’t exist anymore.
So even if the building is still there, you can’t live at her address.
She was a quirky individual anyway.
But so when she decided to build the museum on the Fens as it was called, you know, the Fens was, this was called a um, a wild outdoor land and it was part of the emerald necklace, you know, Frederick Law Olmstead, but it was, there’s really nothing there.
So you can see these incredible photographs of this expansive Swan Nature land.
And then Isabella standing in the foreground with this construction happening behind her.
She’s in full Victorian Garb and she went every day to the building site.
She annoyed the heck out of uh Willard Sears who was the architect and she would often actually get up on a ladder and you know, bring her lunch pail and sort of order people around to redo that or move that tile.
So she was very involved in um in, in the building of the museum.
But Boston really did think she was again this oddball person.
Why would you build it there?

[32:31] And the answer is she just had a vision. She thought that that would be uh a fantastic way to go.
And because it is based on her beloved Palazzo Barbaro where she went time and again in Venice, I think that the idea that being in a swampy, you know, watery area was only fitting.

Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Vision for Fenway Court

Jake:
[32:51] Backing up in her life a little bit and backing up in the book a little bit.
As you told the listener a, a moment ago, there’s a recurring theme throughout the book of her, struggling with the idea of, of a calling or a purpose or what she’s gonna do with her life.
What do you think the idea of a legacy meant to? Is Isabella Stewart Gardner?

Emily Franklin:
[33:13] When I first started the idea for this book, I kept thinking about the directive that Isabella Stewart Gardner left, which is that nothing in her collection?
Nothing in the museum can ever be moved or changed.
And I was very curious about the mindset, the psychology of somebody who would leave that as their directive.
Now, on the one hand, none of us would really enjoy if somebody came to our house or our apartment and just rearranged everything.
One day, if you came home and the couch was on the other wall, the paintings had been moved and your family pictures were in another room, you’d think, what are you doing? That’s my place. Don’t do that.

[33:51] But she was so extreme. What I came to understand as I was researching was that, Isabella was not an artist, but she collected art and she collected people who made art and she created a singular work of art which is the museum.
So her work of art is comprised of other people’s works of art.
And she arranged everything in such a way that she never wanted it changed because it would be changing somebody else’s vision and their art and she did not collect in earnest.
She was not just this was not sort of a, a pet project for her.
She specifically made the museum for the public enjoyment and education of art.
She wanted art to be available to the general public of Boston and anybody who could visit.
And that was unusual for the time. So that was also part of her legacy.
I think that she understood that she might not leave a legacy that was based on wealth, like the families that she was surrounded by and it might not be based on many Children and, and having a huge family.

[35:02] But she knew that she could provide a lasting cultural contribution to art and to women.
And, and that was where she found meaning in her life.
And um I think the interesting part for, for the, for me writing the novel in the, in the way that it is structured.
So the first part is really, it’s told in chronological order with these sort of mini books within the book.
But there’s a prologue and um an epilogue and then these intermezzo, these intermezzi sort of chapters in between.
She loved opera. So it seemed like an opportunity to have a little intermezzo in between.
And the older Isabella is reflecting back on finding meaning and what all of this collecting um amounts to in the end.
And I think in, in structuring it like that, I really had the opportunity to have her reflect on.

Tragedy and Connection: Isabella’s Early Life

 

[35:55] Being a social outcast, experiencing personal tragedy as a sort of 20 something person, more tragedy as a later 20 something person falling into an extraordinary depression because of that.
And because also, you know, if you lose everything and don’t have a place in society and don’t have that many friends, what do you have not that much?
So, she was very fortunate to connect to Ted Lyman in Cleopatra’s Barge, who then connects her to his cousin Charles Elliott Norton, who is the entryway to the rest of her intellectual life and the rest of the meaning she finds in her life.
And so without that early tragedy, we would not have the museum because she just would have kept trying to fit in and plodding along the way that women.

[36:47] Tried to just keep going at that time.
And the fact that she was this outspoken outrageous person at the dinner party, that fire that she had within her is what kept her going despite these and through these tragedies.
And so everything really came to together for her to leave this legacy of um memory and art and loss, right?
When we have this, she has this directive now. So if you go to the, you know, Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum now, and you see the empty frames that are hanging from the art heist, you know, in the Dutch room, that is also memory and that is also legacy and that is also keeping your loss and your pain on display for people, which I think was part of her vision.
And so we get to see Isabella at the museum for all of her quirks and her outspokenness and her eye for beauty and meaning and glory and the way that she, you know, set up the museum is, is fascinating because you can have the rape of Europa, this master work of art next to a seemingly worthless perfume vial or a writing desk that nobody understood why she was bringing back, you know, from a trip or a vase or a plate she just sort of liked that doesn’t really have any monetary value.
It just was part of her vision. And so that is her legacy that she has left to Boston.

Isabella as a Collector and Curator: Tinkering and Arranging

Jake:
[38:14] When I thought about Isabella and her museum in the past, I, I always think of her as sort of tinkering with the collection and, you know, moving things from one wall to the next right up until sort of the moment of her death when it freezes in time.
Is that a true impression or, or was it more stable as she created the, the museum at Fenway Court Court?

Emily Franklin:
[38:35] I think when she first moved in, she was living in it, in all of it.
So I suspect things were moving around a little bit because she was having people over to dinner and moving chairs.
You know, there’s an extraordinary number of chairs in that museum.
There are about 14,000 chairs.
When you go there, you’re like, who needs this many chairs. But apparently she really likes chairs anyway.
She, I think, moved things around at the beginning. But when she moved to the upper apartment, which is not for public viewing, I think everything stayed just as it was and that was in the sort of towards the end of her life. So I think you’re right.

Jake:
[39:10] Do you think that reflects a moment where she more consciously moved from being a collector to a curator?
Or do you think it was more gradual, or, or less conscious than that?

Emily Franklin:
[39:22] I don’t know the answer to that. You know, she was certainly wasn’t doing the kind of acquiring that she was in the sort of middle and later part of her life where she was just acquiring in earnest and just so much stuff.
I think once she moved into the museum and set everything up, she was really much more of a public figure in Boston and acquiring experiences and going to the Red Sox Games.
She was a huge Red Sox fan and, you know, writing things on her hat so that people could, you know, see that she had a message for the players and, and she was, she was just, she was strange, um, but she was very funny and so, I don’t know that she was acquiring as much stuff at that point, but she was certainly arranging it and keeping it in ways that, that made sense to her.

Jake:
[40:09] You know, earlier in the book through her voice, there’s some kind of critical reflection on some of the other wealthy families.
She’s surrounded by the Perkins. The Forbes is, do you think that her attitude toward wealth and philanthropy and collecting changed over time as she went into that period of acquisition in a more serious way?
Do you think that changed how she felt about the other families she was around?

Emily Franklin:
[40:35] She was really focused on using her inherited wealth for a purpose and not just sort of entertaining and not generational wealth, and the passing on of that, but creating something that would be a public benefit.
And so I don’t know if she was super critical of, of other people who maybe didn’t do that.
But I know that she had a personal mission in, in using her funds for public benefit and it is what she did.
So I, I don’t know how she felt about those other families.

Jake:
[41:12] The Isabella Stewart Gardner, who we’re introduced to in the book is a character in Flux.
She goes by a number of different names throughout her life.
She is Belle. She’s Isabella, sometimes she’s Mrs Jack.
How did you use those different names to reflect on her changing sense of self?

Emily Franklin:
[41:32] Well, those are all real. She really was called Belle when she was a younger woman and Mrs Jack, she was referred to for a long time and Isabella.
But, you know, eventually nobody really says Isabella Gardner, they say Isabella Stewart Gardner.
And so that is who we know her as and who she became um the working title of this novel.
Actually, when I first sat down to write, it was becoming Isabella and that is, that was the arc of this, of this journey for her. It’s the arc of Boston.
Um you know, Boston becoming Boston.
And, and so I think I used it as a literary device also because it breaks up the period of time, right?
She moves in chronological order of how she’s being referred to in time and, and the wisdom she’s acquiring and the changes she’s gone through the hardships she’s endured.
And, and then settling into this, not only a persona that she’s created, but really settling into the truest version of herself.

Isabella Stewart Gardner: Building a Legacy and Found Family

 

[42:32] And she lived this loud wild, exciting life.
Um that was also really deeply affected by tragedy.
And so I think eventually having her become Isabella Stewart Gardner made sense on the page.
And it’s certainly what made sense for her, you know, in real life.

Jake:
[42:51] How do you think she saw herself in that last self identity as, Isabella, as Isabella Stewart Gardner as she was building her collection and cementing that legacy that she was so fixated on.
What character was she playing in her own drama at that point? Do you think?

Emily Franklin:
[43:09] I think she was super psyched. I think she was so happy to have created this found family of friends.
She surrounded herself with artists and intellectuals. She had a very close group of uh male friends, many of whom were gay and great artist friends.
And um I think she loved that she loved collecting people and she loved being around people who had different points of views.
And I think she felt so great at providing something for Boston.
Despite the fact that Boston really rejected her early on, they end up having this sort of love, hate relationship and then eventually come to love each other.
And I think she was very satisfied with the life that she wound up leaving behind and, and, and, and she really enjoyed herself so much at the end of her, of her life.
And, you know, we have to remember that she didn’t break ground in the museum until she was almost 60.
And so really the, the later part of her life, the second half of her life was completely filled with joy and meaning um and excitement.
And that was very exciting for all of Boston to witness and it’s still really exciting for us.
Now, um there’s a chapter that ends with, there is more, there is more, there is more and there really was more for Isabella and she had this sort of bravery and strength to just keep going and exploring.

[44:38] And then also the bravery to sort of override the people who thought she was nuts for building where she did or for doing what she did or saying what she did or, you know, standing up for things.
And that was really fun to write about.

The Inspiration Behind Isabella Stuart Gardner

Jake:
[44:52] Well, to write this novel, you’ve obviously had to put yourself into the shoes of Bell Isabella Mrs Jack for a long time.
What initially drew you to her as a character?

Emily Franklin:
[45:03] I first started going to the museum when I was little and I was totally captivated by the interior courtyard, you know, the inside of the and outside, sort of those boundaries being blurred.

[45:15] And in general, I was just fascinated with the museum because it was unlike any other museum I’d ever been to.
And um the, again the placement of these objects that sort of people deem worthy or important next to objects that other people might say, you know, it’s just a lamp, what’s it doing there?
You know, everything had equal value in her eyes. And I think that’s also sort of how she saw people.
But so then in March of 1990 I was a senior in high school and I sat in the Dutch room and I wrote a paper on Storm in the Sea of Galilee.
And 10 days later, the painting was cut from its frame and you know, the, the empty frame as we’ve discussed is still hanging there.
And I was really, for years and years and decades, like carried around the heist, not because of the stolen artwork, but because of the empty frame and what it would suggest.
And so I kept that in my, the back of my mind and then I was doing research on a different book.
Um, actually a short story that takes place a little bit during the heist.
And this was, you know, a few years ago, maybe 10 years ago.
And I kept thinking, gosh, everybody loves this museum, but nobody really knows about this life that she lived and the woman behind it.
And somebody really should write a novel about her. And then I would come home and tell my husband, you know, we have four kids, we have these family dinner.
I was like, somebody should write a novel about that.
And then at one point I paused and I was like, oh, wait a minute, I write novels.

[46:40] I could write the novel about Isabella Stuart Gardner. And that is how I came to write about her.
Really trying to think about sharing this huge life, well lived with a population that might not know much about her at all.

Jake:
[46:53] Has spending so much time with her changed how you enjoy the museum at all.
Has it made you appreciate a different room or different works or a different aspect of her collection than, than you did before.

Emily Franklin:
[47:07] Oh, absolutely. I mean, I, I’ve always loved the museum but knowing the details that are in the novel and that I’ve researched, you know, whether it’s the prominence of a, of a, you know, perfume vial that’s double ended, which is rare and unusual or whether it’s knowing more about Dodge mcknight and there’s the Dodge mcknight room.
Um, and my favorite painting in the museum is in there, which I, I knew nothing about before I started writing the novel.
It does change. And I it’s been really great to hear from, you know, book groups and other other readers who’ve either gone to the museum for the first time or mainly people who have read the novel and then gone back to the museum and had a, had a real reframe and, and a, and a deeper experience understanding the life that she led.
And, you know, maybe even her collection of, of artwork that’s focused on mother and child or various other other things or her portraits, you know, the portrait that and Zorn made of her, the portrait of that John Singer Sergeant made of her.
He has multiple portraits of her and it’s really just so exciting to know more about her and about the art and then go back and see it in situ. And it’s exciting.

Jake:
[48:20] Emily, I appreciate you taking some time out of your day and spending a few more, a few more minutes in what must have been a long time with Isabella Stewart Gardner and introducing our listeners to her.
If our listeners are hooked and they want to follow you and learn more about your work online. Where should they look for that?

Connect with Emily Franklin and Upcoming Book Events

Emily Franklin:
[48:40] The best place is my website Emily Franklin dot com.
And there, you know, there are links to all the books there and then also uh a list of events, both local and not local.

Jake:
[48:51] And you do have some Boston area book events coming up.

Emily Franklin:
[48:53] I do, I do, I have a bunch of them. Some are on the cape, some are in the Greater Boston area and there’s one on October 18th at the Boston Athenaeum, obviously a gorgeous building referenced in the novel and um that will be in conversation with Jessica shade.

Jake:
[49:09] So we’ll make sure to link to your website to a purchase link for the Lioness of Boston and for information about the event at the Boston Athena M in the show notes this week at hub history dot com slash 283.

Emily Franklin:
[49:23] Thank you so much for hosting me.

Jake:
[49:25] No. Thank you so much for being here to learn more about both Isabella Stewart Gardner and Emily Franklin’s work.
Check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 283.
As I just mentioned, I’ll include links to purchase the book The Lioness of Boston, as well as more information about Emily’s upcoming book event at the Boston Athenaeum.
There’ll also be a link to Emily’s website where you can find out more about her and about her other upcoming events.
I’ll also include 1/19 century engraving of the Giant Slay Cleopatra’s Barge by John Andrew.
John Singer Sergeant’s famous full length portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner, and a photo of Isabella to give you a sense of the real woman behind the character in Emily’s book.
If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email podcast at hub history dot com.
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Music

Jake:
[50:54] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there listeners.