"yellow journalism" harrassed Robert, Mary Harlan Lincoln & Lucy Hale w/Booth

[Alexander]

I've noticed that every 5-10 years since the assassination, there were explosive and shocking stories re-hashed about Lucy's relationship to Booth, Love triangles between Robert/ Lucy/Booth and stories popping about Booth having survived, married, fathered children, living in India, Brazil and finally dying in 1907 and being turned into a freak show exhibit. Wondered if there is any record of the journalists reaching out directly to them or of them reaching out to journalists or biographers to put the kibosh on dragging the story out again (I know Mary Harlan Lincoln stopped a book from being published about Robert and his mother mary todd lincoln's correspondance during her "asylum" years and that John Parker Hale fought to keep his daughter Lucy's name out of the papers directly after the assassination. And later, I think in 1878? Robert raged against a paper suggesting Lucy/Robert/Booth love triangle and claimed that he did not know either Booth or Lucy at the time(not true). But I was wondering if there were more confrontations between Lucy or her husband Chandler and the papers or Mary and Robert. For Lucy and Chandler, particularly, it must have been hard to be faced with the media continually linking her to Booth, and I can't imagine what she must've thought when she read about Booth's "supposed" mummified corpse traveling in a sideshow. Wondering if anyone has anymore insight or info on how this harassment from the media might have affected them.

[Steve]

Welcome to the forum, Alexander! I'm not a lot about Lucy Hale Chandler's later life, but by the time the "Booth mummy" was touring she had been married to William Chandler for three decades. Who knows she may not have even heard about it or given the story much credence based on the amount of "fake news" in the papers at the turn of the 20th century. If she did think about Booth much at that time I imagine it would likely be more along the lines of "I can't believe I fell in love with such a horrid man! Foolish youth!" or something like that.

[Alexander]

(04-19-2019 04:02 AM)Steve Wrote:  Welcome to the forum, Alexander! I'm not a lot about Lucy Hale Chandler's later life, but by the time the "Booth mummy" was touring she had been married to William Chandler for three decades. Who knows she may not have even heard about it or given the story much credence based on the amount of "fake news" in the papers at the turn of the 20th century. If she did think about Booth much at that time I imagine it would likely be more along the lines of "I can't believe I fell in love with such a horrid man! Foolish youth!" or something like that.

---

I'm psyched to be part of your group!
What's interesting to me is that her husband William Chandler also had a newspaper. They are very aware of how the assassination is still defining them in the present

[Steve]

Well, we're psyched to have you as well!