Newspaper Page Text
Flagpole
DECEMBER 9. 1992
Ghost Fry by John Seawright
The Georgia Magnetic Wonder: Lulu Hurst
From 1884 through 1886, the best-known stage performer
in North America was a Georgia girl in her early teens who
possessed a power with which she could lift a chair filled with
three grown men six inches in the air with one hand, explode
umbrellas into wreckage with one touch, and hold a pool cue
effortlessly on her outstretched palms while a sumo wrestler
tried to push it to the floor. For two years she packed theaters
across the country and provoked miles of newspaper col
umns which exhausted every permutation of superstition and
science attempting to explain the mysterious force which she
manifested Shortly after her sixteenth birthday she suddenly
quit performing and returned to the obscurity of small-town
Georgia for the rest of her long life
Lulu Hurst was born in 1869 near Cedartown in Polk
County, northwest Georgia Her father, a confederate cap
tain, had moved from east Tennessee after the
Civil War The Hursts were prosperous farmers
and “hardshell’ SapDsts of the sternest stripe
Lulu was a bright mischievous child, some
what taller than normal, but otherwise an
unremarkable Georgia country girl until the
night of September 18. 1883 when she and a
visiting cousin were awakened by a violent
thunderstorm The girls were frightened by the
storm, but became even more alarmed at loud
ticking sounds coming from their bed They
summoned the family, who searched the room
and stood round in puzzled fright, finally agree
ing that the electrically charged air was re
sponsible for the noises The following night
was cloudless, but Lulu and her cousin had
hardly gotten into bed when the ticking began again. The
family was once more awakened, and neighbors were sent
for. One neighbor suggested the presence of spirits, and
inquired of them the correct time The ticks counted off the
hour, then paused and counted off the minutes. The mysteri
ous noises then correctly gave the ages of several of those
present
News of these phenomena spread throughout the area
and the Hurst home was overrun with curiosity-seekers After
a few days someone suggested that several visitors join
hands on a table top rt the manner preferred by the spirit
communicators of the day There being no table in the room,
a chair was made to serve Several people, including Lulu,
held the chair lightly, whereupon it commenced bucking and
wriggling The amateur spiritualists reeled around the room,
struggling to control the frenzied chair, which soon was
dashed to bits. Experiments with walking canes and other
objects had similar results, the mysterious force was mani
fested only when Lulu Hurst and one or more other people laid
hands on some inanimate object.
By now the matter was in the newspapers and the Hurst
farm was besieged by friends, relatives and strangers clam
oring for demonstrations of the strange power. Captain and
Mrs. Hurst grew impatient with the crowds and concerned for
their daughter Their religion led them to mistrust the peculiar
presence in their house (although, in contrast with our own
more enlightened time, no imputation of demon possession
was ever made in connection with the Hurst phenomena).
More pressingty, they feared the social and psychological
effects the visitation might have on Lulu. Fnends suggested
that they could control the hysteria through a formal presen
tation of Lulu’s powers in the Cedartown theater This idea
shocked the older Hursts, who felt Satan far more likely to be
stalking souls in the lobby of an opera house than wasting his
time exploding furniture in a godly home
With great reluctance, the Hursts agreed to let Lulu
perform in public She packed the house in Cedartown,
demonstrating her powers with her parents accompanying
her on the stage Also present with her was Paul Atkinson, a
handsome, perpetually smiling young man whom the Hursts
had met in Madison, Georgia. As Lulu’s fame grew. Atkinson
would become her manager, and finally her husband For
now he served as master of ceremonies, padding out the bill
with poetic and dramatic recitations, including a powerful
rendition of Poe’s “The Raven ’
Satisfied that Lulu was unharmed by public performance
and overwhelmed at the response, to say nothing of the
potential for profit the Hursts took their daughter on the road
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This idea shocked the
older Hursts, who
felt Satan far more
LIKELY TO BE STALKING
SOULS IN THE LOBBY OF
AN OPERA HOUSE THAN
WASTING HIS TIME
EXPLODINQ FURNITURE IN
A GODLY HOME.
Lulu performed in nearby Rome and Chattanooga, and ven
tured further afield into Georgia Her Atlanta premiere filled
DeGive’s Opera House and prompted a variety of responses.
Hoke Smith, soon to found the Atlanta Journal, a future
governor, senator, and Secretary of the Interior, was skepti
cal. He volunteered as a subject for Lulu's chair performance,
but refused to grasp the chair in the prescribed manner He
announced to the audience that the whole affair was a fraud.
Lulu left the stage, unable to continue, and would have no
further dealings with Smith for the rest of his life. Quite different
was the response of Constitution editor Henry Grady Origi
nally dubious, Grady was convinced that the power was
authentic as soon as he saw it manifested. The next day he
invited the Hursts to Ns office where a private demonstration
convinced him that no sleight of hand or muscular strength
was involved. Thenceforth Grady and the Constitution be
came Lulu Hurst’s most important boosters, covering her
career sympathetically and in great detail Lulu Hurst would
name her first cNId, bom the day Henry Grady died, after the
famous journalist
In Athens, Lulu Hurst packed DuPree's Opera house on
Broad Street and once more won over an editor, Larry Gantt
of the Athens Banner- Watchman, who came on the stage and
allowed Nmself to be whirled around in a chair. Well-known
Athenian strong men such as the 300-pound Captain Bradeen
and Mr. Bode, the baker, could not force a cane or pool cue
out of Lulu Hurst’s hands. The only skeptical voice raised in
Athens was that of Dr. Henry C WNte. professor of chemistry,
who insisted that there had to be a physical explanation for the
power of “the magnetic wonder .’
Before her performances in Macon and Augusta. Hurst
gave demonstrations before the faculties of Mercer College
and the Medical College of Georgia, mystifying the learned
men of both institutions. Such private previews of her perfor
mance became standard dunng Lulu Hurst’s tours A small
group of doctors, lawyers, professors and their families would
be invited to attend a demonstration. Their word-of-mouth
reports generally proved to be most effective advertising
Having conquered her native state, Lulu Hurst took her act
to the rest of the country Space does not permit a description
of the sensation she created; she went through tests con
ducted by Alexander Graham Bell, bruised the famous Lily
Langtry in New York, matched strength with a visiting sumo
wrestler in Brooklyn, and embarrassed the city officials of
Denver In Boston she conducted a show for women only,
during which a woman insisted that Paul Atkinson leave the
stage The woman shouted that Hurst’s power was the result
of hypnosis by her manager. Lulu Hurst found herself robbed
of her power She ran backstage to her parents,
found her power restored, and returned. Atkinson
agreed to quit the stage if the woman who had
made the charge would volunteer for a demon
stration The audience approved, the woman
came up. and Hurst flung her about so violently
that she nearly went ovei the footlights into the
orchestra pit.
After a tour through the West. Hurst returned
to Georgia in the spring of 1885 Her return
engagement at DeGive’s in Atlanta promptec
one of the strangest events of her career In the
middle of her performance a piano teacher, the
sister of a well-known Atlanta preacher, began to
scream “Glory to God! Woman rules the world' I
will go to Lulu Hurst!’ and ran for the stage Lulu
fled; the piano teacher was subdued, given a shot of mor
phine and taken home by her brother, who made an embar
rassed speech to the audience. For only the third time in her
career Hurst lost her power and was unable tocontinue In her
autobiography, written twelve years later. Hurst's memory of
the incident differs from that reported in the contemporary
newspapers; she remembers the piano teacher screaming
“Glory to God 1 Woman shall not rule the world!’
After a show in Knoxville a few months later, Lulu Hurst
announced to her parents and Paul Atkinson that she was
quitting. Lulu explained that she was upset because her
performances were being widely cited as “evidence’ by
spiritualists and occultists of all stnpes throughout the nation.
Although she had no explanation for her powers. Hurst's
Baptist theology and commonsense philosophy had always
led her to reject supernatural explanations of the force
She enrolled in Shorter College at Rome, determined to
study physics in an effort to understand the powerj she had
renounced After two years she married Paul Atkinson, al
though the two had professed indifference to each other for
years The Atkinsons moved to Madison, where Lulu became
a pillar of the community, never again calling upon her
mysterious power She died in Madison in 1950,81 years old.
In 1897 she wrote her autobiography, half of which is a
detailed attempt to explain the power which she never under
stood at the time she was employing it Most of her explana
tions are plausible, describing techniques similar to those of
jujitsu and kendo She places the greatest emphasis on the
participants’ willingness to believe m the force, and their
physical overreactions to the slightest pressure from her or
themselves Many of the explanations are unconvincing and
it is clear that no one, not even Lulu Hurst herself, fully
understood her strange power. CopjngM , w ^ ^
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