Astrologer
She built a business advising some of the wealthiest men on Wall Street, survived a fraud trial that could have ended her career, and kept working anyway.
At a time when women weren't expected to run their own businesses, question authority, or fight their own legal battles, this episode's subject did all three — and built a career advising some of the most powerful financiers of her era.
She was arrested, publicly labeled a fraud, and put on trial for her profession. She fought the case herself, in an era when the odds were stacked heavily against her, and the outcome helped define how her profession would be treated by the law for decades afterward.
Episode references
- Encyclopedia.com — Evangeline Smith Adams — biographical entry
- Wikipedia — Evangeline Adams
- Yale History of Science & Medicine — Evangeline Adams, astrology, and the professions of the future
- PBS — The Crash of 1929 — program transcript
Compiled from the show's publicly listed episode notes.
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