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SPEAKER_02: Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica. We're celebrating Pride Month with icons, supreme queens of queer culture. Some are household names, others are a little more behind the scenes. All of these people have defied social norms and influenced generations of people to be unapologetically themselves. Today, we're talking about a couple that became a pillar of their 18th birthday. They ran a popular business together and were devoted partners. That is, until blackmailers outed them. Let's talk about Mr. and Mrs. Howe. Before Mr. and Mrs. Howe were a couple, they met as teenagers. They quickly decided they would marry and live together. The two didn't come from moneyed backgrounds, but were able to make a comfortable life for themselves by running a series of social media platforms. They were able to make a comfortable life for themselves by running a series of pubs and taverns in London. Mr. Howe served as a parish constable and served on juries, roles that many respectable gentlemen of the time held. By 1745, the couple had purchased the White Horse Pub on Poplar High Street. Mr. and Mrs. Howe did most everything themselves. They didn't have staff at the pub, so they would draw the beer and lug out pots themselves. They didn't have any servants in their home, which was unusual for a couple of their stature. More unusual was that they almost never hosted friends in their home. No dinners, no luncheons. It seems as though the secluded lifestyle was by design. In fact, Mr. Howe had been blackmailed for years, paying a fee of about ten pounds, more than 2,000 pounds today, to an old acquaintance in order to keep a secret. By 1766, Mrs. Howe had become very ill. She went out to the country to stay with friends and heal, but eventually she died. Mrs. Howe's death left Mr. Howe alone after more than 30 years together, and that's when the blackmailer struck again. She's sometimes referred to as Mrs. B or Mrs. Bentley, and this time she hired two men to pose as officers of the court and take Mr. Howe into custody for an alleged crime. The officers said Mr. Howe was charged with a robbery from decades earlier, but that wasn't true. Really, they were demanding an exorbitant payout of 100 pounds or else they would hang Mr. Howe, because, they said, they knew Mr. Howe was not the man everyone thought. This is largely what makes the story of Mr. and Mrs. Howe so iconic and remarkable. Throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, there were plenty of tales that captivated society about women dressing as men. There was even this concept known as female husbands, where women lived as men for relationships, or any other reason, really, and thus enjoyed the privileges of society that they otherwise would have been denied. In the press and writings since then, Mr. Howe became one of the model examples of a so-called female husband. We don't know exactly why Mr. Howe decided to live as Mr. Howe. In 1766, they told the London Chronicle one story. As teenagers, Mary East and Mary Snipes decided to live together, and to do so, one of them needed to live as a man. So they tossed a coin. And that's how Mary East became James Howe. Because we don't know how James felt or what pronouns they would have been comfortable with, we'll be using they-them pronouns for the rest of the episode. Some historians have since noted that this story might have been a way to explain gender nonconformity, or same-sex relationships, to an 18th-century audience in a way that wouldn't feel threatening. It's very possible that James became James because that's just what they wanted. But what is clear is that by living as man and wife, they were able to build a thriving life for themselves that wouldn't have been possible for two women. In any case, Mrs. Bentley took advantage of the fact that gender nonconformity was so taboo, and she tried to profit off of their secret. Mr. Howe was left with little choice but to publicly address their gender in order to save their social standing, but also their life. Eventually, the two men who took Mr. Howe into custody were arrested and went to trial. And when they faced the judge, Mr. Howe showed up at the hearing using the name Mary East, dressed in women's clothing. When the trial was over, Mary emerged victorious. Mrs. Bentley and one of the men she hired were sentenced to four years of imprisonment, but the trial also meant that Mary had to give up living publicly as Mr. Howe. They were labeled a spinster and lost ownership over the White Horse pub. Mary spent the remainder of their life living as a woman. They died in June 1780. For more than a century afterwards, Mary's transformation into James was a story told over and over again. But in all the retellings, what gets lost is Mr. and Mrs. Howe's perspectives, how they felt about each other and themselves. We only know for sure how the community felt about them. And despite the blackmailing and the trial, James Howe, or Mary East, was remembered as someone with an unblemished character who retired with a fortune that was made through fair and honest means. All month, we're highlighting icons. For more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram at Womanica Podcast. Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator. Talk to you tomorrow.
SPEAKER_04: Evidence-wise, we had virtually no evidence.
SPEAKER_08: In 1995, Detective Tony Richardson was trying to figure out who killed a fellow officer. The case comes down to who is believed and who is ignored. Oh my goodness, we did convict an innocent man. I'm Beth Shelburne from Lava for Good Podcasts. This is Ear Witness. Listen to Ear Witness on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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