Francesca Beauman Interview - Matrimony, Inc. ~ JeanBookNerd

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Francesca Beauman grew up in London, studied History at Cambridge, and began her career as the host and writer of numerous British TV shows, including ‘Show Me The Funny’ (Channel 4), ‘Heroes of History’ (Channel 5) and ‘Bring It On’ (BBC1).

She is the author of six books, including a history of the pineapple and a history of personal ads; she remains the world’s leading expert on both these subjects.

She is a regular chairperson at literary festivals and arts events, a trustee of the Holburne Museum in Bath, and also works part-time at London’s most beautiful bookshop, Persephone Books.

Fran’s latest venture is the popular Instagram account about books, “Fran’s Book Shop”. Filmed on location at Persephone Books, Fran interviews authors, reviews books, and asks everyone from the window cleaner over the road to the movie star she meets at a party, “What Are You Reading?”.

Who or what has influenced your writing, and in what way?

My favourite non-fiction writers include Isabel Wilkerson, Susan Orlean and Claire Tomalin. They all have the ability to convey incredibly complex ideas in a clear, accessible way, as well as to summarize huge events pithily and with such a lively and creative turn of phrase. I admire them for their original research too: it’s not easy to hit on an original topic these days, but they sure manage it!

Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published.

The historian Amanda Foreman, who wrote the best-selling biography “Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire” and influenced me so much in my own work, telling me that she’d enjoyed my book. That was a truly thrilling moment and I danced around my kitchen drinking champagne for about ten hours straight after I heard!

What do you hope for readers to be thinking when they read your novel?

Plus ca change. The reasons people turned to personal ads in the eighteenth century were the very same reasons people turn to dating apps today: they are new in town, they work long hours, it’s become difficult to meet new people, etc. We humans are pretty consistent in our behavior, it turns out!

In your new book; MATRIMONY, INC: From Personal Ads to Swiping Right, a Story of America Looking for Love, can you tell my Book Nerd community a little about it.

Have you ever used a dating app or website? Then you have more in common than you know with lonely homesteaders in 18th century New England. At once heartwarming and heartbreaking, Matrimony, Inc. unpicks the unifying thread that weaves its way through not just marriage and relationships over the centuries, but American society itself: advertising for love.

Amazingly, America’s first personal ad appeared as early as 1759. A “person who flatters himself that he shall not be thought disagreeable” was in search of a “young lady, between the age of eighteen and twenty-three, of a middling stature, brown hair, of good Morals…” As family-arranged marriages fell out of fashion, “Husband Wanted” or “Seeking Wife” ads were soon to be found in every state in the nation.

From the woman in a Wisconsin newspaper who wanted “no brainless dandy or foppish fool” to the man with a glass eye who placed an ad in the New York Times hoping to meet a woman with a glass eye, too, the many hundreds of never-before-seen personal ads that I have uncovered give a fresh insight into American life as the cities grew and the frontier was settled. Personal ads played a surprisingly vital role in the West: couple by couple, shy smile by shy smile, letter by letter from a dusty, exhausted miner in California to a bored, frustrated seamstress in Ohio.

In 1838, a newspaper in Iowa, where men outnumbered women three to one, declared, “so anxious are our settlers for wives that they never ask a single lady her age. All they require is teeth.” While the dating pools of 21st century New York, Chicago or San Francisco might not be quite so dentally-fixated, Matrimony Inc. puts idly swiping right on Tinder into vivid historical context. What do men and women look for in each other? And how has this changed over the past two-hundred-and-fifty years? My book offers an extraordinary glimpse into the history of our hearts’ desires, one hundred words of typesetter’s blurry black ink at a time.

What was the single worst distraction that kept you from writing this book?

All the other ads I kept coming across in the course of my research! For example, I was excited to find one of America’s earliest ads from a woman looking for a husband in a Philadelphia newspaper called the Public Ledger in May 1840, but there were also so many other amazing ones printed nearby it and together they constituted something close to the entire story of a metropolis in smudged black ink. They included a “Missing Person” ad for a man who had “strayed from the Asylum for the Insane,” Lost (a large black and white Newfoundland dog called Tom King) and Found (a purse on Sixth Street), and an announcement about a meeting of the Temperance Society at 2:00 P.M. followed by the Female Temperance Society at 3:00 P.M. Goods for sale including “a lot of Fancy Pigeons, comprising Groppers, Carriers, and Fantails,” as well as an extraordinary array of quack medicines, such as a syrup designed to banish “the peculiar lethargic feelings and dizziness so common in the Spring.” Lurking among them was one from “S.J.K.,” “desirous of changing single blessedness for matrimony.” She described herself as “A few years above the teens” with “good teeth, full face, good complexion.” And her accomplishments? She was “acquainted with music, endowed with vocal powers.”

What’s the most ridiculous fact you know?

I know a whole load of ridiculous facts about the history of the pineapple since I am the world’s leading expert on the subject! For example, in the eighteenth century a single homegrown pineapple cost about the same as a new coach: it was so expensive that it was one of the status symbols of the age.

Best date you've ever had?

My second date with my husband. He took me to Denis Severs’s house, a museum in East London designed to feel exactly how it would have been in the eighteenth century. He’d clearly got the measure of me right away!

What event in your life would make a good movie?

The decade I spent in Los Angeles being a Hollywood wife. I sure have some crazy tales to tell about the movie business; hey, maybe that should be my next book?!

What decade during the last century would you have chosen to be a teenager?

The 1990s. Which is when I was a teenager. I believe in being content!

What is one unique thing are you afraid of?

Grating cheese (genuinely, I really am…)

What did you do for your last birthday?

It was during the early days of Lockdown, so my husband and three kids made me spaghetti with seafood and then we went for a very long walk , and it felt like the most glamorous, luxurious birthday ever!

What was the best memory you ever had as a writer?

My first book, “The Pineapple: king of fruits”, being accepted by a publisher in 2003. It was such an exciting moment. I’d spent the best part of a decade researching the history of the pineapple, and finally it had come to fruition (pun intended).

TEN QUOTES FROM MATRIMONY, INC: From Personal Ads to Swiping Right, a Story of America Looking for Love.

The below are all genuine quotes from old personal ads in American newspapers:

1. “Under 40, not deformed, and in possession of at least one thousand pounds.” (New York, 1788)
2. “I want no brainless dandy or foppish fool, but a practical man who can drive a coach or rock the cradle, hoe the garden or attend the ball-room...” (Wisconsin, 1855)
3. “No simpering fool, who imagines a lady taken off her feet by his smiles, no uneducated ape in lavender kids and yellow stick, no mature dandy, such as promenade for smiles of silly girls and impudent stares, no mustached baboon, need apply…” (Virginia, 1851)
4. "Must understand the uses of the quill and the fist, as there will be a good deal of writing and boxing to do” (Florida, 1852)
5. “Not very talkative, nor one that is dumb; no scold, but of a spirit to resent an affront; that will entertain her husband’s friends with affability and cheerfulness, and prefer his company to public diversions and gadding about . . .” (Philadelphia, 1784)
6. “I don’t want a glass-eyed or lantern-jawed woman, one that is as cross as blazes and gads about, gossiping and making mischief all over town.” (Massachusetts, 1860)
7. “Weight, between 100 and 135 pounds; height, between five feet and five feet six inches; teeth regular, perfect and genuine, without exception; black hair and eyes preferred, though blue eyes and auburn hair might be acceptable. A good English education is necessary. Wealth is not required, but those possessing it will state the amount. A good supply of temper is very much admired.” (South Carolina, 1861)
8. “Have lost a leg, but expect to get a cork one; have a useless arm, but will be called brave for it; was once good-looking, but am now scarred all over.” (Virginia, 1862)
9. “A collector of postage stamps, possessing 12,544 specimens [who] desires to contract a marriage with a young lady, also a collector, who has the blue Mauritius stamp of 1847” (Washington D.C., 1911)
10. “Young man, moderate circumstances, and who has glass eye, would like to form the acquaintance of young girl who also has a glass eye…” (New York, 1901)

YOUR FAVORITE SCENE FROM MATRIMONY, INC: From Personal Ads to Swiping Right, a Story of America Looking for Love

Just before dawn one foggy Monday, in the spring of 1908 in the small town of La Porte, Indiana, Joe Maxson, a tall, pale farmhand with an impressive mustache, woke to the smell of smoke.

Joe’s bedroom was directly above the kitchen, so he figured his employer, Belle Gunness, must be getting a head start on breakfast. He rolled over and went back to sleep. He felt unusually groggy; he would later wonder whether this was the result of a slightly strange-tasting orange Belle had given him to eat the night before.

It was not long, however, before Joe realized that this was more than just everyday stove smoke. He leapt out of bed in his long underwear and ran to the window. Flames were darting out of the kitchen below. The whole house was on fire!

Frantically pulling on his clothes and boots, Joe raced to the connecting door to the main house. He tried to kick it down in order to warn Belle, her servant Jennie, and her three children, who were all asleep inside, but to no avail.

Choking from the thick smoke and barely able to see, Joe darted down the stone staircase and began to shout at the top of his voice.

“Wake up! Wake up, I tell you!”

He threw brick after brick at the window, but all he could hear was the continued roaring of the enormous flames.

Suddenly, a beam gave way, sending furniture from the upper floors tumbling down in a cascade of sparks.

Within minutes, a couple of neighbors from nearby farms galloped up on their horses to see if they could help. Someone had the idea to send for the local sheriff. Al Smutzer was a rotund, red-faced, curly-haired man who wore a dark-colored turtleneck and a leather peaked cap. His red Ford truck was soon heading up to the farm.

Despairingly, the assembled group watched as the entire property was reduced to heaps of charred, smoking debris. When daylight broke, Smutzer ordered teams of men from La Porte’s volunteer fire service to search for the bodies of those believed to be in the house.

For hours, they found nothing.

But a little before five in the afternoon, while excavating the cellar, someone’s shovel uncovered a human hand. More digging found four bodies, huddled together like they were sheltering from a storm: a woman, two girls, and a boy.

The woman was headless though, which was odd.

A few days later, Asle Helgelien arrived at the Gunness farm in search of his brother, Andrew, who had gone missing, the only clues to his whereabouts a few letters from Belle. Asle was immediately suspicious. He asked Joe if he knew of any holes that had been dug in the garden in recent months, which he did. The two of them grabbed a couple of shovels and got to work. The stench was appalling: Joe was sure it was old fish cans, until they got to about four feet down and hit upon something hard covered with a hessian sack. It was a human neck and arm. More digging revealed the arms, legs, and head, all of which had been neatly cut away from the torso.

Sheriff Smutzer organized a search of the rest of the property. By the next day, five more bodies had been found. Then more the next day, and the next. Within a week of the fire, the tally was up to thirty-five. Most had been brutally dismembered, wrapped in a piece of burlap, and buried in the chicken yard or the pig pen.

Belle Gunness was revealed to be the most prolific female serial killer of all time.

Over forty reporters descended on La Porte, along with thousands of gawkers. The murders were front-page news across the country. The families of missing men from across the Midwest soon arrived too, hoping that at last they might discover the fate of their loved ones.

But one aspect of the case mystified everyone. How had Belle Gunness managed to lure so many men to her farm? Rude comments were made about her physical appearance and demeanor, while many speculated about the sexual services she must have offered.

The answer was simple. Gunness had exploited one of the many innovations that, in 1908, were well on the way to helping transform America from a Victorian society to a modern one: personal ads.

A clever, thoughtful, and funny history that reveals how the Union of states was built on a much more personal union of people.

Have you ever used a dating app or website? Then you have more in common than you know with lonely homesteaders in 18th century New England. At once heartwarming and heartbreaking, Matrimony, Inc. reveals the unifying thread that weaves its way through not just marriage and relationships over the centuries, but American social history itself: advertising for love.

Amazingly, America’s first personal ad appeared in the Boston Evening Post as early as 1759. A “person who flatters himself that he shall not be thought disagreeable” was in search of a “young lady, between the age of eighteen and twenty-three, of a middling stature, brown hair, of good Morals…” As family-arranged marriages fell out of fashion, "Husband Wanted" or "Seeking Wife" ads were soon to be found in every state in the nation.

From the woman in a Wisconsin newspaper who wanted “no brainless dandy or foppish fool” to the man with a glass eye who placed an ad in the New York Times hoping to meet a woman with a glass eye, the many hundreds of personal ads that author Francesca Beauman has uncovered offer an extraordinary glimpse into the history of our hearts’ desires, as well as a unique insight into American life as the frontier was settled and the cities grew. Personal ads played a surprisingly vital role in the West: couple by couple, shy smile by shy smile, letter by letter from a dusty, exhausted miner in California to a bored, frustrated seamstress in Ohio. Get ready for a new perspective on the making of modern America, a hundred words of typesetter’s blurry black ink at a time.

“So anxious are our settlers for wives that they never ask a single lady her age. All they require is teeth,” declared the Dubuque Iowa News in 1838 in a state where men outnumbered women three to one. While the dating pools of 21st century New York, Chicago or San Francisco might not be quite so dentally-fixated, Matrimony Inc. will put idly swiping right on Tinder into fascinating and vividly fresh historical context. What do women look for in a man? What do men look for in a woman? And how has this changed over the past 250 years?

Praise for MATRIMONY, INC.

“Beauman has uncovered a treasure trove of fascinating detail. Matrimony Inc is the ultimate proof that we humans are fools for love. But also desperate, courageous, and occasionally lucky." —Amanda Foreman, New York Times bestselling author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire and A World on Fire

“A fascinating, hilarious, and occasionally heartbreaking work of history. With wry wit and a trained eye for the absurd, Beauman takes a cultural artifact that seems so perishable and rescues it from the scrap heap. These lonely-heart epistles tell a larger story about social life in America, homesteads, cities, newspapers, gender relations, and the enduring appeal of ‘a good set of teeth.’” —Patrick Radden Keefe, author of SAY NOTHING, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award

“A gorgeous book. It turns out that the search for love actually was always funny, sad, weird and wonderful.” —Richard Curtis, writer of, Love Actually, Notting Hill, and Four Weddings and a Funeral

"Francesca Beauman writes with elegance, wit and profound intelligence. Matrimony, Inc. is a wonderful book full of impressive original research which charts how personal ads shaped the course of American history. A joyous and clever read.” —Elizabeth Day, author of The Party and How to Fail

“Who among us hasn’t been a voyeur of the personal ad? Beauman’s deep historical dive into a person’s most naked ask into the universe is hilarious and maddening and heartbreaking, and reveals through these incredible finds how the needs and expectations of what we look for in a mate have evolved, and what has stubbornly remained the same. You won’t be able to hear the phrase ‘swipe right’ quite the same way again." —Kathryn Hahn, actor

“Fascinating. Ever since there were newspapers there were personal ads. Reading them is a peek into the romantic hopes and dreams of people who felt the desire to reach out in this public way. Beauman’s book gives us a window into the history of the U.S. and the politics of how marriage shaped this country." —Joey Soloway, creator of “Transparent”

...she is a companionable and witty narrator and an excellent curator of primary source material. History buffs will be entertained. —Publishers Weekly

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