Margery lost her prize 100 years ago today

It was one hundred years ago today that the Scientific American committee, on which Houdini famously served, denied Mina Crandon aka "Margery" their $2500 prize for proof of genuine psychic ability. The committee had sat with the medium in July and August of the previous year. Below is part of a story that ran in The Republican on February 12, 1925.

The Republican, Feb 12, 1925.

J. Malcom Bird, the head of the committee who had been a Margery champion and partisan even before the investigation had begun, blamed Houdini for the failure.

Detroit Free Press, Feb 13, 1925.

The verdict came down during a busy week for Houdini. He was playing two theaters in New York at the same time; the Hippodrome in Manhattan and The E.F. Albee in Brooklyn. A police escort sped him between the two vaudeville houses.

Houdini remained relatively quiet on the final verdict. But he had been making his case against Margery for over a year, first with his Margery pamphlet and later with two exposure lectures in Boston. For him, this was vindication.

This wasn't the end of investigations of Margery. In June 1925, a committee of Harvard scholars sat with the medium. After witnessing her retrieve objects from her lap to aid in her manifestations, they concluded she was fraudulent. The American Society for Psychical Research investigated her in 1926 and also concluded that the phenomena she produced was fraudulent.

Related:

• 100 years ago on Lime Street
• Houdini comes out swinging
• Houdini vs. Margery II: The rematch that wasn't