Wisconsin magazine of history: Volume 85, number 3, spring 2002

              The Bonds He Did Not Break
and Wisconsin
By Kimberly Louagie
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'OW don't you exaggerate just a leeetie bit when you are giving your performances? Don't you make it a trifle worse than it looks?" asked Edna Ferber, reporter for the Appleton Crescent, in the sum¬ mer of 1904. Ferber was trying to uncover one of the many secrets of master magician Harry Houdini. Houdini chose to take her literally and responded, "Well, I fail to see how any exaggeration would help me. The chains and bolts and bars and handcuffs are of iron and steel, and I shouldn't care to
exaggerate those." The ambitious Ferber interviewed the thirty-year-old vaudeville sensation while he was in Wisconsin on a two-week vacation. He had come to Appleton to visit childhood landmarks, telling Ferber that he "used to get his spankings" above a saloon on College Avenue.' Houdini also told her that he planned to retire in a year, but he actually remained in show business more than twenty years after that interview. He had no reason to deceive the future novelist and playwright; the seasoned showman knew that the announcement
This article was awarded an Alice E. Smith Fellowship from the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Spring 2002