Jules Wallace

Patrick Jules Wallace was an Irish Spiritualist medium who toured the United States in the late nineteenth century, performing test séances for paid audiences. Wallace was roundly denounced in press reports of the day, frequently being called a fraud and a fakir; Theodore Dreiser, in particular, was noted for his scathing coverage of Wallace's activities in St. Louis, Missouri during 1893, and Wallace made lasting impression enough to warrant a fugitive appearance in Dreiser's later novel Sister Carrie (1900).

Traveling Séance Show (1890-1896)

• Honolulu, Hawaii
• San Francisco, California (October 1890 - January 1891)
• Portland, Oregon (February - July 1891)
• Tacoma, Washington (July - August 1891)
• Spokane, Washington (September - October 1891)
• Boise, Idaho (November 1891)
• Denver, Colorado (1892)
• Kansas City, Missouri (1892)
• St. Louis, Missouri (1893)
• Washington, D.C. (January - March 1894)
• Brooklyn, New York (April 1894 - June 1895): played several dates at Carnegie Hall during his NYC run
• Massachusetts (August 1895)
• Houston and Fort Worth, Texas (September - December 1895)
• Galveston and Austin, Texas (1896)

It was suggested in the Progressive Thinker that Frederick Milton, a medium active in Omaha, Nebraska beginning in September 1898 and later arrested there in early January 1899 (eventually beating the flimsy charges) was Wallace under a new name, though it is unclear that there is any evidence to support the allegation.

Press Coverage

• "AT A SEANCE. How a Company of Spiritualists Were Duped by a Fraud And a Newspaper Gulled With an Account of Marvelous Materializations. NO SPIRITS CAME TO THE ANXIOUS POST-DISPATCH INVESTIGATORS. Baby Spirits Grow to 6-Foot Statures When the Curtains Are Handled Adroitly — Lousy, a Departed Fiji Islander, and Jules Wallace, an Emerald Islander in the Flesh, Joined the Two Worlds for a Night.", St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, MO): 25, 7 May 1893, https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/138992633/ 
• "DOG EAT DOG, And Tyndall Was Beaten By the Terrible Eyes of His Opponent. Mind-Reader Hypnotized By the Spiritual Medium While on the Hunt For a Hidden Cigar. Tyndall Fell Like One Dead From the Stage, And the Audience Threatened To Mob Wallace, Whose Glittering Eyes Still Lingered on His Enemy. Remarkable Scenes at a Public Content Between a Mind-Reader and a Spiritualist.", Cincinnati Enquirer (Cincinnati, OH): 9, 12 Aug. 1893, https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/33465002, "St. Louis, August 11. — The contest between Jules Wallace, spiritual medium, and J. Alexander McIvor Tyndall, mind reader and hypnotist, at the Hagan Opera-house last night, culminated in one of the most dramatic scenes that was ever witnessed in this city. If it was premeditated between the principals — and there are those cold-blooded enough to declare that it was — it was a remarkable piece of acting on their part, and the execution of the conception must stamp Tyndall and Wallace as the greatest actors of modern times." 
• "SPOOK PRODUCERS. World's Spiritualistic Congress to Convene in Chicago To-day.", Inter Ocean (Chicago, IL): 9, 27 Sep. 1893, https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/33771292/, "The spokesman of the delegates who have arrived is Patrick Jules Wallace, of St. Louis. Mr. Wallace is a medium-sized, heavily-built man, with dark complexion and a full, clean-shaved face. He speaks with a decided Irish brogue and explains that he is a mixture of Jewish and Irish blood, his father representing the Hibernian side of the house, while his mother was a Jewess." 
• "HIS DESERTS. Fakir Jules Wallace in a Fair Way to Get Them. Summons Against Him Issued In the First District Police Court. MR. ESTEP ANXIOUS TO GET EVIDENCE AGAINST HIM FOR FRAUD. The Spiritualistic Fraud Will Have To Answer to a Charge of Conducting an Entertainment and Telling Fortunes Without a License — Prominent Citizens Subponaed as Witnesses In the Case.", St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, MO): 2, 27 Oct. 1893, https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/137653645/ 
• "SPIRITS CALL HIM AWAY. Fakir Jules Wallace Will Soon Trouble St. Louis No More.", St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, MO): 8, 28 Oct. 1893, https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/137653918/ 
• "JULES IS GONE - Fakir Wallace Finds St. Louis to Hot for Him. To Avoid Prosecution the Alleged Spiritualist Skips Out. Weeps Over His Lot, but Fails to Pay His Board Bill. PROBABLY JOINED HIS CONFEDERATE MRS. BICKNALL, IN NEW YORK. The Prosecution Started Through the Instrumentality of the Post-Dispatch Frightens the Fat Fakir — His Landlady's Account of His Leaving — The Case of Lowell Putnam — Wallace's Record in St. Louis and Other Places.", St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, MO): 9, 29 Oct. 1893, https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/137654079/ 
• "A SO-CALLED MEDIUM. Great Excitement at a Spiritualists' Gathering Last Night. Proceedings in the Police Court Today — Released on Bail to Appear Tomorrow.", Evening Star (Washington, D.C.): 3, 8 Jan. 1894, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1894-01-08/ed-1/seq-3/, "Patrick Jules Wallace, an alleged spiritual medium, was arrested last night by Detective Rhodes and locked up at No. 6 station on the charge of being a suspicious character. At the time of the arrest, Wallace was giving manifestations of 'tests' before the Washington Society of Seekers After Spiritual Truth, at Typographical Temple[...] Wallace is a fine-looking man, and at one time was a drug clerk in New York city, where, it is said, he was known, not as Patrick Jules Wallace, but as Pat Ryan. From this he entered the variety show business, and at San Diego, Cal. re-entered the drug trade. After a period he went west and embarked in business as a spiritualistic medium. He is charged with having obtained money by fraudulent methods in a number of cities, having, it is claimed, victimized many people in the name of spiritualism. He was last conspicuous in St. Louis, and, it is claimed, was forced, with his partner, to leave that city. The next thing heard of Wallace was in Washington[...] Wallace was taken to police headquarters, where he gave his name as Patrick Jules Wallace; age thirty-one years; married; born in Ireland, and a spiritualistic medium by occupation[...] Wallace stated that he was never known as Pat Ryan; that for the past four years he had been a medium, and that formerly he had been an actor with Dion Boucicault and other companies. He denied any wrong doing here or anywhere else, and asserted that he was the victim of police and newspaper persecution."