History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.
~ David C. McCullough

Will the Other Houdini Please Disappear?

By Benjamin Filene, Curator
Taken from the Mystifier, a publication of the Houdini Historical Center
Volume 5, Number 3 Third Quarter, 1995

On February 17, 1903, the theater column of the Worcester (Massachusetts) Evening Post reviewed the current acts at the Park Theater. It commended the headliner, Fulgora, for his tableaux depicting the end of the Civil War; it marveled at Captain Webb’s trained seals and their “almost human intelligence”; and it noted that Artie Hall was “as good as usual with her old-time Negro melodies.” The reviewer also gave special praise to a dazzling escape artist on the bill, Houdini:

Houdini, known as the “Handcuff King,” from the fact that as yet no handcuff has been put on his wrists that he was not able to escape, did a novel turn. Jack Ferritor, when the invitation came for one to go on the stage came forward with a pair of wrist irons, that were used in “slavery” days and with which he hope to puzzle Houdini, but the clever man released himself quickly.

Across the Atlantic, meanwhile, in the very same month on the very same day, audiences at Mellini’s Theater in Hanover, Germany gasped as Houdini escaped from a seemingly impossible array of handcuffs. He had been headlining at Mellini’s all month.

Houdini, it seems, was appearing on two continents at once. Had the hardest working man in show business cloned himself? Had the self-styled “World Famous Self-Liberator” transcended all corporal limits? The answer, less otherworldly but just as fascinating, is found in the Houdini Historical Center’s Jacob Hyman collection. Hyman, Houdini’s first partner (see Mystifier, second quarter 1995), was using the Houdini name as his own. It was Hyman astounding audiences in Worcester that February, while Harry Houdini drew crowds in Europe. The story of the two Houdinis is an intriguing footnote to the career of the man who went on to make “Houdini” synonymous with magic.

Jacob Hyman might well have felt justified in calling himself “Houdini.” He and Ehrich Weiss had met as teenagers while working at H. Richter’s Sons tie factory in New York City. They became fast friends when they discovered they shared a passion for magic. In 1891 they left the factory and began touring as “The Brothers Houdini.” According to some accounts, it was Hyman who coined the Houdini name as a tribute to Ehrich’s hero, the French magician Robert-Houdin. Ehrich became Harry Houdini, and Hyman became J.H. Houdini.

According to Patrick Culliton and T.L. Williams [“The Other Houdini,” Genii 54 (October 1991): 826-828], the Brothers Houdini performed in the New York area from 1891 to 1893 and then toured the Midwest for a few months, including a stint at the Midway of the 1893 World’s Fair. In 1894, they dissolved their partnership, seemingly amicably. The Houdini Historical Center’s Sidney H. Radner Collection contains a document from April of that year formalizing the break. Hyman signs it “J.H. Houdini,” suggesting that, in his mind at least, the end of the Brothers Houdini did not mean the death of his alter ego.

Hyman seems to have used the Houdini name sporadically in the decade after the Brothers Houdini disbanded. Sometimes he performed as J.H. Herne. Sometimes he went by Jack Hayman. Often he and his actual brother, Joseph Hyman, worked in partnership, calling themselves the Hayman Brothers or the Brothers Herne. Hyman, though, did not completely let go of the Houdini name in this period. The Jacob Hyman collection includes letterhead from this time for “J. H. Houdini.” Across the top it proclaims “THE KING OF WONDER WORKERS/HOUDINI/Presenting an Act Entirely New in all its Details.” Culliton and Williams find that in 1896 Hyman billed himself as “Houdini, Oriental Conjurer and Mysterious Juggler,” and that in November 1897 he gave an interview to the Boston Traveler as J.H. Houdini.

It is unclear whether Harry Houdini voiced any objections to Hyman’s use of the Houdini name in these early years. The Radner Collection contains a letter on J. H. Houdini letterhead that Hyman wrote to Houdini in 1895. “Friend Harry,” it begins matter-of-factly. As the Houdini name became more celebrated, largely through Harry’s masterful publicity strokes, Harry seems to have paid more attention to the matter. By the time of Hyman’s February, 1903 appearance in Worcester, Houdini decided to squelch his would-be rival. Around this time, Culliton and Williams show, he sent a cable from Germany that the New York Dramatic Mirror published in early March:

Having worked for years to make my name famous, [I] trust managers during my absence will not advertise the unprofessional performer who is using my name. If he has brains enough to act, let him make [a] name for himself.

An article in the Jacob Hyman Collection documents that more drastic steps were taken as well to put an end to J. H. Houdini. “A WAR OF MAGICIANS,” the Springfield Republican headlined on February 23, 1903: “Odd Bit of Professional Rivalry in Vaudeville at the Nelson Theater.” The paper reported that Hyman, performing as “Houdini” had, as usual, challenged members of the audience to bring him handcuffs from which he would break free. When a pair was produced and locked onto his wrists, however, he could not extricate himself – and for good reason. The handcuffs had been submitted by Dr. Leopold Weiss, Harry Houdini’s brother. Weiss and his lawyer had come from New York City expressly to foil Hyman. The Republican reported that Leopold “is said to have threatened to follow [Hyman] and bring him unopenable handcuffs until he drops the name Houdini.”

Soon after this incident, Hyman forever abandoned the Houdini name. Within a few years he had retired from show business completely and entered medical school. Perhaps he had been chastened by Harry Houdini’s reprimands or frustrated by Leopold’s tactics. Maybe he simply decided that the life of an entertainer was too hard and the money not reliable enough. Or perhaps he took to heart Harry Houdini’s blunt suggestion:

If he has brains enough to act let him make [a] name for himself.

In 1911, at the age of 40, J. H. Houdini became Dr. Jacob Hyman.

I am grateful to Kenneth Silverman, Patrick Culliton, and Ronald J. Hilgert for their contributions to this article.