Annie Abbott "The Little Georgia Magnet" and the True Story of Dixie Haygood

This book is the complete, documented story of the life of Milledgeville, Georgia's Dixie Haygood, who as Annie Abbott, "The Little Georgia Magnet," captivated the world and puzzled scientists in the late 1800s and early 1900s with her unexplained power. Her exhibitions of strength became known worldwide as the "Annie Abbott Act." The magician, Harry Houdini, described her opening performance at the Alhambra Theatre as one of the three big sensations of the London vaudeville stage. Dixie Haygood, who weighed only 96 pounds, used her extraordinary power to overcome the strongest men in the world. When she willed it, strong men could not lift her. She could also transfer her power to children, who then were unable to be lifted! She performed these and many other exhibitions. She performed before all of the crowned heads of Europe, giving exhibitions involving her audiences and baffling men of science. For the first time -- the true story of the creation of the world famous Annie Abbott Act is revealed through hundreds of eyewitness accounts and her own diary. It is only through her diary, autograph album and pain-staking research that her true, and unusual, life has been revealed. The story of Dixie Haygood and Annie Abbott is not simply about this one woman. Her success as Annie Abbott gave rise to imitators, including Annie May Abbott, whose identity and complex relationship with Annie Abbott is explained for the first time. The lives of Annie Abbott, Annie May Abbott, their managers and their families are interwoven in remarkable and never before known ways. The story of Annie Abbott is a story about women, spiritualism, magic, science, vaudeville and family life in the late Victorian Age. Little has been written about women's lives and relationships during the rise of vaudeville. The story of Annie Abbott provides insights into the difficult, but at times exhilarating, life of the vaudeville theater and those who played in it.