This is damn interesting.

Headphones recommend it.

A jarring revelation by Christine Rowe.

Poet, inventor, and businesswoman, Amanda Theodosia Jones learned firsthand why 19th century

America was a tough time and place to be a female entrepreneur, especially one with romantic

and spiritual sensibilities. In her long and storied career, Jones made remarkable advances

in food safety in other fields, collecting a dozen patents along the way.

She relied on not just her ingenuity and diligence, but some influential and very unlikely friends.

Amanda Theodosha Jones was born in 1835 in Bloomfield, New York, one of 13 children. Due to tuberculosis and general poor hell, she was forced to spend much of her time indoors.

While cooped up, she developed an active imagination, as well as a love of poetry.

Jones started teaching school at the age of 15, but gave up teaching after a few years

when she began to earn a living publishing her poetry.

Jones was a romantic soul, with a strong faith as well as a strong sense of calling.

Thus, in 1869, when she felt a strong urge to move to Chicago, she heated the impulse.

She worked as an editor there while continuing to write.

She befriended Jonathan Andrews, a physician with a reassuring appearance, who Jones would

later describe in her autobiography as solidly built, white-haired, and middle-aged.

He advocated unorthodox healing methods, and was convinced that love transcended death.

Jones adopted her new friend's ideologies with enthusiasm.

For five years, Andrews treated her using the compressed air cure, or air baths, which involved spending two hours in a well-lit tank full of compressed air.

Jones reported that the treatment gave her a great deal of energy.

Over time, however, Dr. Andrews grew even more unconventional.

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