Notorious New York Women - The Mayflower Madam

I ran the wrong kind of business, but I did it with integrity.
Sydney Biddle Barrows, to Marian Christy, ''Mayflower Madam' Tells All,' Boston Globe, 1986

There is a reason why they call prostitution the oldest profession. Its been around since probably man first walked upright, and the debate on whether or not to legalize it as raged almost as long. Recently with the Eliot Spitzer trial and now the alleged suicide of the 'DC Madam,' Deborah Jeane Palfrey, prostitution is once again in the news. But there was a time when the idea of high class call girl rings or escort services was still something of a shocker.

Recognize the woman on the left? If you don't, then you weren't around or old enough in 1984 when Sidney Biddle Barrows was once of the biggest stories in the news.

She was dubbed The Mayflower Madam because her ancestors had come over on The Mayflower. The Biddles in Philadelphia are an old Mainline family, the type that only have their names in the paper 3 times, when they are born, when they get married and when they die. Various Biddle family members have been Ambassadors, philanthropists, and one illustrious member, Nicholas Biddle, was the President of the Bank of the United States in the early 19th Century. Born on January 14, 1952, young Sydney attended all the right schools, before arriving in New York to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), where she studied merchandising and business management (which came in handy for her future career). Graduating first in her class, she won $1,000 to advance her studies.

After graduating, she got a job as a buyer for Abraham & Straus, a department store in Brooklyn (which sadly no longer exists), poor Sydney realized that its hard to live on only $18,000 a year (and this was back in the 1970's). Then she was laid off. What's a girl to do, particularly when she comes from a wealthy background? Why take a part-time job working for an escort service of course, to supplement that unemployment check. It was the go-go 80's, the years of Dynasty and Dallas, the rise of Donald Trump, when money was being spent as fast as investment bankers and corporate raiders could make it. Upscale strip clubs like Scores and Stringfellows were opening, offering men the chance to watch girls take their clothes off in a classy environment without sticky floors and cheap beer.

Now Sydney never sullied her hands with actually working as an escort. Oh no, she was one of the women who answered the phone and made the bookings. Pretty soon, she thought 'Hey I can do better than this!' and opened her own escort agency called Cachet. She used an alias, calling herself Sheila Devin. Quick FYI - escort agencies technically are not illegal. Anyone who has read the back of New York magazine or Time Out sees ads for them all the time. What is illegal is if the girls are having sex with the men they go out with, because then it becomes prostitution. Its a rather gray area, which cops and prosecutors hate, the fact that its okay to pay someone for a date but not okay to pay to have sex with them.


Most escort agencies turn a blind eye if the girls are making a little extra money for some schtupping, others add it to the bill. Sydney had no qualms about her girls having sex with the men they were paid to escort. She even helped them out, taught them how to dress better, how to talk to wealthy men, along with a few sex tricks. According to Wikipedia: "Unlike other escort agencies, Cachet offered an unparalleled service at the time, catering to the wealthy and powerful who either visited or lived in New York City. Some of its clients included industrialists, high-powered business executives and lawyers, foreign diplomats and Arabian oil sheiks. Barrows was well-known for treating her "girls" with respect and dignity while also maintaining strict codes of conduct to preserve high standards and a reputation for outstanding service with elegance."

Sydney chose the name Cachet because it was hard to pronounce, weeding out the riff-raff who might be calling. She advertised in papers like the International Herald Tribune. A Cachet girl never wore pants, she wore expensive lingerie, garter belts, and stockings without seams or patterns. She showed off her legs in short skirts and high heels, but nothing overtly sexy. Painted toenails were fine, but hands were to be left au naturel. Girls carried briefcases, or a theater program as they strode through hotel lobbies or restaurants. There was nothing about Caachet girls that suggested they were any different than the average New York businesswoman. None of the women had a noticeable New York accent, they all had exotic names like Sonja, Kristen, or Natasha if they were foreign, Heather, Jennifer or Anne if they were American. No noticeable hooker names like Tiffany or Monique. None of the girls were African-American or Latina, although there were a few Asian girls, and all of them appeared to be highly intelligent and articulate.


They all had fictitious work indentities, stewardesses being the most popular, models less popular. All Cachet girls were requited to be up on current events, they read Newsweek and the paper of record, The New York Times. They were also given clippings from a wire service with the top news stories of the week.

On Cachet's client list, among the usual list of businessmen, diplomats, stockbrokers, and doctors were 340 lawyers, which put a great deal of pressure on the district attorney, after Barrows was arrested. There were no African-American clients on the agency roster, and very few African diplomats (whether this was Barrow's prejudice or the girls is anyone's guess). However, gay men, who were hiring the girls strictly as beards were accepted.

Cachet's girls were also known for being notoriously clean, and they demanded that their clients be clean and respectful as well. If a client opened a hotel undressed, he was told to get dressed, if he seemed unhygenic, it was suggested that he take a bath. In her autobiography, Sydney described her philosophy that made her business so successful, 'Hire good people and pay them what they are worth.'

However one looked at it, the police in New York were not happy about it and were anxious to make a bust. They worked diligently for about a year,under the direction of a police officer named Elmo Smith, a former CIA operative with a desire to be famous, before making a move on the agency. A million dollars of tax-payer money was spent on the operation. The police finally raided Sydney's operation without a search warrant, and Sydney willingly went to the DA's office to avoid any further unpleasantness. The media had been alerted that a madam would be arriving but completely overlooked the two well-dressed women who entered the building, believing them simply to be lawyers. Barrows spent one night in jail, where the working girls who pounded the pavement were surprised to find that the well-dressed, prim and proper blonde was actually a madam.

When her background was revealed, quickly became a celebrity. After all, it was like finding out that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis had secretly been turning tricks in the White House. She was beautiful, blonde and aristrocratic. There are just certain things that women of that class just don't do. It was shocking to people why a girl of her background and education would willing set foot in the sex industry. After pleading guilty, Sydney was given a slap on the wrist and ordered to pay a $5,000 fine. Unlike Heidi Fleiss, her nineties counterpart, Sydney had been careful to pay her taxes, rent and telephone bills. Even her phone receptionists were employed legally. Making a case stick against her was going to be hard. The police were incensed that she was not being prosecuted, but pressure was apparently put on the district attorney's office to keep her client list secret, which would inevitably come out at a trial.


Barrows only had 20 girls at a time on her books, raking in $1 million dollars a year (in 1984 money). She apparently conducted grueling interviews. The girls were ranked A, B, or C in ascending order, depending on their 'talents.' 'A' girls received $125 an hour while 'C' girls could command up to $1,000 a night. For $2,000 a customer could sign up for a 10 hour session which included dinner, dancing, and recreation. The girls even carried credit card machines for those clients who didn't pay cash. Barrows took 60% of her girls earnings, and kept meticulous records of their menstrual cycles and their weight. Any girl who got a bit flabby was suspended from work for two days for each pound that she gained.


She also kept meticulous notes on her clients. When her brownstone that housed the business was raided (after police were tipped off apparently by a disgruntled former employee), they found her little black book (why are they always black?) with the names of more than 3,000 clients. Each client's pet peeve was listed next to his name. One notation cautioned a girl that the client reeked of garlic.

Sydney apparently took good care of her girls, living by the maxim that a happy employee is a happy worker. She threw lavish Christmas parties for her employees and clients. To celebrate New Year's Eve, she allowed the girls to keep half of the take, any woman who worked the entire night got 60%.


Sydney and her mother were removed from the Social Register after her arrest which in an earlier time would have meant social death. Nude photos taken from by an old boyfriend were obtained by the tabloids and flashed discretely on the front pages. After legal fees, Sydney was left without much in the way of funds, so a charity ball was held to help out at Limelight on April 30, 1985. Sydney showed up, dressed for her ball, wearing a rose-colored strapless gown, elbow length white gloves, and ropes of diamonds and pearls. Male and female cousins showed up carrying balloons that read "We don't condone everything, but the family stands together," (Ringdal, page 353). Next morning Newsday reported that, "Sydney Biddle Barrows showed up her body to the upper crust, for a price as usual. The snobs paid through the nose to see her."

Afterwards, she wrote her memoir, Mayflower Madam, which was made into a TV movie starring another icy-blonde, Candice Bergen, a member of Hollywood royalty (unlike Heidi Fleiss who had the underwhelming Trisha Fisher and Jamie Sigler portray her in TV movies). She wrote 2 more books on etiquette and finally married in 1994. Nowadays, she pops up occasionally in the Society columns, while working on a book on plastic surgery of which she is quite the cheerleader, having had a facelift at the age of 46. She's also popular on the lecture cirtcuit, teaching everything from sexual ettiquette to business practices.

Recently she was back in the news, giving her comments on the Eliott Spitzer debacle. "These people have nothing better to do?" Ms. Barrows asked. "We have terrorists out there. We have murderers, we have rapists, child molesters. And they're worried about somebody getting [sex]?"

According to her random sex is less hurtful than say having a long-term extra-marital affair with someone. "Who are we to pass judgment on other people?" she said. "For instance, if he'd gone and had a girlfriend, now that's a relationship. That is something that is truly a threat to a marriage. A relationship would be the worst thing for him to do morally, but he would be in less trouble for that."

She also said that Empire Club's contention that they sometimes charged $5,300 for high-flyers is exaggerated. Apparently back in 1984, her top charge was $400 (However Time magazine in their story in 1984 claimed that she charged up to $2,000 for her girls). Let's just forget the fact that this was 24 years ago. There's a little thing called inflation, and some of those diplomats in DC probably don't have a problem paying that kind of money, not to mention rich billionaires. After all, some people feel the more you pay, the better value you get. Isn't that why some people pay $650 for a pair of shoes rather than going to Target or Payless?

The question remains why a woman from a patrician background would get involved in something so sordid as the sex trade? Was it rebellion, as one former boyfriend claimed, or was it simply a woman who saw a way to make money, treating prostitution like a business? More than likely it was a little of both. She took the oldest profession and brought it forward into the modern age. Her business was so successful that the venerable publication Barron's did a story, praising her for Cachet's sound business management and suggesting that her only punishment should be to teach adminstration classes in business school. Whatever the reason, the story of the Mayflower Madam was an interesting chapter in the long and varied history of prostitution.


Sources include:

Wikipedia

Love for Sale: A World History of Prostitution - Nils Johan Ringdal

The Mayflower Madam, The Secret Life of Sydney Biddle Barrows - Sydney Biddle Barrows

TV:

The Mayflower Madam - Starring Candace Bergen and Chris Sarandon

Book Sydney Biddle Barrows for your next meeting here

The Wickedest Woman in New York - Madame Restell

This is part two of what I hope will be a continuing mini feature on the blog of Notorious New York Women, inspired in part by a lecture I attended at the New York Historical Society.

New York has always been a place where people can reinvent themselves. It looms large in the imagination and has done almost from its beginnings as a trading post for the Dutch called New Amsterdam. The point of embarkation for most immigrants in the 19th century, for most of the early part of the 19th century, it was as unlawless as the Old West. Fortunes were made and lost in New York City. A humble peddler through shrewd real estate investments became the landlord of New York, Jacob Astor. Cornelius Vanderbilt, from humble origins ferrying citizens from Staten Island to New York, by the time of his death was one of the richest men in American, his statue welcoming patrons to his Grand Central Station. But what of the women who came to New York? What were their stories?

Madame Restell was once known as the Wickedest Woman in New York, which is some title (most recently held by Leona Helmsley). What did she do to earn this unique title? She earned it for pursuing one of the few businesses that were naturally the purview of a woman. She was an abortionist and 19th century birth control advocate. She was actually born Ann Trow on May 6, 1812 in Gloucestershire in England. When she was fifteen, she worked as a maid for a local butcher's family, and she married a year later, a local man named Henry Summer. After 3 years of marriage, they decided that their prospects would be better off in America, so in 1831, they left for New York where Summer subsequently died of yellow fever. Left a widow with a young daughter, Ann found a living as a seamstress, which paid very little.

Her life changed when she married for the second time to a German-Russian immigrant named Charles Lohman who worked as a printer. Lohman was a radical thinker who was close friends with another free-thinker of the time named George Matsell, who published a journal called The Free Inquirer. Her brother, Joseph Trow, had also moved to New York where he worked as a sales assistant in a pharmacy. Through him, Ann Trow now Lohman became interested in women's health, creating birth control products which she marketed under the name Madame Restell. The choice of the name Madame Restell was because at that time, who would have known better about such things as birth control but the French?

Beginning in 1839 and until her death forty years later, the newly christened Madame Caroline Restell began to advertise her products in the various New York City newspapers. At one point, she was spending $60,000 a year on advertisements. How she learned to perform abortions, no one knows for sure. While Ann had little formal education, Charles seemed to have been the intellectual in the family. He wrote all her advertising copy, and took the pseudonymn Dr. Mauriceau.

Abortion at this point in the 19th century was not illegal as long as it was performed before the second trimester. Popular opinion at that time was that the fetus was not viable until it quickened or moved. It was the only way that a woman could know for sure that she was pregnant. A few missed periods was not a guarantee of pregnancy. Until the 'quickening' a woman could choose to consider her condition as a medical problem that needed treatment. However in New York, 1828 abortion was illegal, although the law was rarely enforced. Then as now, of course, there were people who were outraged at the idea of abortions being performed at all. Doctors were incensed that they were being usurped by nonpractioners, but the main concern was the idea of women having control over their reproduction. If they could control that, what other things would women want to have to have more control over?

Madame Restell promised to cure all abortions, which she called "derangement of the stomach." The remedies at the time, which rarely worked, ranged from things like tansy oil to turpentine which could be deadly. When these remedies failed to remove the unwanted pregnancy, women flocked to abortionists like Madame Restell's clinic on Chamber Street downtown for what she advertised as a "painless operation," at a time when even the simplest operation was painful and could cause death. This so-called 'painless operation' consisted of using a wire to pierce the amniotic sac. Like Planned Parenthood today, women were charged according to their ability to pay, anywhere from $20 to $100.

Madame Restell's ads were upbeat and service-oriented. She used arguments that sound incredibly modern to us, including the idea that women should abort because they loved their husbands, pregnancy had risks, abortion was easy, abortion made life better, and abortion only removed fluids (not a baby, just tissue). At a time, when the average woman probably went through many pregnancies during her lifetime, and infant mortality was at its height, Madame Restell must have seemed a godsend for those who could pay.

Her advertisements were carried in newspapers like the New York Sun and the Boston Daily Times. One advertisement read: "Madame Restell's experience and knowledge in the treatment of cases of female irregularity, is such as to require but a few days to effect a perfect cure.' These were respectable papers of the 19th century, not the 19th century equivalent of the National Enquirer or the Weekly World News. Business was booming, it was so good that Madame Restell was able to open 'clinics' in Boston and Philadelphia. She hired traveling salesmen to sell her 'pills' across the country. Of course once these 'pills' didn't do the trick, the women would be referred to one of her clinics to have an abortion. Madame Restell was not the only one dispensing birth control devices and abortions, she was only the most famous. Newspapers through the East were littered with advertisements of doctors who promised 'relief' from female complaints.

What is particulary interesting about this time in the silence of the clergy, particularly to those of us who have grown up with the Catholic Church and the religious right up in arms over abortion and birth control. While newspapers were quick to criticize the clergy for keeping silent, the clergy placed the blame on the newspapers for accepting the advertisements of abortionists in the first place. The Presbyterian Church, however, actually defended abortion with the argument that it was less criminal to kill children before they were born, than it was to curse them with an uncertain existence.

Madame Restell found herself the subject of a series of allegations that of course couldn't be proven since most eyewitnesses weren't about to come forward. These allegations included the charge that she was selling babies, she was also implicated in the death of Mary Rogers, a beautiful cigarette girl who disappeared and whose body was found later on in the river. The story was that Mary Rogers had died from a botched abortion performed by Madame Restell, and the body dumped to cover up the crime.

The very newspapers that Madame Restell advertised in turned on her. Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York Tribune wrote editorial after editorial against abortion and quack medicine advertisements. The rise of periodicals like the National Police Gazette, covering the underbelly of American society, also contributed stories about the horrors of abortion and sexual promiscuity. Not one to take things lying down, Madame Restell fought back, writing editorials herself defending her business. One such editorial was pubilshed in the July 15, 1839 issue of the New York Herald. In the editorial she challenged Samuel Smith, the conservative editor of the New York Sunday Morning News, to press charges against her, and offered $100 to anyone who could prove that her 'medicine' was harmful.

Between 1839 and 1845, Madame Restell was indicted 6 times, but each time the case was dropped before it went to trial. She managed to escape prosecution until the one day that a former patient name Marie Bodine charged her in 1847 with performing a late trimester abortion. Marie was seven months pregnant, the father was her employer. Madame Restell tried to convince her not to have the abortion, to just wait until the baby was born, and a family could be found for it. Marie refused, saying that her employer was insisting on the abortion.

Marie Bodine did not want to press charges but she was pressured into it by the police who had been watching Madame Restell's establishment for awhile, hoping for just such an opportunity. The trial was a sensation, selling out all the New York papers, and earning Madame Restell the sobriquet of the "most evil woman in America." The defense tore into Marie Bodine, accusing her of being little more than a prostitute. However, Madame Restell escaped the felony charges. Instead she was found guilty of a misdemeanor and sentence to one year on Blackwell's Island (present day Roosevelt Island).

Unlike most prisoners on Blackwell's Island, Madame Restell had it pretty easy. She was able to use her money to escape hard labor. While other prisoners slept on hard bunks, she slept on a feather bed, and dressed in fine silk instead of the prison uniform. She had her meals catered by the finest restaurants. Still the trauma of being incarcerated made Madame Restell determined that she would never suffer imprisonment again.

She changed her practice exclusively to the wealthy and middle class who could afford to pay her fees. Instead of charging $10 per abortion like her competitors, Madame Restell raised her prices, now charging $2,000 each. She did a brisk business catering to the single and affluent women who couldn't afford the stigma of having a child out of wedlock or the married women who needed evidence of their adultery taken cafe of.

Her biggest sin in the eyes of most people was flaunting her wealth. It was one thing to make a fortune of the plight of women in a fix, it was another thing to be so blatant about it. Madame Restell craved the social acceptance that normally would have come with her increasing wealth. If Jacob Astor and Cornelius Vanderbilt could take their place in society, why not her? They were no better than her and their business practices shady. She at least was upfront about her business.

Madame Restell would dress in her most expensive outfits as she drove around Central Park, in a carriage drawn by the finest horses available. Needless to say she was shunned by the same women in society who were her clients. A tad resentful, Madame Restell made sure that she could not be ignored completely. Her boldest move was to build an expensive mansion uptown on Fifth Avenue, which at the time was just beginning to become a fashionable address.

Prior to the 1870's, polite society lived downtown around Washington Square, only slowly moving uptown to Gramercy Park, and what is now known as Murray Hill. Fifth Avenue was still considered the wilderness. The building of Central Park changed all that. Although designed for the lower and middle classes to give them a salubrious place to go to, it ended up being used mainly by the upper classes and the rich.

In 1857, the Catholic Archbishop of New York chose the site for the new St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue between 50th and 51st street. He had also recently denounced Madame Restell from the pulpit. When the plot of land that he had earmarked for his own residence came up for auction, Madame Restell's husband drove up the price beyond what the Archbishop's agent could afford. Now the property now belonged to Madame Restell. She build a mansion that cost $200,000 back then on the lot. Pretty ballsy to build a mansion right next door to St. Patrick's Cathedral! It was considered one of the finest mansions in the city, boasting marble walls, Italian frescoes, and the most expensive furnishings. Madame Restell threw a ball to celebrate which was surprisingly well-attended. Despite society's distaste for her, they probably couldn't have resisted the chance to see the inside.

But the tide was turning against her. Her immunity to prosecution began to piss people off. It was seen as part of the widespread corruption that existed in New York. She became synonymous with people like Boss Tweed, whose courthouse cost the city millions that ended up lining his pockets and those of his cronies. Many people were afraid of the skeletons that might come tumbling out of the closet if she were prosecuted. A general move towards reform was in the air, and Madame Restell would become one of its first victims.

The tide was turning against abortion for many reasons. The increasing immigration of people who were considered undesirables like the Irish and Italians in the mid to late 19th century sent the fear of God into people. The birth rate had continued to fall and Nativists feared that the country would be overrun and the WASP power structure would be would be in danger. 19th Century Feminists too were against abortion because they felt that it let men who had seduced and abandoned women off the hook, placing the shame solely on the woman. They also felt that it degraded women and that it undermined women's right to refuse to have sex to control the number of offspring, because pregnancy could be fixed by a sum of money.

Anti-abortion laws became stricter, women who had abotions could now be arrested and sent to prison. In 1872, Anthony Comstock entered the picture (the History Hoydens wrote a great post on the subject of Comstock here.) beginning his personal crusade against vice. In 1873, he became the special agent for his own "Act for the Suppression of Trade in and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use" (this was the same act that Margaret Sanger was persecuted under in the 20th Century for distributing material pertaining to birth control). Comstock didn't catch up to Madame Restell in 1878, being busy suppressing vice other places. She finally came onto his radar when he began to be accused of avoiding a conflict with her. Was he afraid of her? people wondered.

On January 28, 1878, Comstock showed up at Madame Restell's door inquiring about birth control practices and made a purchase. A week later, he returned to receive more instruction, and four days later he came back again, this time with the police and a group of newspaper reporters. After all there is no such thing as bad publicity! Madame Restell was arrested and charged with selling abortive and contraceptive devices.

Although she could afford the best attorneys, Madame Restell was quite alone in the world. Her second husband had died and she was estranged from her daughter, who had married a policeman no less. Far short of Madame Restell's ambitions for her. Although her granddaughter Caroline had been her assistant, she too had married. This time, Madame Restell wasn't assured of escaping imprisonment. The newspapers had a field day with her trail, denouncing her on a daily basis and gloating that she was finally going to get her due.

Not willing to wait and hear the verdict, Madame Restell slit her throat with a pearl handled knife in the bathtub of her luxurious mansion on Arpil 1, 1878. A rather grim April Fool's Day. At her death, she was wearing several diamond rings, earrings, and her nightgown was held together by diamond studs. When Comstock heard of her suicide he called it "a bloody ending to a bloody life." She left an estate valued at around $1M.

What are we to make of Madame Restell? Was she indeed the Wickedest Woman in New York, or a woman who saw a need and stepped into fill it? The fact that she became exceedingly wealthy providing abortions and a public figure only adds to the legend. While she was denounced for the services she provided, she would not have become so wealthy and successful if there hadn't been a need for them. Unlike other abortionists, Madame Restell dealth with the political and social implications of abortion in her advertisements. She seemed to speak to the poor immigrant women who lived a life of one draining pregnancy after another. Her arguments that limiting families would actually improve the lives of the poor was picked up almost fifty years later by Margaret Sanger.

On the other hand, Madame Restell refused to stay in her place. She craved social recognition, wanting to enter polite society, rubbing their noses in the fact that she had made a financial success from an enterprise that most people preferred to keep hidden. She also wasn't ashamed of what she did for a living. She wasn't however a revolutionary. Although she started out a poor immigrant, she made a fortune exploiting the plight of the underclass. However, she did provide her clients will a little more control of her lives at a time when women were considered the property of their husbands.

Madame Restell threatened the social order of the time by insisting that women had the right to make choices about their bodies.

Sources for this post included: wikipedia

The Pro-Life/Choice Debate - Mark Youngblod Herring

The Wickedest Woman in New York - Clifford Browder

Scandalous Lady: The Life and Times of Madame Restell, New York's Most Notorious Abortionist - Allan Keller

Both these books are out of print but can be found through Alibris

Evelyn Nesbit and the Murder of the Century

It was called the Murder of the Century. Eighty years before the trial of OJ Simpson captured the attention of the nation and the world, there was the murder of architect Stanford White by Harry K. Thaw at the entertainment complex that he created Madison Square Garden. The story had everything, society -- money, rage, lust, envy. Within a week of the murder, the Biograph Company had produced a motion picture dramatization.

And at the center of this love triangle gone wrong was a young copper haired beauty named Evelyn Nesbit.

She was born Florence Evelyn Nesbit on Christmas Day in 1884 in Tarentum, a small town near Pittsburgh, PA, the same city that her future husband, Harry K. Thaw hailed from. But while Harry grew up in the lap of luxury living on the big hill, Evelyn and her family were barely scraping above the poverty line after the untimely death of her father when she was 8. Her mother tried to turn their home into a boarding house with minimal success. They often had so little money that they were reduced to eating mustard sandwiches. A dreamy child, Evelyn spend her time imaginging an existence where she was a princess in a castle, or rescued by a handsome prince from the poverty of her existence. But the reality was that there was only one person who could save the family and that was Evelyn.

From the time she was born it was clear that Evelyn was going to turn into a great beauty. When she was fourteen, her mother moved the family to Philadelphia, where Evelyn and her mother soon took jobs at Wanamaker’s department store. However, Evelyn was soon discovered by a local artist, Mrs. Darragh who was taken by her beauty. While she didn’t have the voluptuous figure that was popular during the Gilded Age, Evelyn was willowy, with the type of figure and face that artists adored sketching. Soon Evelyn found she was being sought out by artists such as Carl Blender and F.S. Church.

Modeling in the 19th century was not the career aspiration that it is today. It was considered, like acting, one step above prostitution. Well brought up young ladies didn’t model. In Evelyn’s case, despite her mother’s misgivings, she was able to earn enough to keep the family intact, fed and clothed. Soon Evelyn decided that the family should move to New York, where she could make even more money as an artist’s model. They took rooms in a boarding house on 22nd Street, and Evelyn using a letter of recommendation from an artist in Philadelphia, began making the rounds of the studios of famous artists.

Soon Evelyn had met and posed for Carroll Beckwith, who introduced her to other New York artists, among them Charles Dana Gibson, Frederick S. Church and photographer Rudolf Eickemeyer. Before she knew it, she was one of the most sought after artist models in the city. Sculptor George Grey Barnard used her for his famous piece “Innocence” which is now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photographic fashion modeling, while in its infancy, was becoming more and more popular in the fifteen daily newspapers, and paid more as well. Evelyn learned that she could make up to $5 for a half-day shot or $10 for a full day shoot (that’s about $40 per hour in 2008 dollars). With this kind of money, she was able to bring her younger brother Howard to New York to live with them.

The minute her pictures began to appear in the paper, Evelyn was famous, and theatrical producers began to come around wanting to feature her, not caring whether or not she had any actual talent. Evelyn was cast as one of the Spanish dancers in the hit musical Floradora, but what she really wanted to be was part of the Floradora Sextette, 6 girls who were the show piece the show. Stage Door Johnnies flocked to escort the Floradora girls out to parties and to dinner at restaurants like Delmonico’s and Rectors. Often they send around flowers backstage with money attached. One of these Stage Door Johnnies was Stanford White, the most famous architect in New York if not the entire country. At the time that they met, Evelyn was 16 years old and ‘Stanny’ as he was known was 47, and married with a wife and son conveniently spending most of their time out on Long Island.

Stanford stood over 6 feet tall, with red hair and a moustache. He had incredible energy, often working on 40 and 50 projects at the same time. The architectural firm which he helped to co-found, McKim, Mead & White was responsible for the Arch in Washington Square Park, The Players Club, the Metropolitan Club and various other landmarks around New York City, including the magnificent Madison Square Garden (the second building on the spot and the last to actually be on Madison Square). He also spent more than he earned, entertaining lavishly. He was not only the architect but he also furnished the houses that he built, taking buying trips to Europe where he would return laden down with furniture and art work.

He also had a reputation for ‘befriending’ teenage girls, luring them to his lavish private tower apartment at Madison Square Garden, or to a little studio hideway on West 24th Street (now sadly demolished) that came complete with a red velvet swing. Stanford would push his darlings on the swing, sometimes while they were naked, Evelyn later wrote how he would push her higher while she kicked a hole in the Japanese parasols that were hung from the ceiling. Evelyn’s mother however chose to overlook his dubious reputation for his patronage. White had Evelyn’s teeth fixed, and took her and her mother out shopping. Eventually, money was found to send her brother to military school, and to move her and her mother to a better apartment in the city.

When Evelyn’s mother had to go out of town, Stanford promised to look after her daughter. He looked after her alright. According to the story she told Thaw and then later on in court, White brought her back to his private apartment, plied her with champagne that was drugged, and then took her virginity. However, at the end of her life, Evelyn claimed that Stanford White was the only man she had ever loved. Despite the dubious beginnings of their relationship, Evelyn was White’s mistress for about a year. She soon learned that she wasn’t the only one enjoying the attentions of Stanford White.

Evelyn was soon being courted by other men, including the young and extremely gorgeous John Barrymore who was 22 at the time. However, at the time that they were together, Barrymore was not the matinee idol and movie star that he became later on. He was broke and dabbling as an artist and photographer. Still he was madly in love with her and proposed to her at least twice. She also became pregnant with his child. White swooped in to fix the situation, sending Evelyn off to a boarding school run by Cecil B. DeMille’s mother in New Jersey, where she was treated for ‘appendicitis’ for the first time (apparently she later on had a second attack of ‘appendicitis.’ Who knew you could have more than one?)

Her fortunes took a turn for the better or worse, depending on how one looks at it, when she made the acquaintance of Harry K. Thaw of Pittsburgh as he was fond of introducing himself. Harry Kendall Thaw was the heir to a multi-million dollar mining and railroad fortune. While Evelyn and her family moved from place to place, trying to stay one step of ahead of abject poverty, Harry’s life was one of privilege with mansions, servants, ponies, luxurious coaches and private schools. He also, from birth, was subject to temper tantrums, fits, and violent outbursts. Still he managed to somehow get into Harvard, where he spent his time playing poker. When Harry’s father passed away, his will left him a trust that would allow him a measly $200 per month. Harry’s indulgent mother, known to everyone as Mother Thaw, immediately raised his yearly allowance to $80,000 a year.

Thaw was obsessed with the theater, and he was a regular attendee at Broadway shows. He squired chorus girls around town, but there were darker rumors that Thaw had a penchant for dog whips. Harry was a huge fan of the show Floradora, and a particular fan of a certain copper-haired beauty named Evelyn Nesbit. He first approached Evelyn under an assumed name, “Mr. Monroe,” before finally revealing himself. Evelyn, at first, wanted nothing to do with him, but Thaw was persistent. He even managed to find out where she was in New Jersey, pursuing her with a vengeance. Finally Evelyn agreed to go out with him.

Harry worked his charm on her mother as well, persuading her mother that a trip to Europe was just what Evelyn needed to recover from her ‘appendicitis.’ They spend several weeks traveling around France, but before they left Stanford White gave Evelyn a line of credit for $500 just in case. It was while in Europe that Thaw first revealed his true colors. He would fly into rages on the slightest provocation, or disappear for a day or two, finally returning with a manic gleam in his eye. Finally, Evelyn learned that Thaw was addicted to cocaine and morphine. After her mother had had enough of Thaw’s behavior, she returned to the States. Thaw had promised to hire a chaperone to watch over Evelyn but that somehow never materialized.

Having finally gotten the object of his desire alone, Thaw pressed Evelyn about her relationship with Stanford White, who he hated with a passion bordering on obsession. There are various theories for Thaw’s unwavering animosity for White. One story has it that Thaw had invited a show girl Frances Belmont and her friends to huge party with all his male cronies. On the night before the party, Frances walked in to Sherry’s restaurant with her beau, Frank Crowninshield, the future editor of Vanity Fair. Thaw was there also and snubbed her. Furious, Frances decided to take all her friends to a party at White’s tower instead, leaving Thaw waiting without entertainment for his male friends. Thaw blamed his humiliation on White.

Thaw pressed Evelyn for details of her ‘seduction’ by Stanford White. When he discovered what White had supposedly done to her, he flew into a rage, beating Evelyn with a whip until she begged for mercy. When Evelyn returned to New York, she went straight to Stanford and told him what Thaw had done. White had Evelyn give her statement to his lawyer, and Thaw was forbidden to see Evelyn until she came of age, even though she’d already turned 18. If Evelyn had hoped that telling White about Thaw would rekindle his feelings for her, she was sadly mistaken. White had moved onto to another pretty young thing. He would always have a fondness for Evelyn but their relationship as lovers was now over.

Although she had previously told Harry that she could never marry him because she planned on devoting her life to the stage, Evelyn now changed her mind. Her mother had remarried a Mr. Holman, Stanny was no longer available to her, and perhaps after seeing what a life of luxury could be like, decided to make the best of it and marry Thaw. She’d seen how contrite he could be after one of his rages. Perhaps she felt that in some strange way, marrying Thaw kept her close to Stanny given Thaw’s feelings towards him. Harry had already informed her that he had detectives following White’s every move. His hatred of White was so complete that he even went to Anthony Comstock, head of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and reported that White had debauched over three hundred young girls. He also kept a pistol on his person, claiming that the Monk Eastman gang, on White’s orders was after him. Thaw and Evelyn were wed on April 4, 1905 in Pittsburgh when she was 20 and Thaw was 33.

After their marriage, Evelyn and Thaw moved in with his mother at the family estate in Lyndhurst. Although living with her mother-in-law was not how Evelyn envisaged her marriage, she decided to stick it out. She could always convince Thaw to take her to every play, opera, ballet and musical that played Pittsburgh. Her free time was spent redecorating her rooms in the gloomy house. For all their money, the Thaws apparently had no idea how to furnish a house.

Matters finally came to a head on June 25, 1906. Evelyn and Thaw were in New York staying at the hotel Lorraine, preparing to spend the summer in Europe. That night they had plans to see the first night of a new show Mam’zelle Champagne at the roof theatre at Madison Square Garden, which Evelyn found curious, given Thaw’s hatred of White. Before they left for the theatre, Thaw had left Evelyn at the hotel to have a few drinks down at Sherry’s, where the hat check girl noted that despite the June weather, Thaw refused to take off his overcoat. While they were at dinner at Cafe Martin, Evelyn passed Harry a note saying that the Beast, Thaw's preferred nickname for White, had been in the restaurant.

During the song, ‘I Could Love a Million Girls,’ Thaw went up to White and fired three shots at close range into White’s face, killing him instantly. He then immediately emptied the barrel of the gun and held it over his head to show that he had no intentions of firing again. Various people reported that Thaw either shouted, “You’ll never see that woman again!” or “You ruined my wife,” before firing his gun. Thaw was arrested and taken to the county jail where he had his meals catered by Delmonico’s while he awaited trial.

There were two trials. At the first Thaw plead temporary insanity, claiming that he had the moral right to kill White because of what he did to Evelyn. Evelyn showed up every day at the trial wearing a white blouse, dark skirt, and a charming black hat, looking more like a school girl than the 22 year old wife. Evelyn knew that she had a part to play, and she was ready. It was her greatest acting performance ever. Her outfit soon became a fashion statement due to drawings in the daily papers. When she took the stand, the district attorney, William Travers Jerome, couldn't shake Evelyn's story since she was telling the jury what she told Thaw, not what might have really happened concerning her relationship with Shaw. Instead he tried to smear her character, hammering her on the witness. His strategy had the reverse effect, he just looked like he was bullying a sweet, young girl.

In the meantime a smear campaign was waged against the character of Stanford White. Newspapers dug up all kinds of stories concerning White's debauched behavior with models and showgirls. Other girls came forward and claimed that he was a perfect gentleman. Conspicuously silent where White's friends. Mother Thaw paid not only for a film to be made but also an Off-Broadway play that painted White as a degenerate and debaucher of young girls. It was one of the first cases where the defense went all out to smear the victim (a practice that has become de rigueur since then). In a shocking move, Evelyn's mother came forward to defend Stanford White's character, claiming that she had letters from White that proved that his intentions towards Evelyn had been honorable. However, Mother Thaw took care of the problem, paying her $25,000 for her silence.

The first jury was deadlocked, ending in a hung jury. At the second trial, his lawyers now pleaded that Thaw was definitely insane. Thaw’s mother, always referred to as Mother Thaw, offered to pay Evelyn $1,000,000 to testify that White had raped her and that the thought send Thaw around the bend. After the verdict came in that Thaw was found innocent by reason of insanity, he was treated like a hero. Many felt that the verdict was a miscarriage of justice that was bought by a great deal of money. It was clear from the testimony given that Thaw had suffered from severe mental delusions for years compounded by an addiction to cocaine and morphine. It was also clear that Thaw knew exactly what he was doing when he killed Stanford White.

After Thaw was sent to the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in upstate New York, he and Evelyn were divorced but she never received the $1,000,000 from Mother Thaw. Evelyn had initially tried to obtain an annulment from Thaw, until she found out it meant that she would have no claim to his estate if anything happened to him. Mother Thaw, however, was a shrewd woman and she'd had Evelyn tailed by detectives who discovered that Evelyn had not

been the adoring wife except in public while Thaw was in jail awaiting trial or while he was incacerated at Matteawan.

Thaw meanwhile enjoyed almost total freedom at Matteawan. While there, he spent his time trying to get the verdict of insanity appealed. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court but was upheld. Thaw managed to escape temporarily to Canada in 1913. He was extradited back to the States, but was finally released in 1915 after being judged sane. But that wasn't the end of Thaw's trouble's. Thaw was accused of sexually assaulting and horsewhipping a young boy and was sent back to a mental hospital until 1924. After his release, he moved to Virginia where he bought a historic home called Kenilworth, ingratiating himself with the locals. When he died in Florida in 1947, he left Evelyn $10,000 in his will.

The years were not kind to Evelyn after White’s death. She gave birth to a son, Russell Thaw, in 1910 that she claimed was Thaw’s child but he denied it, and Evelyn eventually admitted that Russell was not Thaw’s although she refused to say who was. She went into vaudeville, with a partner Jack Clifford who she later married, demonstrating the new dances like the fox-trot. She attempted suicide several times, and miraculously she and Thaw apparently attempted to reconcile but nothing came of it. She lived quietly for many years in New Jersey, where she taught ceramics, after overcoming an addiction to morphine (an addiction she was introduced to by Thaw), and alcoholism.

When the film The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing was in production starring Farley Granger, Joan Collins and Ray Milland, Evelyn acted as a technical advisor. She also published two memoirs, The Story of My Life and Prodigal Days. In recent years, her story has entered the national consciousness through E.L. Doctorow’s novel Ragtime and the movie and musical based on the book. Evelyn died in a nursing home in Santa Monica, California at the age of 82 in 1967.

The real victim in all this is Stanford White. Not only was his life tragically cut short, but his reputation blackened to such a degree that his name was spoken in hushed whispers after his death, to the point that even his own family were ashamed to be related to him. The unholy trinity of scandal, violence and sexual impropriety still haunt the memory of a brilliant architect who should be remembered for the brilliant buildings he gave the world, not his sex life.

These three people from disparate backgrounds are now intertwined in the history of New York’s Gilded Age, as symbols of the decadence that symbolized the city. Could White’s death have been prevented if Evelyn had never married Thaw? No one will ever know for sure. Thaw clearly had it in for the man he called “The Beast” but his relationship with Evelyn spurred his obsession to unnatural heights. Evelyn, for her part, never seems to have gotten over her relationship with White. Having lost her father at such a young age, White was both lover and father substitute. Her relationship with Thaw in some way kept her connected to Stanford White, and even in death, her name will always be coupled with his as part of the “Murder of the Century.”

For further reading:

The Architect of Desire by Suzannah Lessard (White’s great-great grand daughter)
Evelyn Nesbit and Stanford White: Love and Death in the Gilded Age - Michael Mooney

Film:
American Experience – The Murder of the Century
The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing
Ragtime

Miriam Folline Leslie - Empress of Publishing

She was an actress, an editor, a supporter of woman's rights and a business woman in the days when a woman's place was clearly in the home, and not in the boardroom. She took a failing business and turned it around, not once but twice becoming the most successful business woman in America. She hobnobbed with Presidents, and sparred with Brigham Young. A beauty who loved diamonds, with a fair complexion and golden curls. An early feminist who left her entire fortune to further woman's rights. And finally a much-married, flirtatious, social rule breaker, who many women might have called a home wrecker but never to her face.

Miriam Florence Follin (or Folline) was born in the Vieux Carre district of New Orleans in 1836. Like other scandalous women, she came from an inauspicious background. Her parents appeared not have been married, and the family's income was dependent on her handsome, erratic but cultured father. Charles Follin wandered around the country failing in one business after the other. However, he didn't neglect his daughter's education, making sure that she learned French, German, Latin and Spanish. He also encouraged her to develop her feminine charms.

Miriam grew up charming but headstrong. When the family moved to New York, Miriam met a young jeweler's clerk, named David Peacock, who let her wear diamonds from the store where he worked. Miriam's mother, Susan, worried that her daughter's virtue had been compromised, had Peacock arrested. She demanded that he make an honest woman of her daughter. Threatened with jail, Peacock agreed but on the proviso that they didn't live together and he wouldn't have to support her. After two years the marriage was mercifully annulled.

Newly single, Miriam embarked on her next adventure. It seems that Miriam's older half-brother had fallen madly in love with the notorious Lola Montez, while he was out living in California searching for gold. He didn't find any gold, but he did find Lola! After leaving countless lovers and husbands in Europe, Lola had come to conquer America. Noel was no match for the fiery Lola who thought nothing of attacking anyone who angered her with the bullwhip she carried like some people carry a purse. Several months after they met, he committed suicide.

Dramatic as always (Lola frequently gave her best performances off the stage), Lola was for onece in her life stricken with guilt. She went to New York and through herself at Susan's feet, screaming that she had killed her son. To make it up to the Follin's, she decided to take Miriam on the road with her.

They went on the road as the Montez sisters where Lola's notoriety and Miriam's beauty drew the crowds. Along the way, Miriam must have absorbed the lessons of seduction as practised by Lola because she had a host of admirers including a Senator from Tennessee, who although married, nevertheless bought Miriam a house in New York. Finally Miriam was beginning to move in the social circles to which her father had envisioned for her.

Soon Miriam met husband number 2, Ephriam G. Squier, an archaeologist who just happened to be the president of a railroad. Squier was 37 and Miriam was 21 but he was immediatly enchanted by her big blue eyes and pleasing conversation. Married in October 1857, Miriam moved into Squier's tastefully furnished home and set about on her next adventure. She was able to travel, and she attended the country's most exclusive gatherings and events including Lincoln's inaugural which led to a meeting that would change her life but Squier's as well. It was there at the inaugural ball that she met Frank Leslie.

Frank Leslie was born Henry Carter in England in 1821, the son of a glove maker. Although he loved to draw, his family discouraged him. He secretly sold some illustrations to London Magazines using the pseudonymn of Frank Leslie. Later, Leslie went to work for the Illustrated London News before finally moving to America where he initially worked for P.T. Barnum where he illustrated the programs for Jenny Lind's tour. After leaving Barnum's employ, he started his own illustrated publications, the first of their kind in America. His motto was "Never shoot over the reader's head."


At the time that Frank Leslie met Miriam, he was a married man with children. He hired Ephraim, whose railroad was not doing too well, to work as an editor of his Illustrated Newspaper, and Miriam to edit his Lady's Magazine, where she was a great success. She was able to translate her conversational skill into the written word so that in a few years, she was editing several of Leslie's many publications.



When Squier heard that Leslie had separated from his wife, he generously offered to let Leslie move into one of their spare bedrooms. This arrangement lasted for a decade and led to whispers in society about what exactly was going on with the three friends. Things got even stranger when the Squier's accompanied by Leslie went to Europe in 1867 for the Exposition in Paris. Frank Leslie had been named United States commissioner to the Exposition. When the ship arrived in Liverpool, Squier was arrested and thrown into prison, after someone alerted his impending arrival to some of his old creditors. While Squier languished in jail, Leslie and Miriam went to London. Finally after two weeks, they bailed him out of jail.





Despite this, the three of them continued on to Paris where Miriam gathered information about the new Paris fashions for her readers, and the two men worked on the Exposition. The trio lived together, worked together, and travelled together. Finally Squier began to notice that he was being pushed aside. He began to notice that his wife was wearing diamonds that he hadn't given her, and going out at night with Leslie while he stayed home. At one point, he'd had enough, traveling to Peru for a year. When Leslie's wife accused Miriam and Frank of adultery, Squier refused to believe it.





New York at this time was living it up in post Civil War ebulliance. Affairs were conducted openly and the city's demi-monde thrived. There was a certain taste for the bohemian came into style and the thin line between the demi-monde and the rich was almost invisible. While Frank Leslie and his wife were still married, the status quo between the three was kept. Once Leslie was divorced, Miriam decided that she would prefer to be married to Frank and not her husband. However, Ephraim didn't want a divorce. To get her way, Miriam arranged for Squier to attend a party at a 'disreputable house' and invited several courtesans, where several Leslie illustrators were conveniently on hand to sketch him in a compromising position. Of course when Miriam sued for divorce, the two artists were on hand to testify to what they had seen.


A month after her divorce was final, Miriam and Frank were married. A month after that, Squier was committed to an asylum on Long Island. He spent the rest of his life in and out of asylums. Miriam was initially blamed for her ex-husband's insanity, particularly when it came out later that her first husband also ended up in an asylum. However, Squier's brother declared that Miriam was only one of the symptoms of his brother's problems.




Now, 38, Miriam was a wife for the 3rd time. As the new Mrs. Frank Leslie, she threw herself into New York society. They bought a mansion on Fifth Avenue once owned by the notorious Boss Tweed, and Miriam spent lavishly on carriages, horses, Paris gowns and expensive jewelry. They even bought a summer estate in Saratoga where wealthy New Yorkers retired to take the waters and to gamble in the casinos. Around this time she met the poet Joaquin Miller, the Byron of the West. Miller was tall blonde and handsome, with an outsize personality similar to Miriam's. He declared his love for her, immortalizing her in a novel The One Fair Woman. For more than 30 years, they rendezvoused all across America and Miriam wrote glowingly of his work in Leslie's publications.



In 1877, the Leslies took a cross country trip by rail to California first class of course in the finest railroad carriages of the period inclduing a Pullman Hotel car. As they travelled, Miriam kept a journal which she later turned into a book called California: A Pleasure Trip from Gotham to the Golden Gate. The book received excellent reviews. During their trip out West, Miriam had the opportunity to match wits with the Patriarch of the Mormon Church Brigham Young himself about the merits of polygamy.


Just as Miriam was enjoying the fruits of literary success, the roof caved in on the couple. The first blow was Frank's financial collapse in 1877 due to the economic crisis. Frank had overexpanded his empire and the couple had spent more than the publications earned for some time. The publicatons were assigned to another publisher and Frank was demoted to general manager, only receiving a small portion of the profits.


Then came the second blow, a 24 page pamphlet was published by a Virginia City newspaper incensed at the way Miriam had dissed their city in her book calling it a 'god-forsaken place,' and accusing the women of being of the worst class. The pamphlet exposed her slightly unsavory past including her first marriage, her affair with the senator, and her illegitimacy, not to mention her adulterous relationship with Frank before their subsequent marriage. There was only one person who could have given the paper all that information and that was Ephraim G. Squier, who finally seems to have had his revenge on his wife and his former friend.


The final blow was Frank's death in 1880 from throat cancer before he could finish paying off the debt. Miriam was now a widow at 43 with a failing business, and a host of lawsuits from Frank's children contesting his will. But Miriam rose to the occasion like a phoenix rising from the ashes. She managed to pay off $50,000 of the debt, and then her most ingenious move, she had her name legally changed to Frank Leslie so that she could continue to use the name on the publications.



Once again fate was on Miriam's side with one of the biggest stories of the decade. James Garfield was assassinated by Charles Guiteau on Saturday, July 2nd 1881. Miriam immediately sent two artists to Washington, summoned the staff back to work, and produced an issue of the Illustrated Newspaper with special assassination coverage by Tuesday, July 5th. She then took the unprecendented move of issuing a further two issues on the assassination. She was in the right place at the right time, and the genius to take advantage of it.


Like many media moguls of the 20th century, Miriam turned a profit through aggressive make-overs of the magazines, timely scoops, and modernizing the equipment. The male dominated business world was astonished at her moxie. They hailed her as a 'Commercial Joan of Arc.' and a 'miracle money-maker.' By 1885, Miriam was earning $100,000 annually while meeting a payroll of 400 employees. During her lifetime she also managed to churn out a further 6 books and nearly 50 articles.


Miriam was not about to retire her dance card however. As she herself wrote in one of her advice books for women, 'the belle is apt to be a widow who upstages ingenues with her seasoned social charms, perpetual youth and intellectual and conversational powers.' She could have been describing herself. Men wooed her relentessly at her Thursday night salons. At one point she was involved with a French marquis who wooed her with poems only to throw him over for a Russian prince, fifteen years her junior. When the men fought a duel over her, she dropped them both.


Instead she married Oscar Wilde's brother, the witty William C.K.W. Wilde, who was 39 to her 55, after only knowing him for 4 days. The honeymoon had barely begun before Miriam realized she'd gotten a lemon instead of a thoroughbred. Willie got drunk at the wedding and basically stayed that way for 6 months. While Miriam went to work, Willie could barely drag himself out of bed long enough to make it to one of his clubs. The puritan in her rebelled at this. The marriage dragged on for two years before Miriam finally had had enough. As she put it, 'He was no use to me either by day or by night. I really think I should have married Oscar.'


Miriam always kept one eye on her business despite her romantic adventures. She wore tight black gowns, while blending a masculine core of steel along with her feminine charms. After a few years, she began to sell off the remaining Leslie weeklies, keeping the popular Monthly magazine. However, she was called into rescue the magazines again, when the syndicate that she leased her remaining publications to got into financial trouble. However, she was forced out in 1897 for good.


In retirement she continued to travel and write and in 1901, she claimed to have discovered that she was the baroness de Bazus, through a distant relation. Even at the end of her life, she was still drawing admirers, including a Spanish count who unfortunately died before they could marry. When she died in 1914, she left her entire $2 million dollar fortune to Carrie Chapman Catt, one of the leaders of the suffragette movement to fund the cause. Although Frank Leslie's relatives once again sued, and the amount was reduced to $1 million dollars, her bequest paid for the salaries of 200 full-time workers, aiding the cause tremendously.


Miriam Follin Leslie lived her life as intensely romantic as any novel, poem or song written in the 19th Century. She also proved that a woman could run a business as successfully or her in case even more successfully than any man while still remaining very much a woman.