The Married Woman Who Kept Her Lover in the Attic

The Married Woman Who Kept Her Lover in the Attic | Atlas Obscura

In April 1930, the Los Angeles Times began publishing what would end up being months’ worth of eye-popping details from an exceedingly strange court case. It involved a “comely” woman named Dolly, her murdered husband, and her lover, a man known as the “garret ghost” who, at Dolly’s behest, lived a “bat-like life in hidden rooms.”

On August 22, 1922 a particularly brutal fight broke out and Sanhuber, fearing for Dolly's life, ran downstairs brandishing Fred's two .25 caliber rifles. He fired three rounds straight into his rival's chest, killing him instantly.

By the time the ex-lovers were arrested the papers had gotten wind of the sordid tale and shutterbugs followed Dolly and Sanhuber everywhere. But the trial outcome was not as eventful as the public would have hoped: though the jury found Sanhuber guilty of manslaughter on July 1, the statute of limitations for such an offense was seven years. Eight years had passed since Frank’s death. Sanhuber’s charges was dropped.

Further Reading: Women Who Kill Men: California Courts, Gender, and the Press by Gordon Morris Bakken & Brenda Farrington

WWII Female Marine Honoured

From The Richmond Register:

After training at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, Campbell was sent to Camp Pendleton in San Diego, where women Marines operated the military bases while every able-bodied Marine man was engaged in combat.

“Without women stepping up to the plate in WWII, there was no way those stations could have stayed open,” James said.

During the WWII era, women soldiers had catchy nicknames like “WACS” or “WAVES,” which are both acronyms for women in the Army and Navy respectively.

Campbell was one of the 18,000 women Marines who were enlisted during WWII between 1943 and 1946, James Martin said.

That number was reduced to just a few thousand near the end of the war, until 1948 when Congress voted to give women “full-fledged status in the military,” he said.

History of Nylon Stockings

From Threaded:

Nylon stockings made their debut in my hometown, Wilmington, Delaware, on October 24, 1939. That’s because Wallace Hume Carothers, the chemist who invented the synthetic material in 1935, worked for the DuPont company, which is headquartered there. In fact, the first test sale to DuPont employees’ wives took place at the company’s experimental station, just up the street from my childhood home. Not long before the 4,000 pairs of stockings sold out—in only three hours!—DuPont had had women modeling nylon hosiery at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, touting nylon as a synthetic fabric made of “carbon, water and air.” A prototype of that initial run (get it?) can be found in the Smithsonian’s collection.

Evelyn McHale - Most Beautiful Suicide

From Iconic Photos:

The photo was taken on May Day, 1947 at the bottom of the Empire State Building. Photography student, Richard Wiles, was across the street, and heard a loud crash. He rushed to the scene and took the photo four minutes after one Evelyn McHale jumped off from the Observation Deck. Like the movie said, the picture is sad, but it is simultaneously serene. It isn’t full of gore, and Evelyn looked as if she was sleeping. Her calm repose contrasted greatly from the grotesque wreckage of a bier she herself created beneath her.

Life magazine wrote at the time: “On May Day, just after leaving her fiancé, 23-year-old Evelyn McHale wrote a note. ‘He is much better off without me … I wouldn’t make a good wife for anybody,’ … Then she crossed it out. She went to the observation platform of the Empire State Building. Through the mist she gazed at the street, 86 floors below. Then she jumped. In her desperate determination she leaped clear of the setbacks and hit a United Nations limousine parked at the curb.”

From KOTTE dot Org:

On May 1, 1947, Evelyn McHale leapt to her death from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. Photographer Robert Wiles took a photo of McHale a few minutes after her death.

“I don’t want anyone in or out of my family to see any part of me. Could you destroy my body by cremation? I beg of you and my family – don’t have any service for me or remembrance for me. My fiance asked me to marry him in June. I don’t think I would make a good wife for anybody. He is much better off without me. Tell my father, I have too many of my mother’s tendencies.”

Read more from stories from the Empire State Building Observation Desk.

Women on Wall Street

From Bloomberg:

Siebert wasn't the first woman to rise above gender discrimination in the world of finance. One of the earliest documented female investors in the U.S. was Abigail Adams, who ignored her husband John's instructions to invest in land while he was stationed overseas, and instead made a much larger return investing in U.S. government bonds. Contemporary accounts describe Abigail's foray into the investing world as the one source of contention in the couple's otherwise happy marriage, despite her success.

There are also abundant examples of women who went out of their way to de-emphasize or even hide their gender to foster their careers in finance. Among them were the first women to own a Wall Street brokerage, sisters Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin, who had custom-made business dresses designed to hide their femininity and blend in with their male colleagues. Even so, the New York Times headline that announced the firm's opening in 1870 read "Wall Street Aroused," and the story's reporter concluded that "A short, speedy winding up of the firm of Woodhull, Claflin & Co. is predicted."

The Great Female Pilot – Pancho Barnes

From Top Secret Writers:

Barnstormer, world speed record holder, crash survivor, stunt pilot, founder of a pilot union, and owner of a fly-in ranch depicted in The Right Stuff and frequented by friends like Chuck Yeager, Buzz Aldrin, and Jimmy Doolittle.

Pancho Barnes was an unconventional character that had a big effect on aviation and aviators during some of the most dynamic years in aviation history.

Though living through pain, prejudice, and the Great Depression, she maintained a love of life.

Born Florence Leontine Lowe, Panch was renowned as a unique, dynamic, humorous, talented, and generous individual.

Pancho was a very respected pilot in the Golden Age of Flight: an era that began with Charles Lindbergh’s 1927 flight across the Atlantic Ocean and ended twenty years later in Long Beach Harbor with Howard Hughes’ giant flying boat, the “Spruce Goose,” pulling itself out of the water.

Book: The Virgin Cure

From The Star Phoenix:

The Virgin Cure is set in Manhattan in 1871, when 30,000 children lived in the streets of the city. It is the story of 12-year-old Moth, a poor girl but a survivor if there ever was one. Moth's mother sells her to a wealthy woman who abuses her, so Moth escapes to the Bowery, a place of beggars, thieves, prostitutes and freakshows. There, she is taken in by brothel-owner Miss Everett, who sells girls' virginity to the highest bidder. It's there that Moth befriends a woman doctor, Dr. Sadie, and learns about the virgin cure - the belief that having sex with a virgin girl will cure a man's syphilis.

Loretta C Ford - Hall of Fame Inductee

From Democrat & Chronicle:

When Loretta C. Ford was a pediatric public health nurse in the 1960s, she was often the sole medical practitioner available in rural areas near Boulder, Colo.

It prompted her to co-develop the nurse practitioner model at the University of Colorado in 1965.

In 1972, when the University of Rochester department established its School of Nursing, Ford — the school's founding dean — further changed the way nurses are trained by pioneering and implementing the unification model, an expanded combination of education, practice and research.

There are now more than 140,000 nurse practitioners in the United States today, and about 400 nurse practitioners at UR Medical Center's Strong Memorial Hospital.

On Saturday, Ford will be one of 11 women inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls.

Quakers: Burqa Wearers of the 17th Century

From the Guardian:

In 1630, a certain oatmeal maker was examined by the highest church court in England, accused of preaching without a licence. Before an audience of bishops, he kept his hat firmly on his head. Doffing it momentarily to a secular representative, he turned again to the bishops, crying: "But as ye are rags of the Beast, lo! – I put it on again." Refusal to observe "hat honour" – the custom of removing one's headgear in the presence of a social superior – was a way of saying, in the most confrontational manner: "I reject your authority." (In the case of the oatmeal maker, this was an especially radical rejection: the bishops were agents of Antichrist.) It was a gender-specific affront, since hat-doffing was a peculiarly masculine form of humiliation.

Hat dishonour and burqa-wearing are not, of course, the same thing at all. But they do both illustrate the symbolic power of head-covering, and its relationship to political "headship". Twenty years or so after the case of the oatmeal maker, following civil war and the collapse of traditional pillars of social stability (the monarchy, and the church courts), the early Quakers also famously rejected hat honour. This was a prophetic sign not only that unjust inequalities were being dissolved, but that men were subject to the authority of God alone. Keeping one's head covered was a provocative statement of dissent towards the entire system of deference and consent which apparently held together English society.

Exhibition: Catholic Nuns in American History

From the Observer:

South Bend's Center for History is hosting the national traveling exhibition "Women & Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America," an interactive tour through American history that chronicles the sisters' 300-year history in the country.

The exhibition details the stories of the nuns who pioneered the nation's religious, education, health care and social work systems. The South Bend Center for History, the University of Notre Dame and Saint Mary's College brought the exhibit to South Bend.

Marilyn Thompson, the Center's director of marketing and community relations, said the attraction of the exhibit lies in the depth of information it provides.

"This exhibition is so significant because it not only looks at the history of Catholic sisters, but at how their story mirrors the history of America," she said. "It's moments like these which help us to know how much prevalence these women have had in so many people's lives."

Radium Girls Remembered

From Voice of America:

In the early part of the 20th century, the chemical element radium was widely believed to cure a number of ailments. It also was used as a way to create glow-in-the-dark faces on watches and clocks. The case of several women who painted those clock and watch faces in a small town in the Midwest state of Illinois helped to raise awareness to the dangers of radium, and forever changed labor laws in the United States.

What no one talked about were the harmful effects to humans caused by exposure to the radioactive radium.

Young women in their late teens and early twenties were recruited to work at the Radium Dial factory in Ottawa. They painted the faces of watches and clocks with radium, which caused them to glow in the dark.

Archaic Laws Regarding Women Repealled

From RedBank:

When governing bodies enact legislation in any era, it’s done with the expressed interest, one can only hope, in being not only fair and just, but representative of an entire citizenry.

Well, about that. Sure, men, namely white men, have acted in what they believe have been the country’s best interest since, um, forever, but that’s a difficult notion to honestly believe considering just how unequal representation has been since, um, forever.

On Monday, State Sen. Jen Beck (R-12) announced that several obsolete statutes concerning the status of women, enacted well before women had the right to vote, have been repealed from New Jersey State Law.

The Missing 400 Roswell Women

From 11 Alive:

This is the 150th year since the beginning of the American Civil War. So much conflict history surrounds Atlanta and North Georgia.

Just down the road from a myriad of strip shopping centers in Atlanta and Roswell is a story of unimaginable suffering.

The Allenbrook residence in Roswell, owned by the family of Roswell King, served as the home of the Ivy Woolen Mills Superintendant.

In 1864, the mills were churning out 191,000 yards of cloth and 30,000 yards of "Roswell grey" uniforms made by hundreds of white and black women.

General Sherman ordered General Gerrard to arrest the 400 women and their 300 children and charge them with treason, he said " let them foot it."

The Union soldiers rounded up the southern women and quarantined them in Roswell's Square until early August. Then they marched with children in tow 10 miles to Marietta.

In Cobb County, women and children were put on railcars shipped north of the Ohio River with nine days of rations and dumped.

Many died, many were never seen again.

A Quiet Revolution

Review by Abbas Jaffer is Associate Editor of Altmuslimah:

The question of what Muslim women’s veiling means in America is a highly politicized, often antagonistic debate on television and in the public sphere. Provocative coverage has appeared innumerable times, including a NPR feature as well as a New York Times piece earlier this year. Altmuslimah has also published a number of articles, including “The politics of fashion,” and a series about women who have chosen to take off the veil (Part 1, Part 2). More recent journalistic and academic discussions have certainly been more nuanced and multifaceted than they previously were.

Leila Ahmed’s A Quiet Revolution is both an important and thought-provoking look at the rising visibility of veiling amongst Muslim women. What lies within is a history of the veil and its political meanings from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Ahmed consciously confronts some of her own preconceptions about what this phenomenon means, how wearing hijab rose to prominence amongst Muslim women in mid-century Egypt, and the ways in which this movement traveled and developed in the United States.

Instead of finding a history of modern veiling that reconciled with her previous thought, Leila Ahmed readily admits complicating her view upon undertaking research for this book.

Female Chief at Parris Island

From Bluffton Today:

For the first time in its 96-year history, a female general is taking charge at the famed Marine Corps training depot at South Carolina's Parris Island.

Brig. Gen. Loretta Reynolds, who is also known as the first female Marine to ever hold a command position in a battle zone, takes charge Friday at the installation south of Beaufort.

Parris Island graduates about 20,000 Marines annually and is the only site where female enlisted Marines are trained to enter the service.

Reynolds is a native of Baltimore and a 1986 graduate of the Naval Academy. She has worn the Marine Corps uniform for 25 years. 

As a one-star general, Reynolds becomes only the third female general officer in the more than 200,000-member Marine Corps. The service has two two-star female generals, one in the active duty ranks and another in the Marine Corps Reserve.

The Woman Who Started The US Civil War

From Salon:

When Harriet Beecher Stowe published "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in 1852, the American slave trade was a thriving institution. The courts condoned it and, as Southerners were quick to claim, so did the Constitution and the Bible. Twelve American presidents had been slave owners, and the abolitionist movement was fragmented and marginal.

But Stowe, a seminal figure in American liberalism, had a knack for making radical concepts palatable to the general public, and her novel became one of the first genuine pop culture phenomena in American history. Within 10 years of its publication, the United States devolved into civil war. And as historian David S. Reynolds argues in "Mightier Than the Sword," a new book that explores Stowe's life and the global impact of her work, it was "Uncle Tom's Cabin" that catalyzed the conflict.

Confederate Women - Two Stories

From GO San Angelo:

Recently, folks here recognized a lady not too well-known when her burial place in Fairmount Cemetery was singled out for special honors by the local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Mamie Ann Yeary is a special person to folks researching Civil War materials, records and documents.

Despite being handicapped throughout her life, over the years she compiled a fantastic volume of personal stories told by veterans of the conflict.

The book, published in 1912, is titled "Reminiscences of the Boys in Gray, 1861-1865." It's 904 pages and contains memoirs submitted to her by Confederate veterans living in Texas at the time of its writing.

Another woman who did more than her share during that brutal war was Isabelle (Belle) Boyd, an actress and Confederate spy. Although she was a native Virginian, her varied career brought her to Texas at least twice.

Her first trip to the Lone Star State came when she performed on stage at Houston and Galveston theaters. Later, she settled for a time in Dallas.

In 1861, Belle shot and killed a Union soldier who broke into her home.

Four Women Western Writers

From New West:

When we did the Western Literature Association survey of Most Important Authors, very few women made the list. Willa Cather got her fair share of votes. Mari Sandoz was the next favorite, followed by Leslie Silko and Mary Austin. After that came such names as Amy Tan, Sandra Cisneros, Pam Houston, Terry Tempest Williams and Ann Zwinger. With the exception of Cather, none had sufficient support to be called "important".

For my list of significant Western women writers, I chose the four I find most unforgettable, four women I have spent many evenings with and who belong in the library of any well-read Westerner.

• Mary Hunter Austin
• Willa Catha
• Mari Sandoz
• Dorothy Jackson

Rebecca Carr by Steve Martin

From PAL-ITEM:

The Wayne County Soldier's Registry for the Civil War lists more than 3,500 men. In that book is one woman who "earned an honored place among the Wayne County soldiers that fought."

The directory states, "besides furnishing two sons and a husband for the army, she volunteered her own services as nurse to the 36th Indiana Regiment and received a pension of her own."

Her name was Rebecca Carr.

Women & Warfare

From the Waverley Leader - Remembering our ANZAC Women:

WHILE most of the focus on Anzac Day highlights the many soldiers who fought for their country in military conflicts, a strong group of ladies will also pause on April 25 to remember their contribution.

Oakleigh Carnegie RSL life member Verna Phillips will be one of them.

The 88-year-old joined the Australian Army during World War II in 1942 after seeing notices posted in the city encouraging women to take on administration and office jobs.

From Third Coast Digest - Band of Sisters:

America’s female soldiers are breaking new ground both here and abroad. They are fighting and dying just like the men do.

It is this phenomenon that led author Kirsten Holmstedt to focus two books on the stories of female soldiers, both in the Iraqi theatre and after they returned home.

From the Arizona Republic - Woman Who Spied For The Union:

"Nurse," written by Marissa Moss, tells the true tale of teenager Sarah Emma Edmonds, who dressed as a man and enlisted in the Union Army under the name Frank Thompson. Thompson rescued the wounded on battlefields, nursed them and served as a spy, disguising herself as a slave to get behind Confederate lines.