Operation Wetback – the 1950’s U.S. Mass Deportation program

Mexican migrant detainees bound for deportation in Operation Wetback.
Mexican migrant detainees bound for deportation during Operation Wetback.

The 1950’s “Operation Wetback” was the largest mass deportation of undocumented migrants in U. S. history.  As many as 1.5 million people were swept up and deported in the Eisenhower Administration campaign.  The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) repatriated primarily Mexican immigrants (some of them American citizens) from the U.S.  Ironically, millions of Mexicans had legally entered the country after World War II in the joint U.S.-Mexico Bracero Program.  In 1954, the disparagingly-named and heavily publicized Operation Wetback reversed that immigration program and attempted to send them all back to Mexico. 

Hundreds of immigration and border agents swept through the southwestern United States.  They rounded up hundreds of thousands of immigrants they claimed were in the U.S. illegally.  Scant attention was given as to whether they were a legal Bracero Program migrants or not.  INS and border agents then herded them into trucks, trains, and ships and sent them back into Mexico.  How did such a massive operation come about?

Deportations of Mexican immigrants from the U.S. date back to the Great Depression. In the 1930’s, with millions of Americans unemployed, the U.S. deported over 1 million Mexicans, 60 percent of whom were U.S. citizens!  Nevertheless, American farmers still needed those migrant workers.

After World War II, before Operation Wetback, were years of effective border enforcement. 

Believe it or not, Mexico and the U.S. have been partners in controlling border migration more often than they’ve been adversaries. The U.S. collaborated with Mexico to encourage the legal hiring of immigrant workers, and as a way to crackdown on illegal hiring by farmers and factories. Many American employers exploited the migrant workers who crossed the border illegally. Mexico and the U.S. negotiated an accord to protect the rights of Mexican agricultural workers in the U.S.

In 1942, the U.S. Mexican Farm Labor Program, Operation Bracero, began – named after the Spanish term for “manual laborer.” The program funneled Mexicans into the U.S on a legal, temporary basis in exchange for guaranteed wages and fair working conditions. Mexico kept some of its workers home to help on Mexican farm land. So INS designed the Bracero Program to help control the number of Mexican workers leaving Mexico for the U.S.

However, Texas employers did not want to pay for the guaranteed fair wages and housing requirements. So Mexico excluded that state from the program for violating the agreement. That’s where illegal “wetbacks” came in.  These were Mexicans who illegally entered Texas by swimming across the Rio Grande River. The federal government initially turned a blind eye to Texans’ employment of undocumented immigrants.

In the 1940’s, the Bracero Program was viewed as a success in both countries. 

An estimated 4.6 million Mexicans entered the U.S. legally through the program between 1942 and 1964.  States’ growers soon became dependent on Bracero workers, especially during planting and harvest.  At the same time however, thousands of Mexicans still crossed the border illegally and were also given jobs by farms and factories, though at far cheaper wages.

In the 1950s, Mexican immigrants were seasonal workers, not permanent residents like today. Back then, it was easy for workers to cross back and forth between their families in Mexico and jobs in the U.S.  This reciprocal migration allowed farmworkers to come to the U.S. for the growing season, then return to Mexico after it was over. Plus, the Bracero Program provided jobs for migrants at a higher pay scale.  So Bracero actually encouraged workers to enter legally.

During the Bracero Program, the INS tried to do their job while also being sensitive to farm owners.  The procedure for years was that they’d not do sweeps and raids during harvest time.  For the Bracero Program, an alternate target of INS was the farmers and factories who refused to use legal migrants, and instead chose the cheaper, illegal ones. 

The situation in early 1950’s increased the Mexican exodus to the U.S.

The demand for cheap agricultural laborers kept increasing during the post-war American boom.  Ever more employers hired and exploited illegal immigrants at far cheaper wages. Corruption on both sides of the border enriched many officials’ wallets, as well as unethical “coyote” freelancers.  Cheap, illegal labor increased the violation of labor laws and caused rampant racial discrimination. 

This prompted the Mexican government to rescind the Bracero Program in 1953 and cease exporting its workers. The U.S. Immigration Service, under pressure from large agricultural groups, retaliated against Mexico.  They allowing thousands of immigrant workers to cross the border illegally, arrested them, then delivered them to work for various large-scale growers in Texas and California. By the 1950’s, the number of undocumented Mexican immigrants increased 6,000 percent over the prior decade. 

By now, the American public began noticing the swelling numbers of Mexican immigrants in the U.S.  They started getting alarmed about the “invasion” of illegals into the U.S. “stealing” their jobs. Various politicians opposed the Bracero Program, stating that the Eisenhower open-border policy posed a threat to security.  In 1953, a Texas newspaper claimed increasing crimes by Mexican wetbacks. Harsh portrayals of immigrants as dirty, dangerous criminals became the new stereotype.  Beginning to sound familiar?

In 1953, the federal government decided it had enough.

Border Patrol head Harlon Carter was frustrated by the sheer numbers of Mexican immigrants in the U.S., both legal and undocumented.  He convinced Republican President Dwight Eisenhower to severely ramp up immigration enforcement efforts.  Carter tried to get the National Guard involved.  However, the U.S. military is not to be used to enforce domestic laws. 

Instead, in the spring of 1954, the government introduced Operation Wetback in a nationwide publicity campaign.  It would use Border Patrol resources in mass deportations of migrants back to Mexico. Operation Wetback couldn’t have happened without the cooperation of Mexico. The Mexican government wanted the return of Mexican nationals to alleviate its own a labor shortage. 

Harlan Carter promised that agents would sweep American factories and farms.  INS would detain undocumented workers in holding facilities before deporting them to Mexico. It would be, “The biggest drive against illegal aliens in history,” Carter told the press. News of the impending raids frightened U.S. Latinos, many of whom remembered the forced deportations of even citizens during the Great Depression.

Operation Wetback was headed by the INS commissioner, General Joseph Swing, an old Army buddy of President Eisenhower.  Swing’s mandate was to ‘militarize’ U.S. immigration enforcement.  Along with the U.S. Border Patrol, INS agents were aided by municipal, county, and state authorities. Operation Wetback may not have had the National Guard, but it used military-style enforcement tactics, as well as shrewd marketing to achieve its goal.

In April 1954, Attorney General Herbert Brownell announced the start of Operation Wetback.

A task force of 800 INS and border agents started sweeping through Texas and California for immigrants working illegally.  On July 15th, the first day of the operation, approximately 4,800 immigrants were round up.  Thereafter, the daily totals averaged about 1,100 a day. Agents conducted factory and farm raids and set up roadblocks to apprehend undocumented migrants. Throughout the next twelve months, they swept through the entire southwest, then into major cities.

Mexican migrant detainees prior to deportation during Operation Wetback.
Mexican migrant detainees prior to deportation during Operation Wetback.

The U.S. border agents stopped deporting people just into the desert over the border (where they could easily return), and instead started sending them deeper into Mexico.  The trains and trucks that carried immigrants into Mexico’s interior were handed off, at the border, to Mexican officials. They were then in charge of taking their own people deep enough into the country so it would be harder for them to return. Hence, thousands of migrants were forced to unfamiliar parts of Mexico, rather their actual homes.

In the coming months, INS deported them en masse: by train, truck, bus, and cargo ship. The federal government was more concerned with showing that it was rounding up illegal migrants than with the logistics of how it all happened.  The point of Operation Wetback was to conduct mass deportations quickly and on an impressive scale.  There wasn’t room to care about human beings in the process. INS crowded massive numbers of migrants into train boxcars and cargo ship holds. Parents were often torn apart from children in the confusion.

The INS used widespread racial discrimination against Mexicans to justify their sometimes heartless treatment of captured ‘criminal’ migrants. Some died of dehydration, sunstroke, disease, and lack of medical attention while in custody. In many cases, condition under which migrants were deported were indeed horrifying.

A congressional investigation described conditions on one cargo ship as a “penal hell ship,” saying it was no better than an African slave ship. Immigrants who were sent over the border didn’t fare any better. They were shoved into hot boxcars “like livestock,” sent 100 miles into Mexico, and dumped into the desert – in punishing heat, without water. So not everyone was in favor or Operation Wetback. 

Critics considered it obsessively cruel and xenophobic.

Some newspapers editorials attacked the Border Patrol as an invading army seeking to deprive farmers and factories of their labor force. Some Texas employers even hired armed guards to fend off Border Patrol officers during their farm and factory raids. 

The operation trailed off in the fall of 1954 as INS funding began to run out. The INS claimed 1.5 million people were deported under Operation Wetback. Though hundreds of thousands of people were ensnared, the number of deportees was actually lower than claimed—likely closer to 800,000. It’s not clear how many legal American citizens were swept up in Operation Wetback.  It’s also impossible to say how many of the “deportees” were actually legal Bracero migrants.

The INS claimed that many illegal migrants, fearing apprehension, had voluntarily self-deported.  INS officials even claimed that 500,000 had fled to Mexico BEFORE the campaign even began. Most historians consider that figure highly inflated by an agency struggling to meet its promised goal. The discrepancy shows just how hard it is to accurately count human numbers during rapid, mass deportations.

So how does all of this compare to the similar-sounding present day?  Remember in the 1950s, Mexican immigrants were seasonal workers, not permanent U.S. residents.  It was easy for workers to cross back and forth between their families in Mexico and jobs in the U.S.  Plus, the Bracero Program, made the whole process legal and at a higher pay scale.  So it actually encouraged Mexican workers to enter legally.

Six decades later, most of the undocumented migrants deported today are full-time residents of the United States. Their lives, careers, and often entire families are in America, some for generations.  Starting in the 1980’s, many Latin American countries fell into dangerous dictatorships, increasing refugee immigration into the U.S. In the 1990’’s, under President Clinton, the U.S. began securing the border with Mexico. It was now harder for Mexicans, Central Americans, Venezuelans, etc. to cross back and forth, and remain legally to work.  

So migrants stayed and many remained undocumented for fear of deportation. This is but one reason the two periods are different. The Bracero Program and Operation Wetback were designed to replace illegal migrant workers with legal migrant ones, during a time when it was much easier to cross back and forth between the U.S. and Mexico. The same cannot be said today.

Nevertheless, present day mass deportations may look similar to Operation Wetback: hundreds of ICE and border agents making raids on farms and factories; detaining thousands in detention camps; then deportation into Latin America via trains, trucks, ships and even planes. But this time, the process would be all stick and no carrot. There is no joint Bracero Program today, promoting simple, temporary, legal immigration for better wages and a better life in America.

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History’s Greatest Pirate was the Pirate Queen

Ching Shih / Zheng Sao Chinese pirate queen
Ching Shih / Zheng Sao – Chinese pirate queen, 1820

Who was the greatest pirate in history? Blackbeard? Captain Kidd? Jean Lafitte?  None of them come close to the exploits of Ching Shih, aka Zheng Sao, Hsi Kai, or Shi Yang, depending on the historical source.  She terrorized the South China Seas in the first half of the 1800’s–a time when Chinese women had few if any freedoms. Nevertheless, within the brutal world of pirates, Ching commanded ships and fought shoulder-to-shoulder with her male counterparts.

She was unquestionably the greatest pirate who ever lived. She pirated longer and garnered more wealth than any of her rivals. At the end of her career, she surrendered of her own free will, got to keep much of her loot, and live out the rest of her days in opulent freedom.  How did a nineteenth century woman manage such amazing achievements?

Before she ruled as pirate queen, Ching Shih had a much humbler start to life. She was born Shi Yang into a Tanka family.  They were a large clan who worked and lived on Chinese junks along the China coast. As a young woman, she worked in the brothels, gambling houses, and sailing boats of Guangdong province.

By 1800, Ching Shih was a ‘Madame’ working on a large floating brothel in the city of Canton.  She made sure she caught the eye of Cheng Yi, a fearsome pirate who operated in the South China Sea during the Qing dynasty.  After a brief courtship, he married the 26-year-old woman in 1801. Ching’s new husband was the formidable commander of the Red Flag pirate ships. He’d managed to unite many rival Chinese pirate crews into one.

Another story goes that it was Cheng Yi who sought his bride out due to her reputation as a shrewd businesswoman.  Ching Shih used the secrets she learned as a brothel Madame to wield influence over her wealthy clients. She supposedly demanded equal control of the pirate fleet as a condition of their marriage. Ching Shih’s business savvy was certainly on display over the course of her career. She soon became his equal partner in building an even larger pirate fleet.  

Cheng Yi’s pirate fleet became a true armada under their shared command.

The first year after being wed, pirating life carried on business as usual. That all changed in 1802, when Cheng’s pirate cousin was killed by the Vietnamese. Cheng Yi had to quickly consolidate power over his cousin’s fleet.  Thanks to Ching Shih’s shrewd negotiating skills, the infighting among the pirates was short-lived. She helped negotiate a truce among the leaders of the pirate fleets, forming one confederation. Six fleets, each flying different flags would now operate as a united pirate navy, the Red Flag Fleet. By 1806, every seagoing vessel in the region paid tribute to them for protection.

The pirating business boomed until 1807, when Cheng was killed suddenly during a typhoon at age 42. Some some accounts say he was murdered. Regardless of the circumstances, his death left Ching Shih in a precarious position. The pirate king was gone. It was time for his widow to make her move and take full control.  There was only one obstacle in her way.  

Cheng Yi had an adopted son, Cheung Po Tsai, who was supposed to inherit his father’s command. Unlike in the West, adoption was often practiced in China to establish kinship, purely for business purposes.  So Cheng’s adoption of a teenage fisherman as a son was not unusual. Cheung Po Tsai, however, was more than just Cheng Yi’s adopted on. The handsome young fisherman was rumored to also have been his lover!

Within weeks of Cheng Yi’s death, Ching Shih had taken Cheung Po to bed as her lover as well.  She eventually married him! With this second wedding, she managed to maneuver herself into absolute control of the Red Flag Fleet. To avoid any succession struggles, she appointing her adopted stepson/husband as her second in command. 

As a woman in command of a huge pirate fleet though, Ching Shih had her work cut out for her. Pirate ships had few if any women on board. Unlike in the Atlantic though, in the South Pacific, there was no stigma or bad luck attached to women being on board. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t have been easy for anyone, much less a pirate’s widow, to control so many blood-thirsty, treasure-craving outlaws.

Following Cheng Yi’s death, she now commanded over 1,500 pirate ships, and an estimated 70,000 men. In comparison, the famed Blackbeard commanded but four ships and 300 pirates. She was now formally known Ching Shih, “Cheng’s widow.” The legacy she would leave behind far exceeded that of her husband’s.   

Her first act was to implement a Pirate Code.

It ensured strict discipline amongst the fleet, victories in battle, and riches from stolen loot:

  • Only Ching Shih authorized any attack. Unsanctioned attacks or disobeying her orders was punished by beheading.  
  • Loot was to be gathered by officers and distributed equally.  Repeat offenders to the rule were beheaded.
  • Deserters ears were cut off when captured.  Upon the second offense. they were beheaded.
  • Rape was not tolerated and punished by, you guessed it, beheading.
  • Consensual sex, without Ching Shih’s permission first, also meant a beheading for both. 
  • Pirates had to marry female prisoners before sex. Cheating or treating your new wife poorly was punished by beheadings.

The code was particularly noteworthy in its laws regarding the fair treatment of women. Whatever her captains thought about her personally, it was clear that the pirates respected and obeyed her authority.

The Red Flag Fleet routinely raided coastal villages and kidnapped foreign officials for ransom.  A British East India Company employee named Richard Glasspoole was captured by Ching Shih’s pirates in 1809 and held for a months. By his account, he estimated that there were 80,000 pirates under Ching Shih’s command, and some 1,000 large junks and 800 smaller junks. It was through his accounts that we know much of anything about her vast operation.

So at the height of her success, Ching Shih controlled around 1,800 ships and more than 80,000 men, organized in six fleets, each with its own flag and commander.  Her fleets attacked ships of all kinds, from small traders to imperial war ships, and ran a lucrative protection racket along the coast.

In 1808, the Chinese Qing Dynasty had to do something about the pirate situation in the South China Sea.  They decided to bring down the worst of them all – the Red Flag Fleet and Ching Shih, a thorn in their side for years. The Qing gathered a massive fleet of naval warships and set a trap for them.

Rather than run, outnumbered, for a safe harbor, the bold Ching Shih instead sailed right at them. The pirates defeated a 35-ship naval flotilla off the coast of Shenzhen. When the smoke of the intense sea battle cleared, the Red Flag Fleet left behind a graveyard of burning, sinking ships. She even claimed a few dozen undamaged Qing ships as booty.

When confronted with a such massive enemy fleet, most pirates in the Caribbean Sea would have run, hiding in some island port.  But Ching Shih was anything but your standard Caribbean pirate. Pirates like Blackbeard or Captain Kidd could boast a handful of ships and hundreds of men. She Shih commanded an entire pirate armada, with more sailors than most nations could muster. 

Ching Shih was not intimidate by the Qing Imperial Navy.

A second Qing force attacked with 100 ships, half of navy, only to be sent packing as well. After two defeats, they asked their European allies for help.  By 1809, Ching Shih was powerful enough to threaten the port city Canton (Guangzhou). The Chinese government leased the 20-gun British ship HMS Mercury and six Portuguese men-of-war. Big guns were not enough though to defeat the pirate queen’s fleet.

At the 1809 Battle of the Tiger’s Mouth, her Red Flag Fleet faced down a joint Chinese-Portuguese battle fleet that tried to trap her in Tung Chung Bay. For three months, the blockading Portuguese attempted to destroy her ships. Ching Shih took some heavy losses, but her fleet ultimately broke through and sailed away with her pirate force largely intact

Ching Shih / Zheng Sao Chinese pirate queen
Ching Shih / Zheng Sao – Chinese pirate queen, 1830

Ching Shih realized the Qing attacks would never end with the help of huge foreign navies. She realized it was in her best interests to negotiate peace terms with the Chinese empire. After years of notoriety on the high seas, Ching Shih decided to retire in 1810. She waited until after the third battle, when her enemy was at its weakest. Then she used her considerable power to ask for a pardon for herself and her sailors.

She proved to be as effective at the bargaining table as she was in command. The Qing dynasty granted her pirates universal amnesty, the right to keep the wealth they had accumulated, and even jobs in China’s military.  For herself, she negotiated a large cash settlement, a title of Chinese nobility (Lady Ching Shih!), and was even allowed to keep a small flotilla of ships and sailors.

Ching Shih retired (sort of) in Canton, where she reportedly lived out a peaceful life in an opulent mansion. Though she still kept an infamous gambling house going in the city. Ching Shih died in 1844, of unknown causes at the age of 69, a long life for anyone of that era.

She died widely respected annd remembered for her infamous exploits on the South China Sea. Compare her successful end to that of the pirate Blackbeard – cornered, murdered and beheaded by a British warship. Ching’s legacy even lasted through till modern popular culture came about. She inspired a memorable character in the Johnny Depp Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise: Mistress Ching, one of the nine Pirate Lords.  

The real Ching Shih, aka Hsi Kai, Zheng Sao, or Shi Yang was not fiction though. At the height of her power, she commanded a fleet capable of taking on a Chinese dynasty and any maritime force in the South Pacific. A truly remarkable feat for a 19th century woman. Though Ching Shih’s life may have begun in poverty and prostitution, it ultimately ended in fame and prosperity.

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The Great White Hurricane – the Terrible Blizzard of 88

The Blizzard of 1888 in New York City
The Blizzard of 1888 in New York City

Few winter storms are as legendary as the American Blizzard of 88, dumping 55 inches (140 cm) of snow in the northeast U.S. It was the snowiest, coldest and deadliest, winter storm in American history.  From March 11-13, 1888, over 400 souls perished, including 200 in New York City alone.  Many people were literally buried in snow drifts or stranded on elevated trains.

The temperature in New York fell to 6°F (-14°C)—the coldest ever measured so late in the season. It was the day people from Washington, D.C., to Boston, MA experienced the Great White Hurricane. One of the most interested facts is the way people coped with a Storm of the Century disaster, at a time when there were no accurate storm warnings or even snow plows.

January 1888 saw the most intense U.S. cold wave on record. It spread east during the third week of the month, bringing all-time records to the upper midwest: -24 F° at Lakeview, Oregon on January 15th; -42 F° at Missoula, Montana on January 16th; -41F° at Minneapolis, Minnesota on January. 21st. -36 F° at Green Bay, Wisconsin on January 21st. 

But then as the country neared springtime, the weather turned unseasonably warm. Americans assumed that winter was all but over. Then, the Blizzard of 1888 struck. On the day before, March 10, 1888, most people in the northeast experienced mild, rainy conditions. Temperatures hovered in the mid-50s F.  Without the weather tracking technology that exists today, there was no sign that things were about to drastically change for the worse. On Saturday, March 10, 1888, the U.S. Signal Service, precursor of the National Weather Service, was predicting the storm would dissipate and/or head out to sea. Instead, it collided with a cold front from Canada to create the Storm of the Century.

The Blizzard of 88 began on March 11, 1888 and caught the East Coast entirely off-guard. Arctic air from Canada dove south and collided with warmer air from the Gulf. This caused temperatures to plunge, and the heavy rain that had been falling in New York City turned to snow at 1 AM on Monday, March 12th.  Blizzard conditions quickly developed as the wind rose to a sustained 50 mph, reaching hurricane-strength. By midnight, gusts were recorded at 85 mph in the streets of New York City.

There was a virtual whiteout when shocked residents awoke the next morning.

The storm center then became stationary over the U.S. northeast and made a counterclockwise loop off the coast, while maintaining its intensity.  By 8 o’clock AM Monday, the city was completely immobilized by the blinding, drifting snow and howling winds. All telegraph communications went down.  

Despite wind-blown drifts that reached second stories in some cases, many New Yorkers actually bundled up and trudged out to go to work.  They only to found the elevated trains blocked by snow drifts. There was no subway yet at the time, and the elevated railroad had ground to a halt. Up to 15,000 people were stranded on the elevated trains.  In some areas, people with ladders rescued the passengers … for a small fee. One train derailed due to drifts and killed several passengers and crew as it crashed to the streets below.

Walking in the streets of any town in the northeast became not only impossible, but deadly. Of the 200 people who perished in New York City, most were found frozen to death, buried in snowdrifts along the city’s sidewalks. One of these victims was Senator Roscoe Conkling, a New York Republican.  He died as a result of “over exposure” from trying to walk from his Wall Street office to the New York Club on Madison Square.

Only 30 people out of 1,000 were able to make it to the New York Stock Exchange.  Wall Street was forced to close for three days. At the time, telegraph lines, water mains and gas lines were also above ground. The powerful blizzard knocked them out of commission and they were inaccessible to repair crews. People found themselves suddenly trapped without heat and running water. Fire stations were also immobilized, and property loss from inextinguishable fires was estimated at $25 million.

The legendary William Steinway, president of the famous piano firm Steinway & Son, provided a firsthand account of the storm in his diary.  Steinway discovered “the most fearful snowstorm I ever experienced” in New York City.  His carriage had become stuck three times and he was forced to wade through knee-deep snow in Gramercy Park, having “a terrible time getting to my house by 6 pm.“

Steinway’s diary entry for March 13th wrote, “Snowing stopped but intense cold remains, nearly freezing me to death on the way.” He kept his appointments until late at night, getting around the city on a horse-drawn sleigh, returning at 11:30 PM, March 14th:  “Our horses starving for want of food, sent my son George out to buy oats, learned that the roof of our piano factory was nearly blown off.“

The New York Times reported that East and Hudson rivers were frozen over.  

If you couldn’t get over a mountain of snow, some attempted to tunnel under it. Men dug caves in the biggest snow banks and used barrels to build wooden fires in an effort to melt the snow. City officials sent thousands of volunteers out to free trains blocked for days and rescue stranded commuters. Passenger cars had wood stoves to keep customers from freezing to death. But as wood ran out, desperate conductors chopped up the seats for use as fuel.

The East River, between Manhattan and Queens, froze over, an extremely rare event. Some brave commuters attempted to cross the river on foot. This proved a terrible mistake. When the tides changed, the ice broke up, stranding them on drifting ice floes. During the Blizzard of 88, many stranded New Yorkers camped out in hotel lobbies. American author and humorist Mark Twain was in New York and was stranded at his hotel for several days.

A snow tunnel in New York City during the Blizzard of 88.
A snow tunnel in New York City during the Blizzard of 88.

Refugees filled all the New York City hotels. The famous Astor Hotel on 5th Avenue set up 100 cots in its lobby when it became apparent by 7 PM that day first day, venturing outside was simply impossible. The temperature had fallen to 8° F (-13 C) by sunset, the wind was still howling and snowdrifts up to 20 feet (6 m) filled the streets of the city.

The Barnum & Bailey Circus kept its promise to go ahead with its two performances at Madison Square Garden. The Times reported on March 13, “In the very teeth of the gale the matinee was given, and last evening the second performance occurred according to programme.” Few seats were occupied, but P.T. Barnum attended the first show.  Barnum commented that the storm might be a great show, but he still had the greatest show on earth.

And it wasn’t just New York City that suffered the Blizzard of 88. 

The storm was even more severe outside of New York City. It dumped more than four feet of snow in Albany and Saratoga Springs, New York, and Bennington, Vermont. Mrs. M. Brusselars was trapped in her Hartford, Connecticut, house for three days with a dozen neighborhood refugees. “Food ran out after two day, but we found that under my back porch about 75 sparrows had gathered, so we killed some of them, made a few sparrow pies, which helped to sustain us.”

William Scribner, of Cannonade, Connecticut, a wire weaver trudged a mile in thigh deep snow from his house. As he staggered to his company’s main gate, he heard the whistle signaling the start of his shift. When he was just a few steps from the entrance, the stoic guard locked the gate in front of him.  Despite the blizzard, management considered him just another late employee and docked him a day’s pay.

On a mild week before the storm, New York City department store buyer John Meisinger was berated by his boss because he purchased snow shovels to sell at the end of the winter season. What foolishness! Management later congratulated when the storm hit.  His purchase made the store a $1,800 profit in snow shovel sales to desperate New Yorkers.

There were amazing rescues as well. Edward Leonard, of Springfield, Massachusetts, reached down to pick up his hat, blown off on top of a mound of snow, and found the pale face of an unconscious young girl. As the Times reported, “Using only his bare hands, Leonard managed to dig the girl out and carry her to a nearby shelter alive, where she was resuscitated.“

Fifty trains became stranded on their tracks in the Blizzard of 88.

Derailed trains during the U.S. Blizzard of 88.
Derailed trains during the U.S. Blizzard of 88.

They ran between New York City and various points including Albany, Long Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Many were derailed after trying to plow through drifts measured up to 38 feet (12 m). Wind swept drifts up to 40 feet were reported in Poughkeepsie, NY. Many of the 200 fatalities outside of New York City consisted of passengers and train crews that froze to death while attempting to walk to nearby towns after their trains became stuck.

Several ships foundered at sea, lost to 90-mph winds, huge seas, and heavy ice on decks that caused them to tip and roll over. Along the Atlantic coast, high winds and heavy waves sunk hundreds of boats. In addition, thousands of wild and farm animals froze to death in their barns and pastures. So many telephone and telegraph wires were down that New York City was unable to communicate with the rest of the world. In Boston, the Daily Globe’s March 13th headline was: “Cut Off!”

The snowfall totals north of New York City were massive and historic – 58” at Saratoga Springs, NY. Albany, NY recorded 47”. New York City’s official accumulation was up to 36” in parts of Brooklyn and Queens. New Haven, Connecticut reported 42”. Elsewhere were 48” at Bennington, Vermont, 40” at North Adams, MA, 31” at Blooming Grove, PA, and 25” at Rahway, NJ. After the storm, there was the issue of what to do with all that snow. Efforts were made in coastal cities to push the snow into the Atlantic Ocean. 

The Blizzard of 88 was the first widely photographed disaster in U.S. history. It shocked both the nation and the world. It lead New York City to plan its vast subway system, now one of the most extensive in the world. The breakdown of all communications from Washington, D.C., northward resulted in the burying of telegraph, gas and later, electric lines across many parts of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions (although overhead power lines can still be found in rural areas).

The devastating storm reshaped how major U.S. cities planned for and managed weather-related emergencies. It influenced the evolution of weather forecasting, utilities infrastructure, public safety measures, and mass communications. In the wake of the Great White Hurricane, officials realized the dangers of above-ground transportation. In New York City, a determination was made about the elevated train system. By 1900, construction began on the extensive underground subway system still in use today.

Today, with unchecked global climate change plaguing the world, we can expect more frequent storms during all seasons of the intensity of the famous Blizzard of 88.

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The London Great Stink of 1858

The polluted River Thames during the London Great Stink
The polluted River Thames during the Great Stink

Prior to the 1900’s, London’s River Thames had been used for centuries as the city’s open sewer – a dumping ground for industrial, animal, and human wastes. As the city grew, the amount of raw sewage it produced grew exponentially.  During the hot summer of 1858, London was literally brought to its knees by the overwhelming stench of its River Thames – The Great Stink.  It’s vapors seeped throughout the streets, houses, and even into the hallowed halls of palaces and Parliament.

The city came to a standstill. People refused to leave their homes.  Government and industry could barely function. Citizens demanded action!  Clutching white handkerchiefs to their noses, Parliament grudgingly agreed an urgent solution was needed both to purify London’s “evil odour” and to quell its frequent cholera epidemics.  The Great Stink led to one of the greatest advancements in urban engineering to date: Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s revolutionary Victorian Sewer System.

For centuries, the “Royal River” was an open sewer for London’s waste. As the city’s population doubled between 1800 and 1850 – so did its sewage.   From 1831 onward, London also suffered through 3 cholera epidemics.  Cholera is a disease caused by consuming fecal-contaminated water. What made London’s water lethal was that people were drinking it piped directly from the Thames!  The result was waves of dysentery, typhoid and most of all cholera. The so-called “Victorian plague” had no cure – and even the wealthiest were not immune.

The cholera epidemic of 1853-1854 claimed over 10,000 lives.

In 1849 Dr. John Snow, a London physician, published a paper ‘On the Mode of Communication of Cholera‘, in which he theorized that cholera was waterborne. He described how “The wretched poor in Lambeth obtained their water by dipping a pail into the Thames.” When cholera struck in 1848, it was the poor people who suffered most. Over 1,500 of Lambeth’s waterfront population died.  Snow calculated that its households were five times more likely to contract cholera than other districts.

However, the “Miasma Theory” that diseases were caused by foul air was still the medical belief.  Five years later in 1854, Dr. Snow investigated a cholera epidemic in Soho.  He deduced that the cause was contaminated drinking water from a Broad Street pump located just feet from a waste cesspool.  Public health officials were gradually convinced and the pump handle removed.  It was clear the reeking river correlated with the city’s health, and needed to be cleaned once and for all.

Depiction of the polluted River Thames as the source of cholera deaths during the Great Stink.
Depiction of the River Thames as the source of cholera deaths during the Great Stink.

The scorching summer of 1858 finally brought things to a head. As the heat increased, the vast layers of waste in the Thames began to ferment in the sun. The result was a smell so disgusting and revolting it made people nauseous. It spawned accounts of “men struck down with the stench from the river banks.”

As London lacked any sewer infrastructure, increasingly filthy gutters and ditches all emptied into the Thames.  Then the wastes simply bobbed to and fro on the river with the tides. The invention of the water closet (inside flush toilets) only made things worse, forcing ever more human ‘effluent’ into the river. Clear to all, the main contaminant was floating on the surface of the Thames: human feces

One of the most vocal critics was English chemist Michael Faraday.

He staunchly supported a complete reconstruction of London’s toxic river.  In 1855, he sent a letter to the editor of The London Times -‘Observations on the Filth of the Thames.’ ‘The whole river was an opaque pale brown fluid. Father Thames was nothing more than a real sewer.’  It soon became the public’s rallying point, crying for the restoration of the Thames.

Members of Parliament knew that any action would be both expensive and disruptive. They held kerchiefs to their noses.  They dousing the curtains of Parliament in a mixture of chloride and lime to mask the smell. When that didn’t work, they considered moving the entire government to the countryside. With the bodies of cholera victims piling up, the people and press pushed for change.  The politicians finally were forced to act.

Benjamin Disraeli, Chancellor of the Exchequer, lamented how, “that noble river had become a Stygian pool, reeking with ineffable and unbearable horror.”  He introduced legislation for the purification of the Thames and the main sewer drainage of London. Within a record 18 days, a bill was created, passed, and signed into law that would refurbish the entirety of the sewers and the River Thames.

The outcome of the “Great Stink” was one of history’s most advanced achievements in urban planning. It was a monumental construction project that dramatically improved the London sewers and well as public health. You’ll see no sign of it today from red double-decker tour buses, but hidden beneath the city streets stretches a wonder of the industrial world – the vast Victorian sewers that still flow today.

The newly formed Metropolitan Board of Works was empowered to raise £3M and start work immediately on rescuing the Thames. Responsibility for the solution fell upon the shoulders of Joseph Bazalgette, Chief Engineer of the Board of Works.  He had spent several years drawing up plans for an ambitious new sewer system and at last got the go-ahead to begin construction.

Bazalgette’s ambitious plan proposed a network of main sewers, running eastward, parallel to the river, which would take both rain and waste.  The sewers would then conduct it to the “outfalls” on the northern and southern sides of the Thames estuary.  From there, the tides would take it well beyond the city, from where it would flow more easily out to sea.

Parliament approved expenditure of £2,500,000 (£300 million today).

The new Victorian sewers created during the London Great stink
The new Victorian sewers created during the London Great stink

The network included 82 miles of huge new sewers, some larger than the new underground train tunnels, also under construction at time. Pumping stations were built at Chelsea, Deptford, Abbey Mills and Crossness to force wastes to the eastern outfalls. These stations were architecturally marvels, cathedral-like in their design, dimensions and ornamentation. There were symbolic of the grandeur of the Victorian  age. This remarkable feat of engineering  replaced over 150 miles of old sewers and constructed over 1,000 miles of new ones, requiring 318 million bricks.

The plan would also include the construction of controversial embankments along the Thames – the Victoria, Albert and Chelsea embankments.  London’s embankments were designed not only to carry sewer tunnels, but also to cleanse the river by narrowing and strengthening its flow through city center. The high embankments also acted as a flood defense.  It is on the Victoria Embankment that a monument to the engineer, Joseph Bazalgette [knighted in 1875] may be found.

Embanking the river was unpopular at the time. Many houses, warehouses and businesses with river frontages lost their access to the Thames. In some areas whole stretches of the waterfront, including streets and wharfs, were demolished with the loss of entire communities.  Lower Fore Street in Lambeth was completely torn down and replaced by the Albert Embankment.

Despite the costs, Bazalgette’s new sewerage system proved a success. It succeeded in removing the smell of raw sewage from the Thames in London. According to the London Observer, “every penny spent is sunk in a good cause.” The work almost immediately proved its worth.  In 1866, most of London was spared from a cholera epidemic which hit the lower East End, the only section yet to be connected to the new sewer system.

What was impressive about Bazalgette’s design was both its simplicity and foresight. A classic piece of Victorian over-engineering, the new system was planned to accommodate a population growth of 50%, from 3 to 4.5 million. Within 30 years of its completion, the city’s population had in fact doubled again, reaching 6 million. So with these monumental changes, The Great Stink slowly began to dissipate and Londoners breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

It’s testament to the quality of design and construction that this 19th century system remained the backbone of London’s sewers in the 20th century as well. But the backbone is now severely strained. With an ever expanding population, dramatic storms due to climate change, and the loss of green space to soak up run-off, the Thames is once again at risk.

Today, Bazalgette’s Victorian sewers struggle to cope with the wastes created by a modern London. Millions of tons of raw sewage are once again spilling into the Thames. To remedy this, construction of a new ‘mega’ sewer was undertaken. The mission of the Thames Tideway Scheme echoes that of Bazalgette over 160 years earlier: “… to clean up our river for the good of the city, its wildlife and you.“

Construction of the Thames Tideway Tunnel – or “Super Sewer” – began in 2016 with completion delayed until in 2025 due to the COVID pandemic. One of the largest civil engineering projects the United Kingdom has ever seen, the tunnel is a “visionary work of modern times in the spirit of Bazalgette”.

Sir Joseph Bazalgette shared some wisdom based on his own experiences during the Great Stink: “Individuals are apt to look after their own interests first, and to forget the general effect upon the public. It is necessary that there should be somebody to watch the public interests,” – wise words indeed.

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The New York Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Killed 146

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 in New York City
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 in New York City

The Triangle Shirtwaist Company was located on the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the Asch Building, situated at the corner of Washington Square in New York City’s Greenwich Village.  On 25 March 1911 at 4:40 pm, a fire broke out on the eighth floor, The flames then rapidly consumed both it and the two floors above it. About six hundred people worked there, young, immigrant women and girls mostly from Eastern Europe. In less than an 20 minutes, 146 garment workers had tragically died in the blaze. It was the deadliest industrial disaster in New York state history.  In its aftermath, unions surged and better workplace safety and working conditions were instituted in notorious sweatshop factories.  What exactly happened that terrible afternoon?

In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company was a typical American sweatshop with low wages, long hours, and dangerous working conditions. Max Blanck and Isaac Harris owned the shirtwaist factory and delegated much of the hiring to unscrupulous managers. Sweatshops typically attracted poor immigrants and those desperate for employment.  Of the 600 employees, 500 were girls (ages 13-23) – primarily Jews, Italians, Russians, Hungarians, and Germans.

Women's shirtwaist blouse circa 1911
Women’s shirtwaist blouse circa 1911

The International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) had started to organize female workers in the clothing industry. In 1911 though, many garment workers were still unorganized, partly because they were young, immigrant, and female. When the ILGWU led a strike in 1909, demanding higher pay and shorter work days, Blanck & Harris ignored negotiations, instead paying off police to arrest the striking women.

The shirtwaist or women’s blouse was the first American fashion trend to transcend classes.  It was appropriate for working in a factory or attending church on Sunday, a hot commodity replacing the layered and bulky women’s clothing of the prior century. Blanck & Harris employed women working in cramped conditions at rows of cutting tables and sewing machines. Nearly all were teenaged girls who spoke little or no English.

Employees were paid just $7 a week, working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Two freight elevators that ascended to the factory floors, but only one was operational that terrible March day.  There were two stairways that led down to the first floor, but managers kept one locked to prevent thefts and unauthorized breaks by the workers.  The outside fire escape was so narrow it could only be used in single file.  Though there had been smaller fires in the building in 1902 and 1909, Blanck and Harris refused to install sprinkler systems.  After all, there were no city regulations forcing them to do so.

Triangle factory shirtwaist seamstresses in 1911.
Triangle factory shirtwaist seamstresses in 1911.

Many of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory workers were recent European immigrants who had come to the U.S. seeking a better life. Instead, they faced lives of crushing poverty and horrifying working conditions. As recent immigrants, the working poor were ready victims for exploitation by ruthless factory owners. Complaining to managers or talking with a union organizer could get you fired from a desperately needed job.

It was just 5 minutes to closing time, 4:40 pm on a Saturday afternoon, March 25th, 1911, when a fire broke out in the southeast corner of the 8th floor cutting room.  Embers from a discarded match or cigarette ignited a scrap bin filled with flammable fabric cuttings.  ‘Fire!’ the nearest girls shouted, ‘There’s a fire over here!’ A manager rushed over and attempted to use a fire hose to extinguish it.  But the hose was dry rotted and its useless valve rusted shut. As the fire grew beyond the bin, panic ensued. In a cramped space draped with thousands of pounds of fabric, flames easily spread like brush fire.

Within minutes, the floor erupted into madness.  

Terrified girls rushed to the two stairs, the freight elevators, or the fire escape.  The workers could not warn fellow employees on the upper floors as they had no fire alarm they could trigger.  Within just five minutes, the eighth floor was consumed in flames as the fire spread rapidly through the stacks of linens and cottons.

On the street below, New Yorkers realized something was wrong when plumbs of black smoke started to emerge from the building’s upper floors. Bystanders rang the alarm bells in the street-level fire boxes as frantic human figures appeared in the windows above. Four alarms in all were rung in the next fifteen minutes.

The normal way out for workers was the Green Street stairs, where foremen inspected all purses to check for theft. The Washington Place stairs were kept locked by the managers, so only a single stairwell was available to escape.  The girls used the two freight elevators in the mornings, but one of them was not in service that day.  The frantic young women soon realized the sole elevator could hold only 12 at a time.  The harried operator, Joey Zito, was able to make just four trips before it too broke down amid the growing heat and flames.

Their fellow workers on the 9th floor sewing room did not know a fire had even started until it arrived at their feet through the floor boards.  The girls caught sight of the smoke and flames through the windows.  ‘Look, there’s smoke outside! The building’s on fire!’  The hungry flames had arrived for them.  The sewing machines were placed so closely together that there was hardly an aisle between them to run.  Trimmings and cuttings littered the floors and were stacked six feet high against the walls. What spread the fire most quickly were the hundreds of shirtwaists, hanging on lines above the rows of workers. 

Women screamed and ran to the nearest staircase—only to find one filled with choking black smoke and the door of the other locked.  They pounded on the door and shouted for help, but no one came. Others discovered the only working freight elevator was stuck, damaged from the encroaching fire.  That left one route remaining, the external fire escape.  As dozens of desperate women crammed onto it trying to escape the inferno, it began to bend under the weight of so many bodies.  Soon the rickety metal stairs collapsed. 

Amid screams of terror, the girls fell to their deaths onto the streets below.

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory collapsed fire escape.
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory collapsed fire escape.

Those workers on the 10th floor, including the two owners and their staff, had to escape to the roof, rather than go down into the inferno.  Shouts and waving arms from the next building caught their attention.  They were NYU law students who had been dismissed from their tenth story classroom.  Workers were rescued when the boys stretched two wooden ladders across to them.  The lucky employees crawled to safety on their hands and knees, 10 stories above the pavement below.  

The remaining terrified seamstresses on the 9th floor found themselves trapped in the heat and smoke. The door to one staircase was locked and the other blocked by the fire.  The elevators were both inoperable.  The fire escape had collapsed under the weight of so many trying to escape. The terrified girls rushed to the windows and looked down at Greene Street, 100 feet below. There they saw NO fire trucks to save them.  The women used chairs to smash the windows for gulps of cold fresh air.

At this point, many made the terrible decision to jump to their deaths rather than burn alive. One horrified young girl screamed and was the first to jump. Four more were standing beside her.  The crowd below yelled up, “Don’t jump!” but it was leap or be burned to death. All four dropped to their death in unison. The first five girls who jumped did so before the first fire engine could even arrive.

Horrified onlookers could do nothing but watch. “I learned a new sound that day,” wrote reporter William Shepard, “a sound more horrible than description can picture—the thud of a speeding living body on a stone sidewalk.”  Witnesses first thought workers were tossing fabric out the windows, but then realized in shock that workers themselves were jumping.

On the 9th floor inferno, some had rushed to the elevators when the fire escape collapsed. When they found the elevator hopeless as well, a few tried to slide down the greased elevator cables, but quickly lost their grip. Some simply jumped down into the shaft and died once the approaching flames were at their backs.

At the shattered windows, more desperate girls jumped to their deaths.

By the time Pump Engine Co. 20 and Ladder Company 20 arrived, the bodies of victims littered the sidewalk. The firemen had trouble bringing their apparatus into position because of all the corpses which covered the pavement and sidewalks. While more bodies crashed down around them, they worked in desperation to run their ladders into position.

One fireman ran ahead of a hose wagon, spread a 10 foot fire net, and two more seized hold of it. A girl’s body, tumbling end over end, struck the side of it. Three other girls who leaped a moment later, landed on top of her, ripping the net. All four rolled out onto the pavement dead. The force of the fall was simply too great.

Then firemen came to the realization their scaling ladders on the horse-drawn fire trucks could only reached the sixth floor. The water from their hoses could barely reach the top floors. Those pitiful girls watching and waiting at the windows, waving handkerchiefs for the firemen to rescue them also realized they were too high. 

To escape the suffocating smoke and flames at their backs, some 70 girls jumped to their death, 100 feet above the streets.  Many were holding hands, many others screaming with their clothing and hair already aflame.  They struck the sidewalks with water pouring on them too late. Those who chose not to jump died from their terrible burns or smoke inhalation.

Hundreds of people who had rushed in from Broadway and Washington Square screamed in horror as they watched the jumpers. One eyewitness explained “I learned a new sound—one more horrible than description can picture. It was the thud of a speeding body on a stone sidewalk. Thud-dead. Sixty-two thud-deads.” One reporter said, “the remains of the dead, it is hardly possible to call them bodies, because that would suggest something human, collected on the sidewalks.”

As the firemen worked, it became clear the vast majority of bodies were young women. Most workers on the 8th and 10th floors managed to escape. However, the dozens of women and girls working on the 9th floor mostly died. 

Within 18 minutes, it was all over.

Remains of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory after the fire
Remains of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory after the fire

A total of 146 of 500 employees were killed by the fire due to severe burns, smoke inhalation, and injuries sustained during the jumps. A heap of corpses lay on the sidewalk for more than an hour. The firemen were too busy dealing with the fire to pay any attention to people who no longer needed saving.  The soot covered women who stumbled onto the streets were left to relive those agonizing moments and mourn the loss of their coworkers.

Thirty bodies clogged the bottom of the elevator shaft, all girls. Of the one hundred and forty-six victims, six remained unidentified.  The dead included one 13-year-old, two 14-year-olds, three 15-year-olds, seventeen 16- year-olds, and fourteen 17-year-olds. One of the saddest facts was that they had almost finished for the day. In five minutes, their shift would have been over.

In the days that followed, families identified and collected the dead. The ILGWU planned an official day of mourning. The grief-stricken city gathered in churches, synagogues, and the streets. The workers union set up a march on April 5th. Over 80,000 people attended on New York’s Fifth Avenue to honor the victims of the shirtwaist fire and protest the conditions that had led to the deaths.

The Ladies’ Waist and Dress Makers’ Union of the ILGWU planned relief work for the survivors and the families of the victims. In addition, they distributed weekly pensions and secured work and proper living arrangements for the workers after they recovered from their injuries.  The American Red Cross also collected funds from the general public.

Protesting voices then rose up, angry at the lack of humanity and the greed that had made such a horrific disaster possible. The people demanded Amends, Justice, and Action to improve the unsafe conditions in sweatshops. Workers flocked to unions to offer testimonies, support unionization, and demand that Harris & Blanck be brought to trial.

“Justice!” they cried. “Where is justice?“

NYC authorities started an investigation as to how such a firetrap could exist. It intended to find out if the present laws covered such cases, and if they did not to frame laws that would. The building had experienced four recent fires and had been reported by the Fire Department as unsafe.  Wealthy businessmen however defended the rights of factories to resist government regulatory overreach.

Triangle Shirtwaist factory owners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris
Triangle shirtwaist factory owners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris

Triangle Shirtwaist owners Blanck & Harris publicly declared that their brick building was classified as “fireproof,” and had just been approved by the Dept. of Buildings.  The owners maintained that their factory was a “model of cleanliness and sanitary conditions, second to none in the country.” Yet reports that the doors to the stairs were locked prompted the District Attorney to seek an indictment against the owners.

On April 11, a grand jury indicted Harris & Blanck on seven counts and charged them with second degree manslaughter. Survivors testified to their inability to open the locked stairway doors. In December however, a jury acquitted Blanck & Harris of any wrong doing. Despite evidence that the owners had been horribly negligent, their defense had been that they were unaware the doors were locked and it was the fault of the foremen. Grieving families and much of the public felt that justice had not been done.

Victim’s families brought twenty-three civil suits against the owners. In 1914, three years after the fire, Harris and Blanck settled. They paid just 75 dollars per life lost in the 23 families, a fraction of the $400 per death that they were paid by their insurer. In 1913, the factory was found littered with rubbish piled six feet high, with cloth scraps kept in flammable baskets. The judge fined them just 20 dollars and merely issued a stern warning. The Triangle Shirtwaist Company went out of business in 1918.

The Triangle Shirtwaist fire forced a reckoning over building codes and workplace safety in the country.  There was no city regulation requiring fire drills, sprinklers or fire escapes. Such innovations were not available in most factories.  New York created a commission to investigate factory conditions and public safety. The state passed 38 new laws included requiring improved fire safety; limited working hours, and better eating and bathroom facilities. The city established the Bureau of Fire Investigation, giving the fire department powers to improve factory safety.

The labor movement also grew stronger in the wake of the disaster. At a memorial meeting after the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, union leader Rose Schneiderman issued an indictment of a public that she felt had turned a blind eye to dangerous sweatshops: “I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies, if I came here to talk good fellowship. … Too much blood has been spilled.”

Labor advocate Frances Perkins, witnessed the shirtwaist factory fire and heard Rose Schneiderman’s fiery speech at the memorial. She led the New York Factory Investigating Commission. Years later, she brought her commitment to using government power to protect workers when President Franklin D. Roosevelt made her Secretary of Labor—the first ever woman cabinet member in the U.S.

After the 1911 fire, the Asch building was refurbished and sold to Frederick Brown, who rented it to nearby New York University.  The Brown Building still stands today in lower Manhattan and was added to the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1991. On March 25, 2011, a march was held in Greenwich Village to commemorate the 100th Anniversary. At 4:40pm, hundreds of church bells rang out throughout the city to honor the fallen dead.

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Podcast: The Tragic Story of the Radium Girls

Radium clocks and watches were all the rave during the Roaring Twenties. The watch faces glowed all the time and didn’t require charging in sunlight, like florescent paint. Everyone who was anyone had to have one. The Radium Girls were not rich debutants who flashed their wristwatches, but rather the simple factory women who hand painted the radioactive radium onto the clock faces. Many of them paid the ultimate price with their own lives.

Radium Girls painting clock faces in New Jersey circa 1920
Radium Girls painting clock faces in New Jersey, circa 1920
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France’s Chevalier d’Eon, the First Trans Aristocrat

The French Chevalier d'Eon as a woman
The French Chevalier d’Eon as a woman

When the Chevalier d’Eon left France in 1762, he was a diplomat, a spy, a Dragoon captain, and a man. When she returned in 1777, at the age of 49, she was a celebrity, a writer, a fencer, and a woman—by declaration by the government of France.

Chevalier d’Eon was born Charles d’Eon de Beaumont, and in mid-life changed genders to a woman, Charlotte. d’Eon’s military exploits in the Seven Years’ War, diplomatic role in the Treaty of Paris, and service as a spy for King Louis XV was all overshadowed by being the first trans aristocrat. Born biologically a male, the Chevalier was legally declared female by French King Louis XVI and the English courts.  She spent the last 33 years of her life as a woman.

Why the gender change in an age when such a thing was unheard of? The answer is complex, involving intrigue, politics, celebrity, and feminism. The true meaning behind d’Eon’s transformation has been guessed at for centuries.  Some modern trans groups have adopted her and named themselves in d’Eon’s honor.

Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée d’Eon de Beaumont was born in 1728 to a minor aristocrat family in Tonnerre, Burgundy.  After an uneventful childhood, he completed his studies at Collège Mazarin with a law degree.  At 21, d’Eon’s family secured him a position in civil service. He steadily climbed the ranks and in 1756, became secretary to the French ambassador to Russia.

Then in 1756, the Seven Years’ War erupted between Britain and France. d’Eon served as a Captain of Dragoons and earned a reputation as a courageous soldier who was even wounded in battle. By year’s end though, d’Eon was recruited for le Secret du Roi, or the King’s Secret.  It was a network of French spies working directly for King Louis XV.

Upon entering the spy service, d’Eon’s life would never be the same.

As Secretary of the Embassy in St. Petersburg, d’Eon was charged with fostering good relations with the Russian court of Tzarina Elizabeth.  This role, however, was just a cover. Secretly, the King tasked d’Eon with gathering intelligence in the court of the Tzarina.

Charles d’Eon was charming, clever, and hardworking.  While there, the Tzarina routinely threw “Metamorphosis Balls” where men dressed as women and women as men. Such cross-dressing was much more socially accepted then and it would have a profound effect on young Charles d’Eon.

As the war dragged on, France’s losses on the battlefield and debt mounted. In 1762, the King sent d’Eon to London as part of a diplomatic team to negotiate peace with Britain. The Treaty of Paris was signed in 1763.  d’Eon was rewarded for his role with the Order of Saint-Louis, a huge honor for a man of just 35.  It came with a generous pension and the French title of Chevalier, or “Sir.”

Desperate for revenge against King George, King Louis regrouped the Secret with a new purpose: plan to invade Britain. The foreign ministry named d’Eon minister plenipotentiary, with the status of interim ambassador to the British court.  This was an excellent cover for his spying activities – directing a survey of the English coast to find a good point for an invasion.

Career-wise, things were looking up. But within months, it would all begin to crumble. Chevalier d’Eon had expensive tastes and was enjoying a luxurious lifestyle in London.  Plus, he was only the interim ambassador. The real ambassador, the Comte de Guerchy, would arrive within the year, when d’Eon would be demoted to secretary. A frustrated d’Eon found the whole situation untenable. He let his superiors at Versailles just know that in a series of angry lettres.

Just 6 months after his appointment, d’Eon was fired for insolence.

A young Chevalier d'Eon as a man
A young Chevalier d’Eon as a man

He was to return to Versailles for further disciplining.  d’Eon boldly decided that he was not going to obey. Why should he return and possible be sent to the Bastille?  He knew that his position as a spy in the Secret du Roi afforded him the King’s protection. The French Foreign Ministry then publicly ordered d’Eon be deported back to France.  The British foreign minister refused, stating that d’Eon was free to stay.

When the King heard that d’Eon refused to return, he froze d’Eon’s pension. The French Ministry then made several attempts to kidnap and send him back or France. An increasingly desperate and angry Chevalier made a daring and dangerous move: Blackmail Versailles.

d’Eon threatened to tell everything he knew about le Secret if his position was not restored. In 1764, he fired a warning shot and published a scandalous book, Lettres, mémoires et négociations particulières du chevalier d’Éon, the first of several promised volumes.  He leaked all his private diplomatic correspondence since being named secretary in Russia, embarrassing many powerful figures in Versailles.

Suddenly Chevalier d’Eon was talked about by ministers, in newspapers, cafes, and salons. The publication was tantamount to treason, yet the King had to be careful given d’Eon’s secret role as spy. The promise of further volumes was a blatant threat and it worked. Behind all the bad press, now that he was declared a public enemy of France, this made him even more useful as a spy.

Louis XV had given d’Eon a lifelong pension of 12,000 livres a year and allowed to stay in England in exchange for reports about British politics.  He was ‘formally’ forbidden from returning to France. d’Eon’s next volumes in his scandalous tell-all series never appeared.  He spent the next decade in “exile” in London, while still serving his King.

Meanwhile, rumors were swirling that the Chevalier was in fact a woman.

Due to his fair features and effeminate nature, tabloids portrayed d’Eon as half man, half woman. Rather than refute the statements, he claimed it was no one’s business and refused to publicly reveal his gender, prolonging the debate for years. The London Stock Exchange even began taking bets on the Chevalier’s sex.

While the publication of his book made him a celebrity, the speculation around his gender made d’Eon a household name. Mentions of the controversy have been even found in letters from the King Louis XV, who wrote to a general in 1770: “Do you know that d’Eon is in fact a woman?” In Paris, the scandal was getting too big for the French government to ignore. Was the Chevalier actually a Chevalière?

By now, many in Versailles began to believe Chevalier d’Eon was secretly a woman. The rumors and gossip were enough that in 1771, London bookmakers started taking bets on his gender—3:2 odds that he was a woman. The publicity did have its downsides.  d’Eon could not leave his house without bodyguards, as there were demands to settle the matter and see him naked. 

In 1772, a French secretary in the le Secret came to London to investigate d’Eon personally.  He left a month later, convinced that d’Eon was in fact a female dressed as a male. From that point on, the French government took it as fact that the Chevalier was indeed a woman.  It is unknown whether he ever had a sexual partner, and if so, what sex they were.

When Louis XV died in 1774, Louis XVI, wanted the Secret du Roi abolished. He saw no utility in having two foreign policies, one public and one secret.  Moreover, the new king no longer wanted to invade Britain. It remained to be seen how young Louis XVI would deal with d’Eon.  The chevalier’s fate was again in jeopardy.

In 1775, Pierre Beaumarchais, a representative of the French government, went to London to negotiate his return to France.  Chevalier d’Eon told Beaumarchis a fictional tale that he had been born female, but forced into the role of a boy by a tyrannical father who wanted a son. This story would enable him to retire from le Secret and return to France, a ‘heroine.’  One who had dressed up as a man in service to Louis XV.

Chevalier d’Eon agreed to sign The Transaction.

He would give up all his secret papers and return to France ASAP. Versailles knew if the secrets d’Eon possessed were ever revealed, England might go to war with France again. The king agreed to pay some of his debts and restore his pension.  AND he would publicly recognize d’Eon as a woman.  The Chevalier thereafter agreed to dress as a woman for the rest of his life.

Strangely, the Transaction worked, Chevalier d’Eon could finally return to France. The Chevalier was still wearing male clothes in Britain. He arrived wearing his Dragoon captain’s uniform. The King commanded Marie-Antoinette’s personal dressmaker to create a new wardrobe for d’Eon. The transition was not easy as he thought. d’Eon complained, “It is more difficult to equip an elegant lady of court than a company of Dragoons from head to foot.”

d’Eon was finally able to embrace womanhood. In 1777, Mademoiselle la Chevaliere d’Eon was formally presented at Versailles, “reborn” in an elaborate dress, powdered hair, and heavy make-up.  By then, French society had heard the story d’Eon told Beaumarchais and accepted it, hailing her as a heroine akin to Joan of Arc.  She was sought out by the likes of Voltaire, Rousseau and even Ambassador Benjamin Franklin.

A middle-aged Chevalier d'Eon as a woman
A middle-aged Chevalier d’Eon as a woman

But the reality of life as a woman was disappointing in one respect, her political voice was now muted. When France joined the American War of Independence in 1778, d’Eon petitioned the government to allow her to wear her Dragoon captain’s uniform and go to the war for France. The war ministry refused her request.  When d’Eon continued to publicly make demands, she was briefly thrown into a dungeon in the Chateau Dijon for 19 days.

Every further political effort d’Eon made would be quashed by the French government.  It eventually forced her into retirement on her family estate in rural Tonnerre. In 1785, she moved back to England, seeking freedom once again from the controlling French government.  Britain welcomed her back as a heroine.

Then the French Revolution erupted 1789 and Louis XVI was beheaded.

d’Eon’s family estate in Tonnerre was seized by the new republic. With the King’s Transaction nullified, she was left with in England with no pension and no home to return to. In London, d’Eon was often broke and supported herself by participating in fencing matches publicly, a sight that drew large crowds to see her.

By 1791, d’Eon, now in her 60s, and resorted to selling her personal book collection to make ends meet. Her sword-fighting career lasted until 1796, when she was badly injured during a tournament and had to retire. She was forced to share a flat with another elderly woman, a widow named Mrs. Cole. The once famous d’Eon became a virtual shut-in and saw very few people, often too ill to leave her bedroom.

There, D’Eon began writing her memoirs, which were not published in her lifetime.

“What I am writing is not for the feeble souls of this century,” d’Eon wrote. “How much I have suffered in both body and soul. All that I know for certain is that my transformation has made me into a new creature.”

She died on 21 May 1821, at the age of 81. Mrs. Cole made a shocking discovery when she went to dress her friend’s body for burial. The woman was actually a man! She was so shocked, she called in a physician, who determined that d’Eon was biologically male. d’Eon’s 1821 obituary described her as a “political character” remembered for her “questionable gender.” That narrative dominated d’Eon’s legacy in the 19th century.

d’Eon had collected books on famous women throughout history eventually amassing one of the largest collections of feminist writing in Europe.  Women, d’Eon believed, were more morally superior to men.  She believed that whether anyone lives as a man or a woman was a personal choice.

More modern ideas about sexuality reframe d’Eon as not a political character, but rather as someone who was simply exploring her gender identity.  d’Eon is still a popular figure today in music, plays, anime, gaming, and pop culture. She is regarded today as a founding figure in the LGBTQ+ transgender community.

In d’Eon’s 18th century beliefs, gender was fluid; one can make a decision about which to choose. The arguments we have in the 21st century about what trans people should be allowed to do, OR that society should not be making that decision for them, this is right out d’Eon’s playbook. Perhaps the Chevalier d’Eon was simply a person born 240 years ahead of her time.

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The World War II Battle of Los Angeles

Search and artillery fire during the Battle of Los Angeles, February 1942
Search lights and artillery fire during the Battle of Los Angeles, February 1942

During the panicked weeks following the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Americans were told that enemy raids on the continental U.S. could be next!  On the West Coast, pilots and radar had started mistaking fishing boats and even whales for Japanese destroyers and submarines. Two months after the Pearl Harbor attack, on 25 February 1942, residents of Los Angeles woke up to air raid sirens, bright searchlights crisscrossing the night sky, and thunderous explosions in the air. The Battle of Los Angeles has begun.

Civil defense ordered all city lights extinguished. As artillery exploded overhead, it filled the air with smoke and scattered shrapnel across the city.  Dressed in robes and pajamas, confused citizens stood in their yards, squinting at the night sky, seeing what looked like a battle raging above their heads. The loud booms of more than 1,400 rounds of ammunition shells exploded in the night sky.  Panic and chaos reigned in streets – the Japanese must be attacking Los Angeles!

By the time the “all clear” was given at dawn, five people were dead, many injured, and dozens of houses damaged by falling shells. What the military did not find was any downed enemy aircraft … because there had not been any to begin with.  They had fired for two hours at nothing but thin air. The “Battle of Los Angeles,” left California, and the country, shaken.   

How did such a major blunder happen?

On December 7th, 1941, the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor was hit by a surprise attack from the Japanese Navy.  Twenty-one ships were sunk or damaged and 2,403 Americans lost their lives.  The United States had been it on its home turf.  Los Angeles, a major center for military manufacturing, feared it would be hit next.  Tensions were high after U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson warned Americans that cities should be prepared to accept “occasional blows” from the enemy.

The U.S. government and military then began to view its own Japanese born citizens with suspicion and paranoia. On 19 February 1942, President Roosevelt signed an Executive Order allowing the internment of all first and second generation Japanese Americans.

Then on 23 February 1942, a Japanese submarine surfaced off the coast of Santa Barbara, California.  It fired over a dozen artillery shells at the Ellwood oil field and refinery on-shore. While the attack caused only minor damage, and no one was injured, it marked the first time that the continental U.S. had been bombed during World War II.

This small Japanese attack was a victory of psychological warfare.

The Japanese military made it clear that all the West Coast could potentially be attacked at any time. Naval intelligence instructed military units on the California coast to ready themselves for another potential Japanese raid. The day after the oil field bombing, the Battle for Los Angeles began. 

At 7:18 p.m. on February 24th, just 24 hours later, Army coastal radar installations detected objects over a 100 miles off the coast, moving rapidly toward Los Angeles. Coastal command called for a military “yellow alert.” But then at 10:33 pm an “all clear” sounded. All remained calm for the next few hours. 

Then, shortly after 2:00 am on February 25th, military radar again picked up what appeared to be an enemy contact some 120 miles west of Los Angeles. Air raid sirens sounded for the first time and a citywide blackout was put into effect. Within minutes, troops manned anti-aircraft gun batteries and began sweeping the skies with bright searchlights. The Battle for Los Angeles was on!

It was just after 3:00 am when the firing began.  Following reports of an unidentified object in the skies, troops in Santa Monica unleashed a barrage of anti-aircraft and .50 caliber machine gun fire. Before long, many of the city’s other coastal defense weapons, hearing the big guns, had joined in the barrage.

“Powerful searchlights from countless stations stabbed the sky with brilliant probing fingers,” the Los Angeles Times later wrote, “while anti-aircraft batteries dotted the heavens with beautiful, if sinister, orange bursts of shrapnel.”

Chaos and panic reigned for the next several hours. It appeared that Los Angeles was under attack, yet many who looked skyward saw nothing but smoke and the glow of shell fire.  A mixture of paranoia and imagination revealed threatening shapes in the sky, even though NO planes of any type were actually there—friend or foe.

According to one conversation reported in the LA Times, one observer speculated, “Maybe it’s just a test.” In response, another onlooker said, “Test, hell! You don’t throw that much material into the air unless you’re fixing on knocking something down.”

For many, the threat appeared to be very real.

Reports poured in from across the city describing Japanese aircraft, bombs falling, and even enemy paratroopers! There was even a claim of a Japanese plane crash in the streets of Hollywood. “I could barely see the planes, but they were up there all right,” coastal artilleryman Charles Patrick later wrote. “Naturally, all of us fellows were anxious to get our two-cents’ worth in and, when the command came, we fired.”

The barrage continued for over almost two hours. By the time a final “all-clear” order was given at dawn, Los Angeles artillery batteries had fired over 1,400 rounds of anti-aircraft ammunition into the night sky. Then in the light of day, military units made an embarrassing discovery: there appeared to have been NO enemy attack.

Nevertheless, the military’s Western Defense Command on the ground in Los Angeles stated, “The aircraft which caused the blackout in the Los Angeles area for several hours have not yet been identified.”

The only damage during the Battle of Los Angeles had come from American fire. Anti-aircraft shrapnel had rained down across LA, through some house rooftops and shattering windows. One dud artillery shell landed on Long Beach golf course and embedded itself in a fairway.  Another dud landed in the Santa Monica driveway of Mr. George Watson.  Soldiers blocked off the street with stark warning signs: “Danger Unexploded Ordinance.”

Battle of Los Angeles newspaper headlines, February 1942
Battle of Los Angeles newspaper headlines, February 1942

Surveying the city the next morning, LA reporters documented the damage of “The Great Los Angeles Air Raid.” Five people were killed. Two of them had suffered heart attacks during the blackout. Three were killed in car accidents, including one police officer.  The overhead barrage had distracted frantic drivers looking to the sky. In a preview of the hysteria soon to come, authorities arrested 20 Japanese-Americans for violating the blackout and allegedly trying to signal the nonexistent aircraft.

Some Los Angeles residents had their homes partially destroyed.

In three cases, people’s bedrooms were hit either by fragments or exploding shells.  Luckily they had gone outside to watch the spectacle in their skies. One farmer spent hours rounding up his stampeding herd of cattle after an explosion killed one of his cows. As cleanup continued, it became clear that every bomb that had fallen on LA had been fired by the U.S. military.  

Yet there were still the hundreds of soldiers and civilians who claimed to have seen aircraft.  Many eye witnesses claimed to have witnessed a slow-moving, balloon-like object, most visible when “caught in the center of the search lights. Others described seeing anywhere from dozens to “hundreds” of high-flying planes amongst the shrapnel, illuminated by the searchlights and explosions.

Per a declassified military report from February 1942, “At 0243 the Gun Officer reported unidentified planes between Seal Beach and Long Beach.  At 0306 a balloon carrying a red flare was reported over Santa Monica and fired upon on orders of the Controller. A total of 482 rounds of 3″ shells were expended at the planes … without visible result.”

The same report goes on to list aa craft appearing over Long Beach, and other areas, each time eliciting hundreds of rounds of ammunition fire. In total, the report lists more than 16 military eyewitness describing everything from weather balloons to 30 Japanese planes flying in a menacing V formation over the city.

A later statement from the Army’s Western Defense Command stated: “Although reports were conflicting and every effort is being made to ascertain the facts, it is clear that no bombs were dropped and no planes were shot down.” From Washington, Navy Secretary Frank Knox admitted at a press conference that it was all just a false alarm and there were no planes over Los Angeles that night.

Knox blamed the incident on “jittery nerves.”

US Secretary of War Henry Stimson
US Secretary of War Henry Stimson

Over the next few days, government and press issued contradictory reports. Secretary of War Henry Stimson said that at least 15 planes had buzzed the city and the actions taken were justified. He even promoted a theory that they might have been commercial aircraft “operated by enemy agents.” Stimson later backtracked on this claim. 

On February 26th, the Los Angeles Times published an editorial titled: “Information, Please: More specific public information should be forthcoming from the government, if only to clarify their own conflicting statements.”

One article in the February 26th LA Times reported: “One official source said American planes quickly went into action. Another said no United States Army planes took off because of the danger from their own anti-aircraft fire.”

In Washington, President Franklin Roosevelt was equally unsatisfied.  He received a report from Army Chief of Staff George Marshall that “as many as 15 planes may have been involved,” some of them possibly commercial. The lack of wreckage remains proof of no attack as it is doubtful any aircraft could have survived the volume of explosions across the night sky. The most logical explanation is that early radar technology and nervous, trigger-happy soldiers produced the false alarm.

Over the decades, a series of bizarre conspiracy theories involving the government, military and, you guessed it, even flying saucers and extraterrestrials sprouted up like mushrooms. Thanks to years of embarrassed government silence, conspiracy theorists were almost gifted the Battle of Los Angeles. It was just one more fantasy story to come out of Southern California’s Hollywood region. 

Regardless, the Battle of Los Angeles offered stark evidence of the fear and vulnerability that most Americans felt during World War II.  After the war ended, the Japanese government stated it had never sent any aircraft over the continental U.S. The “Great Los Angeles Air Raid” soon faded into obscurity.  

In 1983, the Office of Air Force History noted that meteorological balloons had been released prior to the barrage to help determine wind conditions. Their lights and silver coloring could have triggered the alerts. Once the shooting began, the searchlights, smoke and anti-aircraft flak led gunners to believe they were firing on Japanese planes, even though none existed. As long as the night sky was clouded by smoke, soldiers believed the Japanese were still there and kept firing until dawn revealed no planes.

That explanation, however, was hardly the sort of thing the government wanted to admit to, or the public wanted to hear. A few reporters noted that it was appropriate that the incident had taken place near Hollywood. The New York Times wrote that as the “world’s preeminent fabricator of make-believe,” Hollywood played host to a battle that was “just another illusion.”  In fact, the Steven Spielberg movie comedy, “1941,” starring Dan Aykroyd, exploited the Battle of Los Angeles for its comic absurdity.

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The Daring Harriet Quimby, Queen of the Air

Female Aviator Harriet Quimby
Female Aviator Harriet Quimby, 1912

Most everyone knows the name Emilia Earhart, the famous female pilot lost at sea in 1937.  But few remember another ground-breaking female aviator named Harriet Quimby.  She was famous a decade before, and was an inspiration to, Emilia Earhart.

Today, only aviation buffs know that Quimby was the first American woman to earn a pilot’s license, the first to fly at night, and the first woman to fly solo across the English Channel.  Sadly, her short public life as “Queen of the Air” lasted less than a year before she died in a tragic plane crash.  Who was this inspirational and daring woman?

Harriet Quimby was born in Coldwater, Michigan, in 1884 and grew up in Arroya Grande, California in a poor family.  Her mother taught her self-confidence and encouraged her to believe that she could succeed in any endeavor, regardless of her sex.  Harriet relied on her wit and talents to accomplish what few women of her time dared even dream about becoming an aviator.  Beautiful and well-poised, many presumed she was from a wealthy family and well-educated. Quimby did nothing to deny these assumptions and carried on the charade her entire life.

Harriet’s public career began in 1902, when she began writing for two San Francisco newspapers, a career few women entered at that time.  She drove a yellow automobile around town, quite a unique sight since motorcars were relatively rare at the time. In 1903, at only 20, she moved to New York City where Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly hired her as editor of the women’s page.  Unmarried, she lived with her widowed mother in New York City’s Hotel Victoria.

Her love of aviation began in 1910.

She witnessed an international aviation meet flown around New York harbor and the Statue of Liberty.  Harriet became captivated by both the flying machines and John Moisant, the young and wealthy pilot who won the race. That evening, she saw Moisant having dinner at the Hotel Astor and boldly asked him to teach her to fly. The man grinned and agreed, primarily due to her attractiveness, not really taking her seriously.  However, before she could begin any lessons, Moisant died in a plane crash a week later at a race in New Orleans.

Undaunted, Harriet enrolled in the new Moisant Aviation School, learning to fly Moisant monoplanes, copies of the French Blériots.  Quimby took her flight lessons at dawn before her day job at the magazine. Females entering male dominated aviation was absolutely unheard of.  In the early 1900’s, women were not supposed to step out of their assigned roles in society. Nevertheless in 1911, after 4 months and 33 lessons, she obtained her pilot’s license in Long Island after two test flights. She became the first American woman and second female ever to receive a pilot’s license.

A newspaper account of the day noted that ‘the Aero Club, despite its misgivings, was forced to make the award owing to the splendid flying of Miss Quimby.’  The press dubbed her the “China Doll” because of her fair skin and petite stature.  The ambitious Quimby quickly capitalized on her new fame. After all, pilots could earn as much as $1,000 at an air show performance.  Race meet prize money could go as high as $10,000!

Quimby joined the Moisant International Aviators team.  She won headlines again by making her public debut at a moonlight flight over Staten Island before more than 20,000 spectators.  She earned $1,500, a small fortune at the time.  Quimby’s flying had won the approval of her bosses at Leslie’s Weekly. She continued to contribute to Leslie’s and wrote accounts of her flights for the magazine. In September, she beat the leading French aviatrix, Helene Dutrieu, in a cross-country air race.

“The men flyers have given the impression that aeroplaning is perilous work, something that an ordinary mortal should not dream of attempting. But when I saw how easily the man flyers manipulated their machines, I said I could fly too.” -Harriet Quimby

Quimby capitalized on her femininity.  Her flight costume was all the rage: trousers tucked into high-laced tan boots, a plum-colored, long-sleeved satin blouse, choker collar and a flying hood – all designed by Quimby herself. This outfit, then considered risqué, soon became a fashion trend.  Her fans called her the “Doll Aviatrix” because of her dashing, yet feminine, image.  She drew crowds whenever she competed or toured with airshows across the U.S.

A darling of the press, Harriet Quimby’s sparkling personality and graceful elegance earned her praise as ‘lovable,’ ‘irresistible,’ ‘charming’ and ‘intelligent.’   One columnist called her ‘a glamorous, green-eyed beauty.’  She was indeed considered a radical woman in her day – she smoked cigarettes, owned a motor car, flew an aeroplane, traveled alone, and had a career as a writer.  

Harriet Quimby Vin Fiz advertisement
Harriet Quimby Vin Fiz advertisement

Passionate about being an aviator, she even went so far as to tout that flying was an ideal sport or even occupation for women.  The Vin Fiz Company used Quimby to advertise its new grape soda, Vin Fiz. She appeared in posters, magazines, and billboards in her distinctive purple aviator uniform.

Desiring global fame next, Quimby decided to attempt a crossing of the English Channel.

The feat had already been accomplished by Louis Bleriot in 1909, but never by a woman. Quimby offered Leslie’s magazine exclusive rights to her first-person account of the proposed flight. She obtained a letter of introduction to French aviator Louis Blériot and in 1912, sailed for England. Meeting Blériot in Paris, she convinced him to loan her one of his new 60-hp Blériots for her historic flight.

For Quimby, this would be her first flight in a Blériot, first with a compass, and first across water.  A worried group of friends and colleagues saw Quimby off early on Tuesday, April 16, 1912.  On a cold spring morning, the adventurous pilot climbed aboard the French Bleriot monoplane, waved to her fans, and began her daring flight from Dover to Calais.

Airborne at 9 AM, Quimby climbed to 2,000 feet before heading out over waters of the English Channel. She caught a brief glimpse of the London Daily Mirror‘s boat, jammed with reporters and photographers, before running into an unexpected fog bank. What should she do now? Turn back or go forward? Even a minor error could send her wandering above the North Sea or the Atlantic. 

“In an instant, I was beyond the cliffs and over the Channel. I could not see ahead of me at all, nor could I see the water below.  There was only one thing for me to do, keep my eyes fixed on my compass.”

She climbed through the fog to 6,000 feet, seeking clear sky, but found only a skin-shivering cold. Keeping a close watch on her compass, she dropped down to 200 feet for the remainder of the flight.  When her plane finally broke clear of the fog, Harriett squinted against the rising sun. She sighed in relief as she could see the shores of France ahead. Harriet sighted a deserted stretch of flat, sandy beach and landed. She was quickly surrounded by excited French fishermen and villagers.

The crossing took a nerve-wracking 59 minutes as Quimby landed 25 miles south of Calais.

Her achievement went largely unnoticed however in the next days’ Paris and London papers. Quimby’s daring feat was overshadowed by the tragic sinking of the RMS Titanic just two days earlier in the North Atlantic.  Nevertheless, Harriet Quimby was now the official ‘Queen of the Air,’ and feted in London and Paris before returning to the U.S. a bon-a-fide celebrity.

Quimby was in love with flying and continued performing at air shows and competing in air meets throughout the U.S. She published more than 250 articles in her parallel profession as a journalist. Unfortunately, her short flying career ended weeks later on July 1, 1912, just three months after her Channel crossing.

She had entered the 1912 Harvard-Boston Meet at Harvard Field in Squantum on Dorchester Bay.  Monday evening, July 1st, just before 6 pm, with the competitive events of the day over, Harriet took off on a short flight with William Willard, the meet’s wealthy manager.  The flight would be a great advertisement for his show as he had invested heavily in it.  Harriet never turned down an offer that promised more publicity for herself.

After taking off, they headed east toward the Boston Light. Quimby sat in the front cockpit of a new 70-hp Blériot monoplane, Willard rode in the rear cockpit. Returning from the Light 20 minutes later, the crowd watched as Quimby’s plane descended in a steep glide. Then suddenly, she slanted sharply down and turned hard to the left.  The horrified spectators witnessed Willard fall out, clear over the nose of the plane, followed a few seconds later by Quimby herself!  Both plunged into the shallow river 1,000 feet below and died instantly.

Harriet Quimby’s flying career had lasted exactly 11 months.  She was dead at only 28.

The Boston Globe described the accident as ‘one of the worst tragedies ever to happened at an air meet in America.  The sight caused women to shriek and men to turn sick.’  But what caused the tragedy with such an experienced pilot at the controls of a state-of-the-art aeroplane?  Was it pilot error?

Earl Ovington, a leading pilot of the day, was one of the first to reach the plane crash.  He found that a rudder control wire was caught jammed over the vertical control lever. This design flaw, he concluded, caused the machine ‘to turn left and pitch downward,’ catapulting the occupants out.  The Globe noted that John Moisant had been flying a similar monoplane when he too plunged headfirst to the earth at New Orleans.  The lack of proper seat belts in aeroplanes was also quickly seen as a factor.

Though a tragic loss, Harriett Quimby’s short and impressive career went on to inspire future, famous women aviators.  Elinor Smith was born the same year as Quimby’s daring Channel crossing. Inspired by Quimby, she became the youngest pilot at age 16 and went on to set numerous endurance, speed, and altitude records in the 1920’s. A young Amelia Earhart also was inspired by Harriet Quimby.  She became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic before disappearing while attempting to fly around the globe in 1937.   

Harriet Quimby commemorative stamp
Harriet Quimby commemorative stamp

Today, few remember Harriet Quimby, Queen of the Air.  Though she was a fearless young woman of ambition, intelligence, and beauty, she is all but forgotten. In 1991, eighty years after her death, the U.S. Post Office issued a commemorative stamp honoring her contributions to aviation. The airmail stamp contains a picture of the aviator, dressed in her purple satin blouse, before a Bleriot monoplane, stating simply “Harriet Quimby: Pioneer Pilot.” In 2004, Quimby was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in recognition of her accomplishments during the dawn of manned flight.

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Jonathan Wild, London’s First Criminal Mastermind

London Thief-Taker Jonathan Wild
London ‘Thief-Taker’ Jonathan Wild

In early 18th century England, Jonathan Wild was a notorious criminal mastermind.  He lead a mafia-like empire that included everything from robbery to extortion to blackmail. What makes Wild’s story even more “wild” was that he skillfully played both sides of the coin — crime and law enforcement, profiting as an official Thief-Taker.

In the early 1700’s, London was a city plagued by rampant crime.  Mr. Wild brought dozens of thieves and criminals to justice; earning him the title, “Thief-Taker General.”  It was a service that garnered him the gratitude of both the public and the authorities. Behind the scenes however, Jonathan Wild was the mastermind of a vast criminal empire involving robbery, fencing, prostitution, protection, and any other crime worth a profit.  As the ruler of London’s underworld, he was the Professor Moriarity of his day.  Who was this infamous man?

Jonathan Wild was born in Wolverhampton around 1683, the oldest of five children.  His family was not wealthy, and at fifteen, he apprenticed as a buckle-maker; then spent seven years learning the trade. While still in his teens, he married an equally young girl and they had a child.  But by 24, Wild had grown bored and restless with his small-town, domestic life.  He deserted his family and headed to London to find his fortune.

He struggled to support himself for the first two years.  Without a steady income, Wild fell heavily into debt and was sent to Wood Street Compter, a debtor’s prison.  This ended up being a life-changing event for young Wild.  He put his four years in prison to very good use. Wild used it like a university to learn all about crime from his fellow inmates.  He also made valuable connections within the London underworld he would use later .

Wild did not remain a regular prisoner for long.  His personal charm helped him become a prison “trustee,” allowing him to run errands for the guards.  He became so trusted, the guards allowed him to accompany them outside the prison to capture other criminals.

In addition to learning the tricks of the criminal trade, he also met Molly Milliner. At the time, Milliner was labeled a “buttock and file,” a prostitute and pickpocket. Moreover, she knew most of London’s underworld.  Wild and Milliner fell in love and developed a romantic relationship in prison, despite the fact they were both married to others. 

The pair were released in 1712, and lived together more or less as husband and wife.

Mary and Jonathan set up shop together in Covent Garden, where Wild soon found himself immersed within Milliner’s circle of criminals.  They operated a scheme called “buttock and twang.” Mary, playing the prostitute, would entice a lusty customer into a dark alley.  Jonathan would then whack the chap with a cudgel and rob him.  The semi-conscious men, with trousers about their ankles, rarely gave chase.

This proved to be profitable enough that Wild was eventually able to buy a pub, the King’s Head Inn.  Molly managing a brothel of prostitutes from the upper floors.  In the pub, Wild catered to thieves and other scalawags. It was there Wild and Milliner started their first scam: an upgraded version of the “buttock and twang.” 

While the whores entertained the men, Wild and Milliner would rob them, not just of their coins and jewelry, but also personal letters and diaries. They would then blackmail their victims, offering the return of their items for the price of their silence.

This new scam also proved profitable for the duo.  By 1713, at the age of 30, Wild and Milliner moved their residence to Cripplegate, a more respectable section of London.  They purchased an all new wardrobe, reflecting their improved status. Wild had enough left over to purchase a Brandy Shop near their new home.  This quickly became the site of their second successful scam.

Jonathan Wild moonlighted as a fence of stolen goods, when he developed an even better idea.  

He called a meeting of all the thieves he knew. Rather than take their goods to fences or pawnbrokers, why not offer them back to the owners?  After a robbery, Wild would approach the victims, saying he was acting on behalf of someone who had inadvertently bought their stolen goods. They now wished to restore them anonymously, for fear of being arrested for fencing.  The owner got their goods back, the “benefactor” (thief) got the reward, and Wild got a cut.

The bold Jonathan Wild even opened a formal office in London, offering to retrieve stolen goods for robbed clients – for a fee, of course. When victims came into his office asking for help in getting back a valuable painting or sentimental pocket watch, Wild likely already knew who had it. Business boomed and Wild was soon operating gangs of thieves in the scam.

Molly expanded her prostitution ring and Wild grew into protection and blackmail as well. He became the unofficial King of London’s criminal underworld.  His public persona meanwhile was that of a helpful “crimefighter.” Around this time, Jonathan and Molly sadly parted company, and not under business-like circumstances.  During a heated argument over shared cuts, Wild cut off Molly’s ear with his sword!

Unperturbed over the loss of Molly, Wild expanded his empire yet again. This time, by taking advantage of the fact that London still had a relatively small police force.  Crime had exploded, fueled by London’s population growth. Law enforcement had to adapt, so the police created the position of the “Thief-Taker.”  It became sort of an early bounty hunter.  They offered financial rewards for anyone who could catch and help convict thieves. The people who stepped forward for the job were a rough sort with deep criminal connections. They were the also kind to often commit crimes themselves.

Few people fit the bill, and were more successful, than Mr. Jonathan Wild. 

Wild developed a ring of burglars, thieves and pickpockets that would steal pocketbooks, jewelry, and other valuables. Sometimes, he would turn in the thieves for the reward, sometimes blame a patsy or a rival. Wild would always pretend to have investigated the crime, come into information about stolen items, and offer to broker their return to the original owner.  He eventually earned the title of “Thief-Taker General of Great Britain.” He sent more than 120 people to the gallows and personally attended most of the hangings.

By running this third scam, Wild began to earn high regard from English society, who believed that he was catching criminals – instead of actually orchestrating the crime himself. He also took advantage of the press.  The first daily newspaper in the England was “The Daily Courant.”  Wild published accounts of items he had supposedly “found” with a pawn broker who had been suspicious of the merchandise.

Jonathan Wild enjoyed an arrest-free run for nearly ten years, living in grand style with a much higher-class of mistress this time than Mary Milliner. By 1724 however, cracks began to show in Wild’s empire and the authorities were getting suspicious.  Two years earlier, he sent a highwayman, Joseph Blueskin Blake, to jail. Blueskin had informed on his gang and expected the reward.  But Wild turned him in instead. When Blueskin was released two years later, he still held a heavy grudge against London’s “Thief-Taker General.”  Blueskin teamed up with Jack Sheppard, an infamous burglar, who was jealous of Wild’s criminal empire. Sheppard had been arrested twice and managed to escape from prison twice, making him a sort of underworld folk hero.

Wild tried to recruit him, but Sheppard teamed up with Blueskin instead.

The clever Wild got Sheppard’s wife drunk, found out where he was hiding, and had him arrested again. Sheppard was held in Newgate Prison, with his feet in irons this time, chained to the stone floor. The following month, Blueskin Blake was also arrested. At his trial, Wild himself gave false testimony against him. Enraged, Blueskin attacked Wild in the courtroom with a concealed knife, slashing at Wild’s throat. The scuffle set off a street riot that spread to Newgate Prison.  In the confusion of the riot, Jack Sheppard escaped again!

So Wild arranged for his arrest again, and this time, Sheppard was promptly hanged.  Wild’s continued pursuit of the well-liked Sheppard did not sit well with London’s criminal class and his control began to weaken.

Because of the spotlight of being Thief-Taker General, Wild stored stolen goods away from his properties.  He rented warehouses along the Thames and boats to ship his loot away as needed.  Wild had one boat he used to transport items across the channel for sale there, along with goods smuggled back in. His crews was, of course, made of his thieves. When some expensive lace went missing, Captain Roger Johnson deducted the cost from the first mate’s pay. The furious mate then informed on the smugglers to port authorities and Johnson was arrested. Fearing he would turn against him in court, Wild organized a mob of his thugs to break the captain out of jail.

In a rare, sloppy act, Wild himself was at the scene and identified.

Then things got even worse. While Wild was now under attack for orchestrating the riot, the first mate flipped again, time on Jonathan Wild. The first mate knew the exact location of Wild’s warehouses and told the London authorities.  A search of the premises found hundreds of stolen items.  The police promptly arrested Wild.  The British public was outraged.  The man who paraded around as a moral crusader was in fact a criminal mastermind?!  Daniel Defoe, a British journalist, wrote a pamphlet about the case:

“How infatuated were the people of this nation all this while! Did they consider, that at the very time that they treated this person with such a confidence, he had, perhaps, the very goods in his keeping, and that, perhaps, they had been stolen with that very intention?”

Wild’s trial was a huge spectacle. Defoe noted it was the largest audience he had ever seen at the Old Bailey.  Wild was charged with a vast array of crimes. He tried to pin the ownership of the stolen booty on one of his cohorts, but that failed to work. Witnesses came forward that he had started the riot that helped Captain Johnson escape. Wild was found guilty of all his crimes. The overwhelming evidence and public disdain led the judge to sentence him to death.

Depiction of Jonathan Wild being carted off to his hanging.
Depiction of Jonathan Wild being carted off to his London hanging.

The night before his hanging, in his cell at Newgate, Jonathan Wild attempted suicide by overdosing on laudanum.  But it only succeeded in making himself sick. The next morning, 24 May 1725, the open cart carrying the condemned man rumbled out of Newgate Prison on a two-mile journey to Tyburn Tree. The trip took three hours past hoards of jeering Londoners.  He was pelted with rotting fruit, dead animals, and even feces.  The cart, as was customary, made three stops at pubs along the way, so condemned men could drink enough to be drunk at their hanging.

At Tyburn, another crowd waited to watch the downfall of a man once revered, and now reviled.  Daniel Defoe wrote that the crowd was the largest ever assembled for a hanging as well. Because of the laudanum and ale in his system, Wild stood in a daze. He did not give any last words before the thick noose was placed around his neck.  The hangman, who had been a guest at one of Wild’s weddings, made it mercifully quick.  When the horse cart was pulled away, Jonathan Wild dropped and dangled on the end of his rope.  He eventually stopped kicking and was dead at the age of forty-two.  So ended one of the world’s first major criminal networks, lead by a single ruthless and resourceful man.

Wild, at one point London’s most celebrated Thief-Taker, then its most reviled criminal, was largely forgotten for well over a century.  That is, until author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle dropped his name in a novel. He had his famous creation Sherlock Holmes refer to Professor Moriarty a true successor of Jonathan Wild, the once famous Thief-Taker General. A British movie, Where’s Jack, was made in 1969 about Wild and Sheppard’s final confrontation.

Remarkably, one can still see Jonathan Wild for themselves.  Go to Hunterian Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London. Though Wild was buried in St. Pancras Old Church, next to one of his many wives, he was dug up three days later by surgeon anatomists. As a criminal, they were free to dissect his body for learning purposes.  When done, they stripped away the flesh and wired up his skeleton.  It is still on display at the Hunterian, the remains of the infamous criminal mastermind who once ruled all the thieves of London.

For more by historical writer Paul Andrews, click BOOKS.
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