20th century – Empowering women through fiction and history.

Forensic Pathology in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries

Mourning practices were an art form in the 19th and early 20th centuries. When I did research on mourning for my Gilded Age family saga, the Waxwood Series, back in 2022, I found no shortage of information. People during these eras had a fascination with death that is almost the antithesis of how we approach death in the 21st century.

However, when I started doing research on the more technical and scientific aspects of dealing with the dead for my Grave Sisters Mysteries series, the information was surprisingly lacking or difficult to find. As Deborah Blum emphasized in this TED-ED video, in our CSI-friendly era, crime investigation relies heavily on picking apart the corpse (both physically and emotionally). But 19th and early 20th century crime investigation focused much more on clues, witnesses, and suspects, and less on the victim’s body.

In the 19th and early 20th century, you couldn’t even say American forensic pathology was in its infancy. More like it was in the womb. The role of medical examiner was pretty ad hoc and didn’t officially exist in many places until the 1930s. In addition, many medical examiners were not trained specifically in pathology, consisting mostly of local doctors who were good at treating the living but had little experience with examining the dead. Both my Adele Gossling Mysteries and Grave Sisters Mysteries feature this type of medical examiner, though both doctors have enough experience to know what they’re doing. In contrast, in the latter series, Helena Wright (the middle Grave sister), is the mortician of the family funeral home, and her training provides her with more in-depth knowledge of pathology (something the medical examiner resents!)

Medical examiners and pathologists were, like policemen and mayors, government-appointed, and as such, subject to the kind of corruption that ran rampant in the 19th and early 20th centuries (until the Progressive movement called for reforms). They could be bribed to cover up evidence for various reasons. Maybe the victim was a well-respected citizen, and the pathology brought up something that pointed toward a less-than-stellar life the influential family didn’t want made public (like certain diseases). Or maybe the examination of the victim showed foul play that would require important people to be involved in the case, who didn’t want to be involved. The examination might even implicate someone important to the town in a dastardly crime, so evidence needed to be covered up or distorted. I’m reading a true crime book right now about the death of a woman in the early 20th century, where the writers surmise this is exactly what happened.

Photo credit: Leather doctor’s bag and its contents dated between 1890 and 1930, Wellcome Collection Gallery: Fae/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 4.0

Thankfully, things started to change in the 1920s. Law enforcement began to take forensic experts and medical examiners more seriously and saw them as a vital part of the investigation rather than just part of their standard procedure. One example that changed the way the New York police thought about forensic pathology happened in 1923. A housewife living in one of the tenement buildings in the city was found dead in her apartment. At first, the case seemed cut and dried – accidental death by poisoning from a gas oven (not an uncommon thing in the early 20th century, as gas was the main source of power in tenements). However, because of reforms going on in the city at the time, the coroner was also a trained medical man and was able to determine that death had not occurred due to carbon monoxide poisoning (interestingly, based on the color of the dead woman’s skin) and in fact had been strangled (as there were marks on her neck). Later, it was discovered her husband had indeed strangled her (for the insurance money) and had tried to stage the murder to look like an accident, which the authorities almost bought.

Pathology plays a role not only in my Grave Sisters Mysteries (as I discussed above), but in Book 3 of my Adele Gossling Mysteries. A doctor is asked to write out a new death certificate because what looked like an accident proves to be anything but. It was possible to retract the death certificate if further examination suggested otherwise. This is what starts off the investigation into Thea Marsh’s death in the book.

Death At Will has been chosen by Barnes & Noble as a favorite reading year pick! To celebrate, I’ve discounted the book to $2.99. You can grab it here. And did you know Book 1 of the series, The Carnation Murder, is free? If you haven’t yet gotten into this series, you can start now by getting your copy of the first book for free here.

And if you want to see some more fascinating early 20th century pathology at work (without the gore!), check out my Grave Sisters Mysteries! Book 2 of the series was just released last November and is on Barnes & Noble’s Top Indie Favorites list for this month. The book is still at a nice discount of $3.99, so you can get The Missing Witness now.

If you love fun, engaging mysteries set in the past, you’ll enjoy The Missing Ruby Necklace! It’s available exclusively to newsletter subscribers here. By signing up, you’ll also get news about upcoming releases, fun facts about women’s history, classic true-crime tidbits, and more!

Making Progress: Thanksgiving in the Progressive Era

It’s that time of year when Thanksgiving is upon us (at least it is if you’re in the US). A few years ago, I wrote a blog post about Thanksgiving in the Gilded Age. But since I’ve been diving into the Progressive Era with my Adele Gossling Mysteries, I was curious to know how turn-of-the-century Thanksgiving traditions compared to those of America’s Gilded Age.

The Gilded Age was, remember, all about excesses, wealth, and showing off when it came to the holidays. Well-to-do Americans saw the holidays as a time to get into their best dress and parade themselves in hotel dining rooms or swank restaurants for a multi-course Thanksgiving meal that included non-traditional Thanksgiving fare such as oysters and lobster (if you don’t believe me, take a peek at the menu I included in the blog post mentioned above.)

Photo Credit: Cover of Puck magazine showing a mother making a pumpkin pie in the kitchen while her four children look onward, emphasizing the family nature of Thanksgiving, 1903, chromolithograph, created by L. M. Glackens: pingnews.com / Flickr/Public Domain Mark 1.0

Americans started to get a grip on all those excesses and realized their country needed to make some changes in the Progressive Era. Reform was the order of the day, including worker’s rights, women’s rights, and environmental concerns. There was also more emphasis on intimate social circles (family, friends), probably because the modern era made many people feel fragmented and isolated (something I daresay we struggle with today in our social-media-heavy 21st century.)

For all these reasons, Thanksgiving became more of a family affair at the turn of the century. Magazines and books came out with Thanksgiving recipes to help encourage Americans to stay home for the holiday rather than let hotels and restaurants do the cooking. The recipes were much more what we consider traditional Thanksgiving foods, such as roasted turkey, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. The 1902 menu on this site still has some oddities, such as oysters, but it looks much more like the kind of Thanksgiving meal we feast upon these days than the menu on my previous blog post.

Progressive reformers carried their work into the holidays as well. One thing we see with turn-of-the-century Thanksgiving which was less prevalent in the Gilded Age was the idea of giving thanks and gratitude by helping others. Missionaries and other charitable organizations hosted large Thanksgiving feasts for the poor all over the country. In addition, holiday gift boxes became popular just as they are today (my local Sprouts Market prepares gift bags with food every year that customers can purchase and have the store give to a family in need). Overall, the spirit of gratitude and giving was not lost on early 20th-century progressives.

While none of my Adele Gossling Mystery stories feature a Thanksgiving murder yet, be on the lookout for one in the future! In the meantime, check out The Carnation Murder, the first book of the series, which is totally free on all bookstore sites.

If you love fun, engaging mysteries set in the past, you’ll enjoy The Missing Ruby Necklace! It’s available exclusively to newsletter subscribers here. By signing up, you’ll also get news about upcoming releases, fun facts about women’s history, classic true-crime tidbits, and more!

Fun and Mischief: Halloween in the Early 20th Century

It’s Halloween in the United States today, and if you live in America, you likely already have bags of candy stashed on the front table near your door, expecting little nippers to come knocking and calling “trick or treat!”

Halloween these days is a relatively tame affair where fun is the name of the game. It means dressing up in costumes, taking the kids door to door to get candy, and for some, attending a party or settling on the couch to watch spooky movies (I already have my collection of classic horror films geared up). But in the early 20th century, kids had a very different idea of what constituted “fun” for Halloween. Mischief and mayhem were the order of the day (or, I should say, the night).

What do I mean by mischief? Watch this clip from the 1944 classic film Meet Me in St. Louis. The film is set in 1904 and gives a pretty accurate glimpse of how kids celebrated Halloween in the early 20th century. In the scene, kids build a bonfire, throwing in anything flammable they can get their hands on (and one suspects some of the chairs they’re throwing into the fire might have been ripped off neighborhood porches). Then, they huddle together, trying to figure out who they’re going to torture with their bags of flour (yes, knocking on someone’s door and throwing flour in their face was a thing back then). That was the turn-of-the-century’s idea of Halloween fun.

Photo Credit: A non-grotesque and non-creepy Halloween costume of a witch, 1910: jamesjoel/Flickr/CC BY ND 2.0

This scene also shows how kids dressed up for Halloween over one hundred years ago (and if you’re curious to see more costumes from this era, you can look here). Unlike today where we’re more likely to see cute costumes on smaller kids and spooky-fun costumes on older kids, kids used whatever they could find around the house. The results were creepier and, in some cases, even grotesque.

Trick-or-treating is an organized affair in the 21st century. In the neighborhoods in my area, the local newspaper designates specific days (not necessarily October 31) and times when trick-or-treaters can go around town. In the early 20th century, things were a lot more chaotic. Kids would go trick-or-treating in parades and they could become quite unruly. And did they get candy? Not always. Until the mid-20th century, kids got whatever was lying around. That could be a toy or a game the child of the house didn’t want anymore or some non-candy goodies or fruits or nuts (which would make many moms and dads very happy today).

But what really characterized early 20th-century Halloween was mischief. In addition to the bonfire and the flour-in-the-face, it wasn’t unusual for kids to vandalize homes belonging to people in town they didn’t like or even steal things off their lawn or porch (in the film clip above, one of the adults warns her children to return a neighbor’s hammock after they steal it). I remember when I was a kid, Halloween meant you were at risk of being “egged” (having kids throw rotten eggs at your house) if you didn’t open the door and give out candy. Thankfully, that practice has largely gone out of style.

I talk a lot about holiday history and traditions in my newsletter. So come sign up and get a free book from the Adele Gossling Mysteries series!

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Working Women’s Tragedy: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911

Photo Credit: A cartoon referring to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire depicts a factory owner, his coat adorned with dollar signs, holding a door closed while workers shut inside struggle to escape amid flames and smoke, 1911, artist unknown (name illegible), International Ladies Garment Workers Union Photographs: Kheel Center, Cornell University/Flickr/CC BY 2.0

Today is Labor Day in the United States. Sadly, much of the meaning behind this day has been lost in the fanfare of celebrations and BBQs. Labor Day is about celebrating the strides made by working men and women in America in establishing more humane conditions, like the 8-hour work day and work environments that don’t resemble old sweatshops.

To say working women especially didn’t have it easy in the 19th and early 20th centuries is a gross understatement. They had to endure extremely low wages (more so than working men), long hours, unsafe and unsanitary conditions, and harassment from all sides. Even with Progressive Era reforms, change came very slowly.

Probably the most famous example of the consequences of the injustices working women had to face during this time was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. I became fascinated with this piece of women’s history when I saw a PBS special a long time ago. The story, in fact, was part of what inspired me to write historical fiction. I have somewhere in my files a story idea based on this event which may or may not get written and published someday.

What intrigued me then and now is the question of who were the victims of the fire. From the list of 146 workers who died in the fire, only fifteen were men. And yes, I counted them (there’s a list on the Cornell University website of all of the victims here.) That means that 131 women died in the fire. According to historical documents, we know they were immigrant women, mostly of Italian and Eastern European origin. A quick scan of the list mentioned above shows the majority of these women were between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five.

But what do we really know about them? The Cornell University list doesn’t give us much more than their names, ages, nationalities, how long they had lived in the United States and their addresses. In other words, statistical data that’s easy to locate in historical records.

But what was their life like? To answer this question, we have put ourselves in their place. Many of these women had been in America for less than five years. They came with their families and carried with them hopes and dreams of a better life. Some were escaping persecution like the pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe. Others came from Southern Italy where hardship and few job opportunities were the norm.

What they got instead was extreme poverty, misery, and exploitation. Their work week was hardly the 9-to-5 schedule we know today. It was not uncommon for these women to start their workday before the sun went up and end it well after the sun went down. They worked ten or eleven hours a day, every day (no weekends off here!) with only a tiny break for lunch.

How much were they paid? An average of six dollars a week, roughly equivalent to $210 today (that’s less than $11,000 a year – imagine trying to live on that in post-COVID inflation times!) To add insult to injury, these women often had to bring their own materials to work (like sewing needles) because their employers refused to provide them. That’s like coming to work and bringing your own laptop and printer!

They not only worked long hours for little pay, but they also experienced severe indignity and humiliation. In most cases, they were so closely watched, that they didn’t even have the freedom to go to the ladies’ room whenever they needed it. Doors were locked and kept locked, ostensibly because employers were afraid they would steal materials and smuggle them out during working hours or leave for an extra long bathroom break. This was, in fact, one of the reasons why the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire turned into a tragedy of massive proportions. There was one entrance that would have offered escape for the workers but to get to it, they had to open the doors, and the doors were locked and bolted.

The fire escape leading from the upper floors where the fire hose and ladders didn’t get to was in such bad shape that it collapsed when workers tried to use it as an escape from the fire.

Photo Credit: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire escape after the fire, 1911, photographer unknown, International Ladies Garment Workers Union Photographs: Kheel Center, Cornell University/Flickr/CC BY 2.0

These women also worked in appalling conditions. The floor was littered with dirt and debris from the work they did and never cleaned. Sanitation was a joke. For the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, most of the materials, like cotton and paper, were highly inflammable. Reports lay blame on this waste lying around for the quick spreading of the fire. How quick? Everything was over in less than twenty minutes.

Things did begin to change in the latter part of the 1910s, partly as a result of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory tragedy. In New York, where the tragedy occurred, the state legislation passed thirty-six bills regarding labor laws. Around the country, fire laws were put in place to ensure buildings and workers worked in safety.

In San Francisco, my favorite city and the birthplace of my protagonist for the Adele Gossling Mysteries, building safety laws were in place a little earlier because of the city’s own tragedy — the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. My book, Murder Among The Rubble, coming out at the end of this year, includes not only a murder mystery but also a little background on the earthquake and its aftermath. You can preorder it here.

The Lady in the Pond: The Case of Hazel Drew

I love books and films that are “inspired by true events”. I actually like these better than biopics or fiction that tries to portray the life of a real-life person based on historical evidence. Stories inspired by true events are about creating another story that readers know isn’t supposed to be true but is inspired by the truth.

This is why I chose to write Book 6 of my Adele Gossling Mysteries inspired by true events from a real live unsolved mystery. The story of Hazel Drew took me in for several reasons. The murder happened in 1908, around the time frame of the Adele Gossling Mysteries. Modern life was starting to hit America in the face and the Progressive Era brought about many positive changes in the nation. Unsolved cases always intrigue me, and this one remains unsolved, though there are several theories about who could have killed Hazel Drew and why. After doing more research, I discovered the murder of Hazel Drew inspired another creative work that went on to become a cult classic in the 1990s: The hit series Twin Peaks.

Hazel Drew was, in many ways, one of the era’s modern women. She was a working girl who wasn’t confined to the ideals of the separate spheres. Rather than being conventional and restrained by her womanhood, she was not ashamed of going out and having a little fun and using what money she had to buy elegant things. There is evidence she wanted to move beyond her position as a domestic servant (something Victorian era ideology, with its rigid social definitions, wouldn’t have allowed), though what that would have looked like, no one knew. And, like many New Women of the day, she was an enigma.

Here lies the most fascinating aspect of this case. Hazel Drew presented herself as one thing but, digging into her life after she was murdered, police found evidence of a hidden self. Interviews with family members and friends reveal they observed Hazel didn’t have a beau and didn’t seem much interested in men. But in a suitcase she left at the train station on the day of her death, police found dozens of letters from men (most of them unidentified) who professed undying love and devotion to Hazel. These letters painted a picture not of the modest, church-going young woman most Sand Lake residents had known, but a vivacious, bubbly girl who loved expensive trinkets and fancy restaurants and sojourns to New York City, none of which were exactly within a domestic servant’s budget. Many in her more conservative and backward hometown thought her “too big for her britches” – owning jewelry and clothes her maid’s salary could ill afford and working for some of the most prominent families in town, including the city treasurer and a prominent businessman.

Photo Image: Postcard of Sand Lake, NY, where Hazel Drew lived and worked and was killed, 1910, eBay store: Amg37/Wikimedia Commons/PD US

Why, then, was she found face-down in Teal’s Pond one summer night in 1908, dead from a blow to the back of the head, her face so mangled from being in the water that only her dental records could identify her? Who might have had it in for this maid (another disposable working girl, which I talk about here)? And why, after months of searching for the killer, did the local police simply give up where the case remains unsolved today?

These are questions still left unanswered in the Hazel Drew murder case. But they are questions Adele and her friends answer about the case of Arabella Parnell in The Case of the Dead Domestic. The book celebrates its 1-year publiversary this month and is on sale now! Get all the information and buy links here.