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Income Taxes: A Progressive Era Thing

Tax Day in America is here!

There is no task that spells “adulting” more than doing your taxes. We all hate it. We all grumble about it. We all get headaches over it. It’s on our minds at this time of year. Even in my peer support group recently, the conversation fell on taxes when we were all supposed to be talking about something entirely different.

In fact, I’m betting when tax time comes around, most of us feel like The Beatles in their 1966 song “Mr Taxman”. Ironically, the Beatles wrote the song at a time when Britain was imposing higher taxes on the wealthy. The Beatles, by this stage in their careers, fell into that category, so they weren’t too happy about this.

Got questions? The cartoon above shows early 20th century Secretary of the Treasury, William G. McAdoo, being bombarded with questions about taxes over the phone on his “busy days”. If y’all think taxes are complicated in the 21st century, imagine how confused Americans were in the early days!

Photo Credit: Secretary McAdoo’s Busy Days, illustrated cartoon, by Clifford Barryman, from Washington Evening Star, 3 November 1913: Nara & Dvids Public Domain Archive/No known copyright restrictions

We can thank the well-intentioned people of the Progressive Era for income taxes. However, the story of income taxes in America begins in the mid-19th century. The American government first imposed a tax on personal income in 1861 to help fund the Civil War at that time but stopped this in the 1870s. Then, Congress passed a flat-rate income tax during the Gilded Age which meant that, regardless of how much you made, your income was taxed at a specific percentage. This was ruled unconstitutional because it didn’t take into account income variations by class and states (think: a farmer living in Kentucky isn’t going to be able to pay the same tax rate as a stockbroker living in New York City because his income is way lower).

It was the 16th Amendment, passed in 1909 and ratified in 1913, that finally put the income tax into place, though the actual tax deadline (on or just after April 15) wasn’t set until the 1950s. When you look at the evolution of early 20th-century society and politics, you can understand why this would be a Progressive Era thing. At the turn of the 20th century, people in America were trying to fix the damage the Gilded Agers had done with their greed, graft, and corruption, and they wanted the government to help. The hands-off government of the 19th century wasn’t working anymore. In order for the government to intervene, it needed funds. They had nowhere to get those funds except from the people. Hence, taxes.

I know this is tough to remember when you’re slogging through your Form 8829 trying to figure out whether the IRS will come after you for declaring 30% of your internet bill was used for your work because maybe it was more like 15% (as my CPA says, “you don’t want to poke the bear”). But maybe when you’re trying to scrape together the dollars to pay Mr. Taxman this year, it will help to keep in mind the original intent of the 16th Amendment.

Although the protagonist of the Adele Gossling Mysteries isn’t dealing with taxes yet (Book 1 takes place in 1903, before the 16th Amendment came into play), she does deal with other Progressive Era political issues. And who knows? Maybe when the series reaches the 1910s, there will be a book about Adele investigating the murder of a local tax man!

If you love fun, engaging mysteries set in the past, sign up for my newsletter to receive a free book, plus news about upcoming releases, fun facts about women’s history and mystery, and more freebies! You can sign up here.

The Venus on the Trapeze: Miss Fillis

We’ve all heard that old song about “the daring young man on the flying trapeze” (which by the way, was published in 1867 and was about Jules Leotard, a popular trapeze artist at the time). Sadly, no songs were composed for the daring young women on the flying trapeze. Yes, there were such creatures. Book 5 of my Adele Gossling Mysteries series, in fact, features two such women.

Why is it so strange to find women trapeze artists during this time? Because we can’t forget that during these eras the separate spheres existed. Based on these ideals, women were fragile, sickly creatures who had no business taking on acrobatics like the flying trapeze which required strength and skill. One woman, in particular, defied this image of the fragile Victorian woman and did so almost from birth. Her name was Aimee Marcoud whose stage name later became “Miss Fillis”.

Marcoud was indoctrinated into circus life much like most performers. Her father, a gymnast whose specialty was the horizontal bars, taught her the ropes (metaphorically speaking). At the tender age of ten, she was already part of his act, wowing audiences with her handstand on the trapeze.

But circus life with her father was pretty grueling and she escaped his watchful eye to marry an equestrian named Fillis. Although the marriage didn’t last long, it did give her the name by which she was billed: Miss Fillis. Interestingly, women of that time, even divorced women, though known by their married names, were often referred to as “Mrs.” as if their identities still belonged to their husbands, but Marcoud chose to put “Miss” in front of her married name.

Marcoud then met another trapeze artist named Alfred Robles and married him in 1928. They, along with a third man, created an act where Marcoud was the catcher, not the flyer. This required a tremendous amount of strength and timing. However, Marcoud didn’t confine herself only to her husband’s act. She continued to perform under her own under the name of Miss Fillis as well.

Photo Credit: Miss Fillis (aka, Aimee Marcoud), 1930, Tristan Remy Collection: Djando/Circopedia/CC BY NC ND 3.0 US

Marcoud’s career and life did not go the way of tragedy as several women circus performers of her time (I talk about some of them here). She and her husband continued their trapeze act into World War II when her husband was drafted into the army. Marcoud’s career didn’t stop but went on during and after the war. She finally retired from the ring at the age of fifty-five.

You can read about the women trapeze artists in Murder Under A Twilight Roof in a few weeks when Book 5 comes out. But you can get a copy right now at a special preorder price here.

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!

Getting Their Priorities Straight: Easter in the Early 20th Century

It’s Easter Sunday today (in the United States, that is). The cartoon below got me thinking about my blog post last year which talks about Easter in the Gilded Age and what Easter was like in the Progressive Era, just a quarter of a century later. I think you’ll agree with me that it was light night and day.

The Gilded Age is roughly the last quarter of the 19th century while the Progressive Era is generally thought of as the first few decades of the early 20th century up until World War 1. These aren’t hard-and-fast boundaries, but generally, that’s what we’re talking about.

It seems like a subtle difference, but change was very rapid during this period in America, unlike the 21st century where things seem to be evolving at turtle-speed (until COVID came along, that is). What changed the nation’s attitudes toward Easter?

Photo Credit: She won’t bow to the hat, C. J. Taylor, 1896, Library of Congress, Chromolithographs: Picryl/No known restrictions

The cartoon above gives us a good idea. It pits a Gilded Age woman against a New Woman of the early 20th century. The Victorian woman, all feted for Easter, points at a lavish hat sitting on top of the Maypole as if to say, “and where’s your Easter bonnet, my dear?” The New Woman, dressed in more sensible garb, looks at her with some amusement as if to answer, “Ma’am, I have bigger fish to fry. Off to the suffragist parade!”

In my blog post last year, I wrote about how the holiday turned into another reason for Gilded Agers to show off their excesses and wealth by way of the Easter bonnet, Easter parade, and other holiday traditions. Progressives, however, had a totally different agenda. By the turn of the century, America the prosperous had become America the problematic. Many thought the nation needed fixing after what the last century had done to it and many took up the task of doing so. This is why reforms such as workers’ rights, women’s rights, and environmental issues became such a big part of the political and social agenda of the time.

Progressives took themselves seriously and their attitude toward Easter changed because of this. They saw it as a time for political and social renewal. In the framework of Progressive Era priorities, this makes sense. Change is about renewal and change was the word of the day in the early 20th century. Renewing the nation, so to speak, was the passion of the progressives, so the symbolism inherent in Easter and its spring season represents fit right into that.

My protagonist in The Adele Gossling Mysteries is all about renewal and change. She’s unabashedly a New Woman and stands up for women’s rights, sometimes a little too passionately in the eyes of her more conservative brother and the Arrojo townspeople. Her fight for women to be heard and recognized extends not only to the living but to the dead. It’s her motivation for getting involved with crime. She wants justice for every woman, even those that can no longer be heard.

But Adele is also about change and progress on a more practical level. In Book 6 (coming this summer) she takes her stationery store to new levels, including hiring some extra help and building a new wing for her shop.

For right now, though, you can enjoy reading about Adele tackling murder and mayhem when the circus comes to town in Murder Under a Twilight Roof, Book 5 of the series. It’s set to come out later this month but it’s at a special preorder price right now, so you can grab a copy here.

Walking the Tightrope: Women Circus Performers and Suffragism

We’re about at the end of Women’s History Month. Because Murder Under a Twilight Roof, Book 5 of the Adele Gossling Mysteries, comes out next month and is set at the circus, last week I looked at some gutsy circus gals here. Women’s history wouldn’t be complete without a discussion of women’s suffrage, which was such a huge issue in the 19th and early 20th centuries. So the question comes to mind: How did circus women feel about women’s suffrage?

This might seem like a stupid question since it’s hard to imagine any woman wouldn’t be all for women having the vote so they could have a say in public policies, employment issues, and treatment of women in all areas. But in the 19th and early 20th centuries, there were many women opposed to women gaining their rights in the political arena (if you’ve been reading my Adele Gossling Mysteries, the character of Mrs. Faderman is one of these).

But circus women were working women and were all for women’s equality. Working women were a major audience for the suffragist movement, coupled with the labor movement where many women were beginning to stand up for themselves in terms of working conditions (which I talk about in my blog post about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory tragedy) and equal pay (which I talk about here). Circus women could identify with this.

The women of Barnum & Bailey were so serious about their devotion to the suffragist movement that it was rumored when this baby giraffe was born, they christened her “Miss Suffrage”. Actually, the giraffe’s name was Baby Bumbeno.

Photo Credit: “The Barnum & Bailey, greatest show on earth: Baby Bumbeno, the only American Born giraffe”, circus poster, 1910, lithograph, Richard Dale McMullen Collection, Boston Public Library: Boston Public Library/Flickr/CC BY 2.0

Suffragism was so important to them, in fact, that in 1912, women performers from the Barnum & Bailey circus gathered to make an announcement of their wholehearted support of the women’s movement, including forming the first circus suffrage society. Now, you would think the leaders of the suffragist movement at the time would embrace support from all different sectors of women’s experience. But, sadly, this wasn’t exactly the case.

Why? One thing we have to keep in mind is the first-wave feminist movement (which I talk about more in detail here) was made up mainly of white, upper-class, and upper-middle-class women. These women had ideas about morality and virtue that were pretty rigid We also want to keep in mind that at this time, circuses had a reputation for being not-so-virtuous places. Some even participated in criminal activities such as graft and pickpocketing. So women who worked for the circus were seen as questionable when it came to their moral standing, whether it was true or not (and in many cases, it wasn’t, as large circuses like Barnum & Bailey and the Ringing Brothers kept stringent rules for all their performers regarding their conduct – so much so that the Ringing Brothers’ circus was known as the Sunday School Circus). For these early suffragists who worked hard to portray the movement as one based upon virtue and morality, they feared including circus women in their fight would tarnish their reputation.

There was also another problem. Circus women were in a paradoxical position. On the one hand, they didn’t really experience as much of the kind of inequalities their sisters were fighting for. Circus women were usually treated as equals to men in the circus and as for their salaries, it was well known that circus stars like Lillian Leitzel were paid more than their male counterparts. On the other hand, circus managers and promoters were well aware of the stigma of circus women as “unfeminine” because they were working women and because many of them had the physical strength of men (think about it: You can’t be a fainting Victorian lady grabbing the smelling salts at the least physical exertion if you’re performing on a trapeze or a tightrope). Because of this, they often portrayed these women performers as just as “feminine” as any other woman, eager to get out of the ring to tend to their cleaning and cooking and dress in the confining clothes of the day the moment they were out of leotards.

The feminist movement eventually capitulated and accepted the circus women into their movement mainly because they realized how sincere these women were in their beliefs in women’s rights.

If you want to read about more circus women who believed in women’s rights, pick up a copy of Murder Under a Twilight Roof, on preorder now at a special price, here.

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!

Early 20th Century Circus Gals: Brave and Tough

March is always a special month for me. For one, it’s my birthday month, and for another, it’s Women’s History Month. As a historical fiction writer whose passion is writing about strong women living in the past, I find that rather fateful.

Since Book 5 of the Adele Gossling Mysteries is coming out next month and the book focuses on murder at the circus, I thought it would be fun to take a look at women circus performers of the 19th and 20th centuries. What I discovered was a handful of women who had more guts than their male counterparts. They were brave and resilient and not ladies you’d want to mess with.

Probably one of the most well-known of these was Lillian Leitzel. She was an aerialist who worked with a rope or brass rings, very similar to what Gina Lollobrigida does in this scene in the 1956 film Trapeze. The aerial rope requires a lot of strength in both the legs and arms and Leitzel would wow the crowds by spinning around so hard she would dislocate her shoulder at nearly every performance. In spite of this, she kept on going, sometimes for a hundred rounds or more. Her act brought in millions and, like many circus stars who knew their worth, she commanded top dollar, including luxuries such as her own tent and her own private railroad car. Like many circus women, she believed in suffragism, advocating for women’s athletics at a time when women were thought to be “too delicate” for physical activity. She was also not a fan of corsets and believed women should have freedom of movement (not surprising, given her circus background). Sadly, Leitzel went the way of many daredevil circus stars. While doing a handstand on a brass ring during a performance in the 1930s, the brass ring broke and she fell on her head from twenty feet in the air, dying of a concussion the next day.

When we think of lions, tigers, and cougars in the circus, we think of the big, manly man as their tamer (there is actually a character like this in Murder Under a Twilight Roof). But there were a small handful of women who tamed cats as well. In 1911, Mabel Stark became the first woman tamer of big cats. One of the thrills of her act was wrestling with one of her lions. She was once asked how she did it and she advised that training cats required a subtle and soft tone of voice and, above all, never showing fear. It obviously worked, as her death was not caused by the mauling of one of her cats. However, it was tragic nonetheless. In the late 1930s, one of her cats escaped and was shot down. She was said to have been very devoted to them and the grief was too much for her so she took her own life.

Photo Credit: Lillian Leitzel (standing on the running board) and May Wirth (sitting behind the wheel), 1924, National Photo Company Collection, Library of Congress: Fae/Wikimedia Commons/PD US no notice

If we’re talking about bravery with animals, how about May Wirth? She was an equestrian who did somersaults and flips from one horse to another while circling the ring. She was one of the Ringling Brothers’ early stars and when she first auditioned by doing a somersault while riding a horse, she fell and landed on her back. But as all circus women, she was resilient and got up, went right back on the horse, and did it again, this time succeeding. Unlike many circus daredevils, Wirth’s life did not end in tragedy. She simply retired, still in one piece, and lived a quiet life until her death in 1937.

My book Murder Under a Twilight Roof features many daring women, including a trapeze flyer, a tightrope walker, and three sisters who handle three mighty big elephants. You can read about them and about murder at the circus in April when the book comes out, but copies are now available at a special preorder price here.