No. 689
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
February 10, 2025

Saloons and Houses of Ill-Fame.

Buffalo, New York, May 1893.
May 8, 2012
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Tag: Women

A Great Game of Football.

Fair college students engage in a rough-and-tumble chase after the pigskin.

11/7/2023

Time Works Many Changes.

Men used to flock to the beach, now they seek sections were roads are good.

9/12/2023

They Were a New Sensation.

Mr. Albiero of Custer City, Dakota, is treated by three rollicking belles to a change from the usual monotony of a cowboy spree.

8/29/2023

Members of the Banjo and Mandolin Clubs.

Mount Holyoke College, 1898-1899.

4/24/2023

Female Wrestling Match in Nevada.

Two female athletes at Virginia city Nevada, indulge in a wrestling match for the championship.

11/8/2022

The First of the Season.

The Earliest Bath of the Year, at Atlantic City

7/5/2022

A Female Gambling House in Boston.

They call it the "retreat" because of its charming privacy and apparent obscurity.

5/31/2022

A Woman Gambler in Nevada.

She Bucks the Tiger and Quits $200 Ahead.

3/29/2022

A Bevy of Stage Beauties.

Five footlight fairies, whose faces and forms charm audiences in London, Paris and New York.

2/22/2022

Forex news live

Two female athletes at Virginia City, Nevada, indulge in a wrestling match for the championship.

11/9/2021

Slid Down the Firemen’s Pole.

How a plucky New Brunswick, N. J., girl won a wager from one of her doubting companions.

4/30/2018

The Enlargement of Woman's Sphere.

A few possibilities of the day when all masculine employments are open to women.

9/11/2017

A Triangular Fight.

9/19/2016

Pugilistic Females.

Two Lebanon, Pa., girls live the same young man and biff each other on the street.

1/4/2016

Collecting Beer Money.

A gang of female rogues, of the East Side, New York, work a little racket of their own.

9/15/2015

Hard Knocks and Horsewhips.

Miss Mamie Gannon, of Jersey City, attacks reporter Lenhart with a horsewhip for traducing her character in his newspaper.

8/10/2015

What it Has Come To.

A scene from feal life in a sixth avenue smoking car—giddy girls who believe in taking a “whiff of the weed” in public as well as in priv

6/22/2015

Society Women Turn Burglars.

A Widow and Her Pretty Daughter Caught Thieving in Men’s Attire in Tecumseh, Mich.

4/13/2015

In a Deadly Folding-Bed.

12/15/2014

Giddy Young Girls.

12/1/2014

Bulldozing a Voter.

There is a strong minded woman “way deown in Maine,” who has been protesting for years against her sex being debarred the right of suffrage.

11/4/2014

Belle Gordon.

9/29/2014

The Girls Have a New Game.

8/18/2014

Beautiful Forever.

7/29/2014

Two Giddy Girls.

Sent up Eight Years for Smoking Cigars in Public.

5/27/2014

Abducted by a Woman.

3/31/2014

Nature versus Art.

2/18/2014

The Last Dip of the Season.

Water witches who frolic with Neptune, no matter how cold his embrace.

9/3/2013

A Bride’s Toggery.

8/27/2013

Undercover Lunatic.

5/26/2013

Breaking Up a Bagnio.

11/18/2012

Beauty as a Shield.

Beauty Conquers avarice and outlawry "We won't rob this house to-night."

7/24/2012

Female Tobacco Chewers.

What a Correspondent Asserts Regarding a Boston Girl.

7/10/2012

A Plucky Elberon, N. J., Girl

1/31/2012

Pretty Female Billiardists

1/3/2012

She Played Kissy Kissy

12/6/2011

Whipped By Women

11/8/2011

Whipped By Women

11/8/2011

A Map of Woman's Heart

10/2/2011
It’s a pale yellowish stub of a building on West 17th Street—just three stories high and sheared of any decorative embellishments it had when it was built in pre-Civil War New York City. But if you look closely, you’ll see some unique features. The top two floors have four multi-paneled windows rather than the typical […]
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Ephemeral New York - 2/10/2025
Included in yesterday’s trip to Fall River was a stop at Miss Lizzie’s Coffee shop and a visit to the cellar to see the scene of the tragic demise of the second Mrs. Lawdwick Borden and two of the three little children in 1848. I have been writing about this sad tale since 2010 and had made a previous trip to the cellar some years ago but was unable to get to the spot where the incident occured to get a clear photograph.  The tale of Eliza Borden is a very sad, but not uncommon story of post partum depression with a heartrending end. You feel this as you stand in the dark space behind the chimney where Eliza ended her life with a straight razor after dropping 6 month old Holder and his 3 year old sister Eliza Ann into the cellar cistern. Over the years I have found other similar cases, often involving wells and cisterns, and drownings of children followed by suicides of the mothers. These photos show the chimney, cistern pipe, back wall, dirt and brick floor, original floorboards forming the cellar ceiling and what appears to be an original door. To be in the place where this happened is a sobering experience. My thanks to Joe Pereira for allowing us to see and record the place where this sad occurrence unfolded in 1848. R.I.P. Holder, Eliza and Eliza Ann Borden. Visit our Articles section above for more on this story. The coffee shop has won its suit to retain its name and has plans to expand into the shop next door and extend its menu in the near future.
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 2/12/2024
 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!Let's get this show on the road!Who the hell was Madame Montour?What the hell is the Baltic Sea Anomaly?The mystery of some ancient seated burials.The lineage of Harold Godwinson.The unsolved murder which inspired a journalism award.The U.S. Army's largest urban battle.The clergyman and the poltergeist.New research on the authors of the Bible texts.Secret
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Strange Company - 2/7/2025
An article I recently wrote for the British online magazine, New Politic, is now available online. The article, “The Criminal Origins of the United States of America,” is about British convict transportation to America, which took place between the years 1718 and 1775, and is the subject of my book, Bound with an Iron Chain: […]
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Early American Crime - 12/17/2021
In the winter of 1877, Captain Luther Meservey went to sea, leaving his wife Sarah alone in their home in the village of Tenant’s Harbor, Maine. When Sarah was found strangled in her own home, the people of this small but close-knit community were terrified at the thought of a killer in their midst. Nathan Hart, a neighbor of the Meservey’s was tried and convicted on evidence so circumstantial
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Murder By Gaslight - 2/8/2025
Soapy STAR notebookPage 15 - Original copy1883Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) OAPY SMITH IN DENVER, WISCONSIN AND MINNESOTA.This is page 15, dated July-September 1883, the continuation of deciphering Soapy Smith's "star" notebook from the Geri Murphy's collection. A complete introduction to this notebook can be seen on page 1.     These notebook pages
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 1/29/2025
Youth With Executioner by Nuremberg native Albrecht Dürer … although it’s dated to 1493, which was during a period of several years when Dürer worked abroad. November 13 [1617]. Burnt alive here a miller of Manberna, who however was lately … Continue reading
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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
The Badger Game | "He Loves Me; He Loves Me Not."

Saloons and Houses of Ill-Fame.

houses of ill repute

Buffalo, New York, May 1893 – Though it would seem to be a conflict of interest, The Christian Homestead Association produced this map of the Canal District in 1893, showing the locations of 75 houses of ill-fame, 108 saloons, 19 “free theatre saloons” and 76 more mundane retail establishments. The Erie Canal, which brought growth and prosperity to Buffalo, also brought neighborhoods like this one, and the clientele to keep them thriving. It is uncertain exactly why the CHA would create a map like this, but it must have been helpful to someone.


Source:

Grosvenor Rare Book Room