by Simon Baatz
Stanford White revealed his true character when, shortly after meeting Evelyn Nesbit, he persuaded his friend Rudolf Eickemeyer to take a series of photographs of Evelyn, then sixteen years old. White, forty-seven, and Eickemeyer, thirty-nine, made all the arrangements, choosing the clothes that she wore for the session, and Evelyn Nesbit, unaware that the two men were deliberately manipulating her, posed for the camera in a way that suggested that she was sexually available. These photographs, taken sometime in the fall of 1901, have survived and now exist prominently on the Internet, reinforcing the impression that Evelyn’s supposed promiscuity somehow contributed to the drama that played out between White and Harry Thaw.2
It is not easy to investigate the intimate life of an individual living a century ago, but the available evidence indicates that Evelyn Nesbit was never promiscuous, as legend would have it. She undoubtedly had opportunities for casual encounters—during the 1910s she made movies in Hollywood, and during the 1920s she sang in Atlantic City nightclubs—but she always sought security and permanence, marrying her second husband, Jack Clifford, shortly after her divorce from Harry Thaw in April 1916.
Thaw, like White, shamelessly manipulated Evelyn Nesbit for his own purposes. His attorneys in the first trial asserted that White had raped Evelyn as a young girl, and that Thaw therefore had reason to kill White. There was, however, only one person who could testify that the rape had occurred, and Evelyn was the principal witness at the trial, telling the court that White had lured her to his town house, subsequently drugging her and raping her while she lay unconscious. But on cross-examination Evelyn was required to provide details about her relationship with White, and during the interrogation by the district attorney, she revealed aspects of her life as an actress that were unacceptable in polite society. Evelyn, to save her husband, had humiliated herself, sacrificing her dignity and her reputation.
The tragedy of Evelyn Nesbit’s life is that there had never been any necessity for her to testify. The district attorney, Travers Jerome, realizing that she did not understand the consequences that would follow from his cross-examination, offered at the outset to accept a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Harry Thaw, by accepting Jerome’s offer, would have avoided the death penalty and would also have spared his wife her public humiliation; but Thaw’s attorneys chose instead to put Evelyn on the witness stand in a futile attempt to prove his justification for the murder of White. Jerome’s cross-examination of Evelyn Nesbit, moreover, raised doubts about the truthfulness of her testimony and questioned whether the rape had even occurred.
It does not frequently happen that an author is unsure that an event occurred; yet, surprisingly, it is impossible to know if the rape, as Evelyn Nesbit described it, did take place. One hesitates to throw doubt on her account, told with apparent sincerity, and recounted, moreover, two times without any contradiction between the first occasion and the second, but it would be foolish to ignore the questions that Jerome posed to his witness.
How is it possible, for example, to explain the interaction between Stanford White and Evelyn Nesbit after the rape if it had been as traumatic an event as Evelyn claimed? She admitted, on cross-examination, that she had seen White several times alone in his apartment after he had raped her, and she confessed also that she had subsequently written letters to White during her travels in Europe with Harry Thaw in 1903. Her testimony at the first trial was detailed and precise on some points but surprisingly vague on others. She could neither describe the weather on the day when she claimed the rape had occurred nor say, even to the month, when White had attacked her. The district attorney maintained, in conversations with reporters outside the courtroom, that Evelyn Nesbit had accidentally revealed the day of the rape as Tuesday, November 5, 1901, and Jerome stated that he could have established an alibi for Stanford White if the rules of the courtroom had permitted him to do so.3
Did the rape happen? It will never be possible now to know the answer; but it is certainly the case that Thaw’s lawyers, eager to justify their exorbitant fees, were determined to win an acquittal. It is at least feasible that they invented the entire episode and then successfully manipulated Evelyn Nesbit into testifying falsely in court that Stanford White had raped her. Thirty years later, writing in her autobiography, Prodigal Days, Evelyn recalled that evening very differently. White did not drug her, she wrote in Prodigal Days; she lost consciousness only because she had drunk too much champagne. She lost her virginity to White, she acknowledged, but in contrast to her courtroom testimony in 1907, the event here seems almost benign, not so much a rape as a sexual initiation. She was embarrassed and started to cry, but White, in her later account, behaved almost like a gentleman, speaking tenderly to her and soothing her so that she remained calm.4
Many historians have discussed the relationship between White and Evelyn Nesbit, usually as an aside in writing about White’s architectural work, and some writers have repeated the claim that Nesbit had an abortion in January 1903 when she was a pupil at the DeMille school. But there is no evidence to support this assertion, and it appears likely that, as she wrote in her autobiography, she suffered an attack of appendicitis. It seems improbable that Nathaniel Bowditch Potter, the physician who attended Evelyn Nesbit at Pompton and subsequently cared for her in New York, would have associated himself with the felony crime of abortion. The New Jersey legislature had outlawed abortion in 1849 and New York State followed suit in 1869. Potter, professor of surgery at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the medical school at Columbia University, was a leading member of the medical profession, and there is little reason to think that he would have jeopardized his career by performing an abortion.5
Several years later, in October 1910, Evelyn Nesbit did give birth to a boy. A newspaper reporter, Jack Francis, and not Harry Thaw, as Evelyn claimed, was the father. Francis had been close to Evelyn Nesbit in New York; they had lived together in Germany; and Evelyn, on returning to Manhattan, stayed in a house uptown that Francis rented. Several witnesses, including Jack Francis’s brother Peter, testified in 1916, during Harry Thaw’s divorce suit, that Jack Francis had admitted paternity of the child.6
The arc of Evelyn Nesbit’s life bears testimony to her courage and fortitude. She had few resources as a young girl—her formal education at the DeMille school lasted only a few months—and her marriage to Harry Thaw became a heavy burden, a millstone that dragged her down even many years after their separation. She had done nothing to provoke Thaw’s murder of Stanford White, yet she became tainted in the public eye through her association with the affair; and even now, more than a century later, some authors treat Evelyn Nesbit disparagingly, denying her dignity and respect. She eventually achieved a measure of independence and made her own way, earning her livelihood in the silent movies and then as a cabaret singer. It had been her misfortune to be caught, as a young girl, between two men, each of whom thought only of his own desires, but she eventually triumphed over her circumstances. Every life is a daily series of advances and retreats, intimate victories and private defeats, all measured not by grand events but by an awareness of the obstacles that have been overcome along the way. Evelyn Nesbit’s life, in the end, was little different from the lives of millions of others, a story of perseverance and determination, of achievement and independence, that nothing could finally diminish.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
“FOR HOW MANY MORE YEARS,” THE NEW YORK WORLD ASKED IN 1909, three years after the murder of Stanford White, “must the case of Harry Thaw drag its slimy way through the courts of this State?” In June 1912, during the hearing on the third writ of habeas corpus, the same newspaper complained that Thaw’s incessant appeals and motions, still clogging the courts six years after the murder, were bringing the law into disrepute. “This worthless youth has cost the State more and done more to discredit the administration of justice in New York than any other criminal ever brought before its courts…. Has there been in the entire history of American criminal procedu
re a worse scandal of justice than Thaw?”1
There is little doubt that the legal odyssey that wound its way through the courts after White’s death constituted one of the most protracted and complex cases in American jurisprudence. The New York newspapers obsessively covered the twists and turns of the case, reporting each episode in all its details, gossiping breathlessly about the protagonists, and speculating endlessly about the most likely outcome. The transcripts of the courtroom proceedings have long since disappeared and it would have been impossible, therefore, to write this history without access to the accounts that appeared in the city’s daily newspapers.
Two newspapers, Joseph Pulitzer’s World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal, dominated New York City at the turn of the century. Hearst was the aggressive interloper, moving from California to New York, purchasing the Journal in 1895 and quickly boosting its circulation to 150,000 by dropping the price to one cent. Pulitzer followed suit shortly afterward, slashing the price of the World from two cents to one cent. The other morning newspapers desperately tried to keep pace: the New York Sun, the most conservative paper in the city; the New York Herald, one of the least reputable newspapers in existence; the New-York Tribune, still influential in national politics; and the New York Times, almost bankrupt in 1895 but saved from collapse the following year by its new owner, Adolph Ochs. These six newspapers constituted the principal sources for the account presented in this book. Other newspapers, most notably the Evening Telegram and the Morning Telegraph, were significant sources also, but neither paper was used consistently in my research.2
In the 1890s the morning newspapers, to capture a share of the evening readership, began to produce late editions, and eventually these editions became autonomous, employing distinct editorial and reporting staffs. The New York World, for example, produced several different editions each day, and early in the twentieth century the evening edition became an entirely separate newspaper, albeit still under the control of its owner, Joseph Pulitzer. The morning edition and its evening counterpart gradually adopted separate identities, sharing only an editorial viewpoint, one dictated by Pulitzer, but distinct in reporting the news. In writing this book I have usually relied upon the evening edition of the New York World.
It is also worth mentioning the New York American as an important source for the writing of this book. The Hearst newspapers had bitterly attacked William McKinley during and after the presidential campaign in 1900, and there had been editorial commentary in the Journal in April 1901 that the president’s death would be no loss. A few months later, on September 6, an anarchist, Leon Czolgosz, shot and killed McKinley. Hearst had nothing to do with the assassination, but public outrage against the Journal was so intense that he changed the name of the newspaper to the New York American to avoid the obloquy that had attached itself to the Journal. The New York American, the beneficiary of Hearst’s considerable fortune, was irrepressible in its reporting on Harry Thaw, ferreting out detail after detail, reprinting the dialogue of the protagonists, and even canvassing public opinion on its support for the murderer.3
Both Harry Thaw and Evelyn Nesbit wrote autobiographical accounts, and these also have been invaluable in reconstructing the sequence of events before and after the murder. The first half of Thaw’s memoir, The Traitor, is a gossipy travelogue of his journeys through Europe; the second half is a detailed justification of his murder of Stanford White. Evelyn Nesbit’s 1934 autobiography, Prodigal Days, combines a wistful account of her youthful experiences in New York with bitter regret that Thaw had so dramatically affected her later years.4
I have benefited enormously from reading the many books that other authors have written on Stanford White. Thirty years ago Leland Roth produced a magnificent account of the architectural work of McKim, Mead & White. The scope of the firm’s work has never been so exhaustively detailed nor so carefully analyzed, and architectural historians are indebted to Roth for his superlative work. Mosette Broderick has written an insightful and perceptive account of the firm that focuses more closely on the cultural context provided by New York City, and she carefully limns the relationships between the coteries of artists, sculptors, writers, and illustrators, all of whom interacted, in one way or another, with the three partners. David Garrard Lowe has also focused on New York as the scene of White’s greatest accomplishments, intertwining descriptions of his architecture with an engaging biography. Paula Uruburu is the author of an outstanding biography of Evelyn Nesbit that treats her as a cultural icon whose fame elevated her above her peers. Pictorial representations of Nesbit in the newspapers and magazines were ubiquitous both before and after the murder and transformed her into a celebrity who helped usher in the modern age. Finally, two magnificent books, lavishly illustrated, display the aesthetic qualities of White’s many talents: Wayne Craven has written an erudite analysis of trends in Gilded Age architecture that influenced the styles adopted by McKim, Mead & White; and Samuel G. White and Elizabeth White have displayed their expert knowledge of Stanford White’s architecture in their commentary on his masterworks.5
No one accomplishes anything alone and I have several debts to acknowledge. Yumiko Yamamori gave me her affection and support during the years that I spent writing this book, and her assistance was invaluable in bringing the project to its completion. The first draft of the manuscript was written during an extended stay in Tokyo, in Kichijo¯ji, one of the few districts in the capital that retains an aura of prewar Japan. Kichijo¯ji, with its endless maze of narrow alleyways, its innumerable cafes and tearooms, its cabaret clubs and pachinko parlors, jazz bars and izakaya, still has a slightly raffish reputation, and there could not have been a more pleasant place to live while writing the book. I was fortunate also, during my time in Japan, to have the institutional support of Meiji Gakuin University, one of the most prestigious universities in the Tokyo area.
Every author needs an agent to campaign on his or her behalf, and it has been my great fortune that Peter Steinberg at Foundry Media quickly recognized the merits of my proposal and almost immediately secured a contract. Peter has provided invaluable counsel at every stage, and his support has been crucial. My editor, Joshua Kendall, was enthusiastic from the outset, and he provided detailed notes on the manuscript that immensely improved the book. The staff at Little, Brown and Company—Peggy Freudenthal and Nicky Guerreiro, and freelance copyeditor Amanda Heller—have been outstanding in the care and consideration that they have given to the manuscript, and their meticulous attention to detail has gone a long way in ensuring its accuracy. Raveeta Jagnandan and Katelyn Kirk provided research assistance in locating elusive articles, and several colleagues and friends—Walter Hickel, Jeffrey Kroessler, Mark Swindle, Malcolm Tulloch, Nancy Unger—have all provided support in ways that have made my task less arduous. I presented versions of the book to audiences in the United States, at the University of Pennsylvania and Marymount Manhattan College; in Britain, at the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford; and in France, at the Workshop in American History and Culture at Université Paris—Sorbonne. Each talk was the occasion for lively debate and discussion that helped inform my knowledge of New York City and its cultural and social history.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SIMON BAATZ is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning historian. He has graduate degrees in history from the University of Pennsylvania and Imperial College London, and he currently teaches United States history and American legal history at John Jay College, City University of New York. Simon grew up in London and has lived in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
ALSO BY SIMON BAATZ
Venerate the Plough: A History of the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture, 1785–1985
Knowledge, Culture, and Science in the Metropolis: The New York Academy of Sciences, 1817–2017
For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz Age Chicago
NOTES
Chapter 1 First Encounter
1. “Mrs. Harry Thaw Tells Jury of Her Relations with Stanford White,” New York World, February 8, 1907; Evelyn Nesbit, Prodigal Days: The Untold Story (New York: Julian Messner, 1934), 2–3.
2. “Woman Coaxed Evelyn Nesbit to Meet Stanford White,” New York World, June 29, 1906.
3. Nesbit, Prodigal Days, 1–2.
4. “The Story of Thaw’s Wife,” New York Sun, February 8, 1907.
5. “Mrs. Harry Thaw Tells Jury,” New York World, February 8, 1907; Nesbit, Prodigal Days, 2–3, 25–26; “Evelyn Nesbit Thaw on Stand Says She Was Wronged at 16,” New York Evening Telegram, February 7, 1907.
6. “Mrs. Harry Thaw Tells Jury,” New York World, February 8, 1907; Nesbit, Prodigal Days, 2.
7. “With the Clubmen,” New York Times, September 21, 1902; “Mrs. Reginald Ronalds Hints Paris Divorce,” New York Times, May 3, 1924.
8. “The Story of Thaw’s Wife,” New York Sun, February 8, 1907; “Evelyn Nesbit Thaw, to Save Husband, Says Stanford White Caused Her Downfall When She Was Sixteen by Drugged Wine,” New York Herald, February 8, 1907; Nesbit, Prodigal Days, 27; “Evelyn Thaw Collapses on Witness Stand,” New York Evening Journal, February 7, 1907.
9. Nesbit, Prodigal Days, 8–10.
