top of page
Search

Episode 31 - A Deadly Thrust: The Hatpin Panic



When women discovered newfound freedom on the streets of turn-of-the-century America, they also observed new dangers. When society failed to protect them from those perils, women demanded the right to defend themselves with increasingly violent and un-ladylike methods that sent men into a panic. This episode is about the "Hatpin Panic" and the murders of Elizabeth Mize and William Keller.





Sources:


Abbott, Karen. “‘The Hatpin Peril’ Terrorized Men Who Couldn’t Handle the 20th-Century Woman.” Smithsonian Magazine. April 24, 2014. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/hatpin-peril-terrorized-men-who-couldnt-handle-20th-century-woman-180951219/


Adler, Jeffrey S. “‘I loved Joe, but I had to shoot him’: Homicide by Women in Turn-of-the-Century Chicago.” The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. Vol. 92. 2003. https://homicide.northwestern.edu/docs_fk/homicide/LawJournal/JCLC12.pdf


Bowman, Cynthia Grant and Altman, Ben. “Wife Murder in Chicago: 1910-1930.” The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. Vol. 92. 2003. https://homicide.northwestern.edu/docs_fk/homicide/jclc739-790.pdf


Burnett, Zaron III. “Daggers in Their Hair: The Gilded Age Women Who Fought off Gropers With Deadly Sharp Hatpins.” Mel Magazine. 2022. https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/hatpin-panic-1900s


“Case Number: 1553.” Homicide in Chicago, 1870-1930. Northwestern University School of Law. https://homicide.northwestern.edu/database/1541/


Croyle, Jonathan. “1911: To Make City Safer, Syracuse Considers Taking on a Public Menace: ‘Bristling Hat Pins’.” Syracuse.com. 2021. https://www.syracuse.com/living/2021/01/1911-to-make-city-safer-syracuse-considers-taking-on-a-public-menace-bristling-hat-pins.html


Freedman, Estelle. Redefining Rape: Sexual Violence in the Era of Suffrage and Segregation. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013).


Jones, Mother. The Autobiography of Mother Jones. (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 1974).


Rose, Shari. “Hatpin Panic: How Hat Pins Upended Gender Politics in the 20th Century.” Blurred Bylines. March 4, 2019. https://blurredbylines.com/blog/hatpin-panic-mashers-stabbings-hat-pins/


Segrave, Kerry.

Beware the Masher: Sexual Harassment in American Public Places, 1880-1930 (Jefferson: MacFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, 2014).


The Hatpin Menace: American Women Armed and Fashionable, 1887-1920 (Jefferson: MacFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, 2016).


Temby, Anna. “‘With daggers in her bonnet’: The Australian Hatpin Panic of 1912. 3rd edition.” Australian Women’s History Network. July 20, 2017. http://www.auswhn.org.au/blog/hatpin-panic/


Newspapers:

  • The Bennington Evening Banner: March 4, 1910.

  • The Day Book (Chicago): January 8, 1912. March 21, 1916. March 27, 1917.

  • The Detroit Times: November 3, 1904. January 3-6, 12, 13, 17, 18, 1910.

  • The Evening Public Ledger (Philadelphia): June 21, 1917.

  • The Hocking Sentinel: September 21, 1905.

  • The Los Angeles Herald: April 3, 1910.

  • The Minneapolis Journal: August 25, 1905.

  • Perth Amboy Evening News: July 16, 1918.

  • Pine Bluff Daily Graphic: October 14, 1906.

  • The New York Evening World: November 3, 1904. August 23, 1905.

  • The New York Times: March 1, 1898. August 23, 24, 26, 1905. December 18, 1906. January 17, 1907.

  • The New York Tribune: August 23, 1905.

  • Rock Island Argus: August 24, 1905.

  • The San Francisco Call: October 17, 1904. August 23, 1905.

  • Vernon County Censor: September 6, 1905.

  • The Washington Times: October 22, 1914.




Music: Dellasera by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com


For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com





.

.

.

.

.

.

.


bottom of page