I'm thoroughly enjoying the brouhaha over the "
D.C. Madam" ? the Everleigh sisters' clients were much more savvy and discreet! ? and it brings to mind another fascinating (albeit totally unrelated) political sex scandal from a century ago.
In the last quarter of the 19th century, a New York City politician by the name of Murray Hall rose through the ranks of Tammany. He was a member of the prestigious Iroquois Club and a personal friend of State Senator Barney Martin. He was a celebrated bon vivant, a womanizer and a brawler. He was the Captain of his election district and held court in an office on Sixth Avenue, between 17th and 18th Streets, where colleagues would often stop by after hours to share cigars and whiskey. He had been married twice and was raising a lovely young daughter.
In January 1901, when Murray Hall died, it was discovered he was also a woman.
Hall's fellow Tammany brothers were shocked at their friend's true gender. They marveled that she was able to "pass" so successfully for more than twenty-five years.
"Why he had several run-ins when he and I were opposing Captains," one acquaintance told the New York Times. "He'd try to influence my friends to vote against the regular organization ticket and he'd spend money and do all sorts of things to get votes. A woman? Why, he'd line up to the bar and take his whisky like any veteran, and didn't make faces over it, either. If he was a woman he ought to have been born a man, for he lived and looked like one."
Hall's death was particularly tragic; the parts of herself she most loathed were what ultimately killed her. She had breast cancer for several years, which she tried to self-treat with advice from books about surgery and medicine. The cancer, reported the Times, "had eaten its way almost to her heart."
Not much is known about Murray Hall or her relatives. Even her adopted daughter, Minnie, was unaware that her gruff, hard-drinking father was actually a woman. I wish she had left a diary or some other clues that could help bring her back to life.
Speaking of which, the most gratifying part of my tour has been meeting readers who have a personal connection to the Everleigh sisters or other characters in my book (although I wish I'd found them two years ago, while I was writing!). A woman at one of my readings told me Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna was her uncle, and she showed me a check he endorsed in 1929. An elderly man related the story of his grandfather, who, as a young man, often saw the Everleigh sisters taking an afternoon walk through the Loop. Dressed in fine gowns and gaudy tangles of jewelry, they sisters waited outside the phone company and discreetly dispensed business cards to the young female operators as they left the building. These girls, it was understood, were well educated and refined, and could be transformed into proper Everleigh "butterflies" should they ever seek a career change.
"I suppose," one man in the audience joked, "that's where the term 'call girl' comes from."
But the most exciting discovery happened last night. A woman told me her aunt was hired by the Everleigh sisters to transcribe Minna's novel, Poets, Prophets and Gods, which I mention in Sin in the Second City. She has a scrapbook full of original letters and photographs. Her family members were in attendance when the Everleigh Club's lavish furnishings were auctioned off, and they won several pieces (I told her I'd take out a second mortgage to buy any of them, which I'm sure would just thrill my husband). We plan to get together before I leave Chicago so she can tell me all the stories I've never heard.
Finally, here's a picture of Rick Kogan (see yesterday's post about Mr. Chicago) and my 89-year-old grandmother. I think they might elope.
Thanks so much to Powell's for having me, and for reading. I'll close with Minna's sage advice for her prostitutes, which is certainly worthy advice for us all: "Give, but give interestingly and with mystery."
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Karen Abbott worked as a journalist on the staffs of Philadelphia magazine and Philadelphia Weekly, and has written for Salon.com and other publications. A native of Philadelphia, she now lives with her husband in Atlanta, where she's at work on her next book. Visit her online at sininthesecondcity.com.