Evelyn Nesbit, 1900. Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsca-12056
Evelyn Nesbit willingly shared her face with the
world at the turn of the Twentieth Century. As a supermodel, she graced
magazine covers and promoted products from soap to sewing machines. When her
husband killed the man who raped her, she reluctantly shared her story with the
world to defend his action. Nesbit felt this exposure much more acutely than
she had previous publicity. Journalist Nixola Greeley-Smith labeled Nesbit the
“frail cause of the tragedy.”
Burr-McIntosh
Monthly (Feb. 1905).
Nesbit posed for hundreds of photographs and
portraits before she reached the age of eighteen. Fans purchased her image on postcards,
in magazine spreads, and on canvas; paintings were displayed at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Artist Charles Dana Gibson used
Nesbit as the model for his Eternal Question woman and the larger Gibson Girl
look it embodied. Lucy Maud Montgomery pinned Nesbit’s photo to her wall and
based her famous character Anne of Green Gables on the image. Advertisers
printed her face on beer trays, fans, tobacco cards, and calendars. Admirers
sent her love letters, flowers, and money. Millionaires proposed and finally in
1905 she married Harry Thaw, heir to a coal fortune.
Woman:
The Eternal Question by Charles Dana Gibson, 1901.
Nesbit abandoned modeling and her fledgling stage
career when she wed, but her husband dragged her into the public eye more than
ever before. Nesbit confided to Thaw before they married that she had been
raped when she was 16. Thaw went through with the wedding and in 1906 murdered
the villain, famous architect Stanford White, in front of hundreds of people.
Nesbit testified in court about the rape to further Thaw’s legal defense that
he killed White to avenge his wife’s honor. She also endured a multi-day cross
examination by the prosecuting attorney, who was determined to expose her as
immoral and unworthy of such a chivalrous act partly because Nesbit had
continued a relationship with White even after he drugged and assaulted her.
She also testified about White’s decadence, including free-flowing champagne, a
red velvet swing, and a bedroom with mirrors covering the walls and ceiling.
She said the court experience made her feel “stripped and naked and
defenseless.”
Tonopah
(NV)
Bonanza, Feb. 9, 1907.
Everyone obsessed about the murder and trial, with
Nesbit as the central character. Edison Studio released Rooftop Murder a week after the event and other filmmakers
followed. New Yorkers tried to push their way into the courtroom and rushed
Nesbit when she emerged from testifying. Elizabeth Schwenning, seventeen-year
old from Pennsylvania, apparently “lost her mind sympathizing” with Nesbit and ran
away from home to try to reach her in New York. Hawkers offered for sale Nesbit
postcards and even little red velvet swings. Businesses grabbed attention by using
her name and in the example below, contrasting Nesbit with their customers.
Salt
Lake (UT) Herald, Feb.
8, 1907.
Musicians published sheet music for songs dedicated
to her with titles such as “Nesbit Waltz” and “Sprinkle Me with Kisses,”
publishing her photo on the cover. Authors rushed books into print. Poet Judd
Mortimer Lewis wrote a poem that predicted that the jury would acquit Thaw
because of Nesbit’s beauty. “Oh, Evelyn Nesbit Thaw, while lawyers jaw and jaw,
and while they rant and saw the air, the jury sees that you are fair.” He
concluded with “Thaw sits there, but they don’t see him, you are the whole
entrancing show. And—as he’s yours—they’ll let him go.”
Times
Dispatch (Richmond, VI),
Jan. 28, 1907.
Newspapers across the country printed Nesbit’s
testimony verbatim. Americans could now not only look on the beautiful face of
Nesbit but debate, evaluate, sympathize, criticize, and speculate on her life
and character. Charles Hughes, editor of the Alienist and Neurologist, argued that Nesbit lied on the witness
stand since a woman never tells the truth about her “erotic life and relations”
and because she had good reason to do so, namely to save her husband from
execution. Congregational Minister Frank Smith however found, for an article in
the Advance, that those operating
barbershops, drugstores, and other gathering places in Chicago heard a nearly
unanimous public voice that believed Nesbit’s story. Some writers used the
occasion of the trial to publicize the fate of many youth seduced or assaulted.
Many others blamed Nesbit’s widowed mother for failing to protect her and for exposing
her to the life of a model and actress.
Evelyn Nesbit, 1913. Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ggbain-13972
Nesbit, in contrast, never seemed to blame her
mother. She published her story in 1914 and admitted that becoming so famous at
a very young age was probably harmful. Nesbit found herself shunning the
“commonplace—a leisure that is entirely for those folk who get a good amount of
placid joy in finding things as they expect them, and expect very little.” She argued,
however, that she posed and acted simply for the money her family desperately
needed and realized that “freakish notoriety was not desirable from any point
of view.” Nesbit kindled her celebrity for decades with this mixture of disdain
for publicity and need for excitement as well as money (in 1915 she divorced
Thaw, who was found not guilty due to insanity). She acted on stage and in
films, danced, operated a tea room, created pottery, and wrote another memoir. Nesbit
remained best known however as the girl on the red velvet swing who caused one
man to die and another to go insane.
“Evelyn Thaw Dodging a Camera, White Plains” Library
of Congress, LC-DIG-ggbain-04049
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Sources and Further Exploration
Atwell,
Benjamin H. The Great Harry Thaw Case or
A Woman’s Sacrifice. Chicago: Laird and Lee, 1907. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nnc2.ark:/13960/t5hb10d01&view=1up&seq=9
“Editorial.”
Alienist and Neurologist 28 (Nov.
1907): 510. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Alienist_and_Neurologist/ni1YAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22evelyn+nesbit%22&pg=PA245&printsec=frontcover
“Evelyn
Nesbit Thaw on the Stand.” Fargo (ND)
Forum and Daily Republican, Feb. 7,
1907. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042224/1907-02-07/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1907&sort=date&date2=1907&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&index=16&words=Evelyn+Nesbit&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=evelyn+nesbit&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=13
“Girl
Crazed by Reading about the Thaw Trial.” Times
Dispatch (Richmond, VI), Feb. 22, 1907. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85038615/1907-02-22/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1907&sort=date&date2=1907&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&index=6&words=Evelyn+Nesbit&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=evelyn+nesbit&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=41
Greeley-Smith,
Nixola. “Thaw and his Family Scrutinize Faces of Jurors, Looking for a Sign of
Hope, As Lawyer Delmas Pleads for his Life.” Evening World (NY), April 9, 1907. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030193/1907-04-09/ed-1/seq-3/#date1=1907&sort=date&date2=1907&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&index=5&words=GreeleySmith+Nixola&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=nixola+greeley-smith&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1
Lewis,
Judd Mortimer. “The Blind Goddess.” Cairo
(IL) Bulletin, Feb. 27, 1907. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn93055779/1907-02-20/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1907&sort=date&date2=1907&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&index=11&words=Evelyn+Nesbit&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=evelyn+nesbit&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=36
Thaw,
Evelyn Nesbit. The Story of My Life.
London: J. Long, 1914.
Uruburu,
Paula. American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit,
Stanford White, the Birth of the “It” Girl, and the Crime of the Century. New
York: Penguin Books, 2008.
Williams,
Samuel. “Reporting the Great Murder Trial.” Pearson’s
Magazine 17 (April 1907): 455-462. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Pearson_s_Magazine/4rIRAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22evelyn+nesbit%22&pg=PA462&printsec=frontcover
