Liberated Spirits

by Hugh Ambrose

  Zeitz, Joshua. Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern. New York: Crown Publishers, 2006.

  DISSERTATIONS AND THESES

  Auldino, Frank W. “The ‘Noble Experiment’ in Tampa: A Study of Prohibition in Urban America.” Ph.D. dissertation, Florida State University, 1989.

  Christman, Anastasia J. “The Best Laid Plans: Women’s Clubs and City Planning in Los Angeles, 1890–1930.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles, 2000.

  Cole, Simon A. “Manufacturing Identity: A History of Criminal Identification Techniques from Photography Through Fingerprinting.” Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, 1998.

  Deacon, Florence Jean. “Why Wasn’t Bertha Knight Landes Reelected?” Master of arts thesis, University of Washington, 1978.

  Dohn, Norman Harding. “The History of the Anti-Saloon League.” Ph.D. disssertation, Ohio State University, 1959.

  Forth, William Stewart. “Wesley L. Jones, A Political Biography.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 1962.

  Frazier, Paul. “Prohibition Philadelphia: Bootleg Liquor and the Failure of Enforcement.” Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Albany, 2001.

  Fulton, S. A. “The Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform, 1929–1933.” Master of arts thesis, Western Ontario University, 1990.

  Grantham, Caryl R. “A History of the Government of Suffolk County, 1683–1958.” Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1963.

  Heckman, Dayton E. “Prohibition Passes: The Story of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment.” Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1939.

  Kilkenny, Lucas Edward. “The Effect of Legislation upon the Wife’s Interest in Community Property in California.” JD thesis, University of California at Berkeley, 1923.

  Kooistra, AnneMarie. “Angels for Sale: The History of Prostitution in Los Angeles, 1880–1940.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California, 2003.

  Kozakiewicz, Lauren. “Political Episodes, 1890–1960: Three Republican Women in Twentieth Century New York State Politics.” Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Albany, 2006.

  Krause, Mary Lou. “Prohibition and the Reform Tradition in the Washington State Senatorial Election of 1922.” Master of arts thesis, University of Washington, 1963.

  Lamme, Margot Opdycke. “The Campaign Against the Second Edition of Hell: An Examination of the Messages and Methods of the Anti-Saloon League of America Through a Framework of Public Relations History, 1893–1933.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Alabama, 2002.

  Lien, Jerry. “The Speechmaking of the Anti-Saloon League of America.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California, 1968.

  Mathews, Jane. “The Woman Suffrage Movement in Suffolk County, New York, 1911–1917: A Case Study of the Tactical Differences Between Two Prominent Long Island Suffragists, Mrs. Ida Bunce Sammis and Miss Rosalie Jones.” Master of arts thesis, Adelphi University, 1987.

  Moore, Timothy Stephen. “Bootleggers and the Borderlands: Canadians, Americans, and the Prohibition-era Northwest.” Ph.D. dissertation, College of William and Mary, 2000.

  Morrison, Glenda E. “Women’s Participation in the 1928 Presidential Campaign.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kansas, 1978.

  Rouse, Timothy P. “The Media and Moral Reform: The New York Times and American Prohibition.” Ph.D. dissertation, Colorado State University, 1992.

  A Note on Sources

  I [Hugh Ambrose] was fortunate to find a wealth of primary source materials, but am frustrated about those that I could not locate, especially three sets of documents that were intentionally destroyed or lost. First, Mabel Walker Willebrandt generated extensive correspondence during her tenure at the Department of Justice. Dorothy Brown cited many documents from that collection in her book Mabel Walker Willebrandt: A Study of Power, Loyalty, and Law, published in 1984. Brown reviewed those documents at the Washington National Records Center, a facility under the purview of the National Archives and Records Administration. In 1977, the Department of Justice placed the records that later would be reviewed by Brown on a schedule for destruction unless determined valuable by the Archives. Despite Brown’s extensive use of the materials, no one at the Archives or the Justice Department saw any further value in the records and allowed their destruction. I understand that the National Archives cannot keep every scrap of paper the government generates, but these records had proven valuable to Brown’s book and certainly would have proven useful to mine. When informed of the records’ destruction, Ms. Brown was “appalled” at the loss of these “irreplaceable” materials. Second, Norman Clark conducted several interviews with Roy Olmstead in collecting materials for his book The Dry Years: Prohibition and Social Change in Washington. These are the only known personal reflections made by Olmstead on his activities during Prohibition and would have provided great insight into charges made against Olmstead’s accuser, William Whitney. Unfortunately, Clark did not donate or otherwise preserve the interviews or any other materials associated with his book. Third, one of Pauline Sabin’s sons, James Hopkins Smith Jr., undertook an effort before and after his mother’s death to collect correspondence, diaries, photographs, and other memorabilia documenting his family’s history. A few items, including one diary from 1923, found their way into archival collections, but the location of the vast majority of the materials assembled by Smith is unknown.

  The loss of the DOJ records, Olmstead interviews, and Sabin diaries presented a significant obstacle in the early development of this book, but forced me to dig ever deeper into archival collections previously untapped for information on Prohibition or previously inaccessible due to their disorganization. In some instances, I was forced to cite Brown, Clark, or other secondary sources for lack of the primary source. I do not believe the use of secondary sources in any way diminished my analysis or interpretation, but my preference has always been, and will continue to be, to use original, primary documents in my work. I hope that the retelling of my experiences and disappointment may motivate records managers, archivists, authors, and family members to give greater consideration to the value, perhaps as yet unknown, of historical documents in their care.

  Standardized abbreviations used in the endnotes:

  BSP: Bertrand Snell Papers

  CHC: Charles Hilles Collection

  CSC: Civil Service Commission

  DCW: District Courts Records for Washington

  DOJ: Department of Justice

  HHP: Herbert Hoover Papers

  HJP: Hiram Johnson Papers

  JHPP: James Harlan Pope Papers

  JWFP: James Wadsworth Family Papers

  KPEP: Katherine Philips Edson Papers

  MJSSP: Mrs. J. S. Sheppard Papers

  MWLPP: Mrs. William Lowell Putnam Papers

  MWWP: Mabel Walker Willebrandt Papers

  RWONPR: Records of the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Repeal

  WFP: Wadsworth Family Papers

  WJP: Wesley Jones Papers

  Endnotes

  Introduction

  1. “Olmstead Home Is Up for Sale; He Still Selling Radios, Says His Wife,” Seattle Times, February 22, 1926, 1.

  2. Norman Clark, “Liquor Reform and Social Change: A History of the Prohibition Movement in the State of Washington,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 1964, 238–329.

  3. Norman H. Clark, “Roy Olmstead, A Rumrunning King on Puget Sound,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 54, no. 3 (July 1963): 89–90.

  4. “Two Policemen Held as Booze Smugglers,” Seattle Times, March 22, 1920, 5.

  5. “Statement Concerning Charles W. Kline,” attachment to a letter from Roy Lyle to Senator Jones, dated February 23, 1929, Folder 13, Box 273, Wesley Jones Papers, Accession 0157-001, Special Collecti
ons, University of Washington, Seattle, WA (hereafter abbreviated as WJP).

  6. “Charges Filed in Booze Ring Case,” Seattle Times, March 23, 1920, 9.

  7. “True Bills Returned by Grand Jury,” Seattle Times, March 27, 1920, 1.

  8. “Police Officers File Demurrers,” Seattle Times, April 5, 1920, 8, 10.

  9. “Liquor Smuggling Launch Captured,” Seattle Times, April 8, 1920, 18.

  10. “Booze Ring Hunt Shifts to Tacoma,” Seattle Times, March 28, 1920, 2.

  11. “Plead Not Guilty Booze Charge,” Seattle Times, April 12, 1920, 3.

  Chapter 1

  1. “Republican Dinner Plans,” New York Times, November 30, 1919, 12; “Republican Women Dine Hays,” New York Times, December 4, 1919, 18.

  2. “Republican Women Want Equal Status,” New York Times, January 11, 1920, 16.

  3. Mrs. Ogden M. Reid to William H. Hays, November 1, 1919, Part I: Box I, Reid Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; William H. Hays to Mrs. Ogden M. Reid, November 6, 1919, Part I: Box I, Reid Family papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  4. Letter, Katherine Philips Edson to Meyer Lissner, July 12, 1921, Folder 1, Box 1, Katherine Philips Edson Papers (Collection 235), Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA, hereafter abbreviated as KPEP).

  5. Anastasia Christman, “The Best Laid Plans: Women’s Clubs and City Planning in Los Angeles, 1890–1930,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles, 2000, pp. 180–89. See also Prohibition in California, 1848–1933 by Gilman M. Ostrander, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 1957, pp. 139, 145–47.

  6. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Women in Gainful Occupations, 1870 to 1920, Census Monograph IX, Prepared by Joseph A. Hill (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1929), 182, 164.

  7. John S. Martin, “Profiles: Mrs. Firebrand,” New Yorker, February 16, 1929, 23. See also, Babcock Woman Lawyer, 189–91; Avery Strakosch, “A Woman in Law,” Saturday Evening Post, September 24, 1927, 194.

  8. Barbara C. Babcock, Woman Lawyer: The Trials of Clara Foltz (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011), 307–318. See also Walton J. Wood, “Unexpected Results from the Establishment of the Office of Public Defender,” Journal of American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology 7, no. 4 (November 1919), 598.

  9. John S. Martin, “Profiles: Mrs. Firebrand,” New Yorker, February 16, 1929, 23; see also Walton J. Wood, “Unexpected Results from the Establishment of the Office of Public Defender,” Journal of American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology 7, no. 4 (November 1919), 599.

  10. Avery Strakosch, “A Woman in Law,” Saturday Evening Post, September 24, 1927, 193.

  11. John S. Martin, “Profiles: Mrs. Firebrand,” New Yorker, February 16, 1929, 23.

  12. Karen J. Blair, “General Federation of Women’s Clubs,” in Wilma Mankiller et al., eds., The Readers Companion to U.S. Women’s History (1998), 242.

  13. B. Edna Kinard, “Women and Men Battle Over Rights,” Oakland Tribune, March 4, 1919, 11.

  14. “Only Host of Signers Can Avert Dire Peril,” Los Angeles Times, July 6, 1919, I11; “Referendum to Down Menace,” Los Angeles Times, July 2, 1919; I11; “Many Sign to Kill Evil Property Law,” Los Angeles Times, July 8, 1919, I11.

  15. “Community Property Measure Is Opposed,” Los Angeles Times, May 13, 1919, I8; “Governor Listens to Opposition Bills,” Los Angeles Times, May 14, 1919, I6.

  16. “Assembly Faces Strenuous Task,” Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1919, I11; “Women Fear Property Act May Be Lost,” Oakland Tribune, May 17, 1919, 8.

  17. “Wife Can Will Her Interests,” Los Angeles Times, May 28, 1919, I9.

  18. “Only Host of Signers Can Avert Dire Peril,” Los Angeles Times, July 6, 1919, I11; “Referendum to Down Menace,” Los Angeles Times, July 2, 1919, I11; “Many Sign to Kill Evil Property Law,” Los Angeles Times, July 8, 1919, I11.

  19. “The Wife’s Interest in Community Property,” Yale Law Journal, 33, 5 (March 1924), 546. Edna Kinard, “Women and Men Battle Over Rights,” Oakland Tribune, March 4, 1919, 11.

  20. John S. Martin, “Profiles: Mrs. Firebrand,” New Yorker, February 16, 1929, 23.

  21. “Booms Mrs. Catt for Presidency,” New York Times, February 15, 1920, 8; Jan Doolittle Wilson, The Women’s Joint Congressional Committee and the Politics of Materialism 1920–30 (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2007), 9–27.

  22. William H. Crawford. “A Big Woman Vote Seen by Mrs. Sabin,” New York Times, October 27, 1924, 8.

  23. “Charles H. Sabin, Banker, Dies at 65,” New York Times, October 12, 1933, 25.

  24. “Tales of Well Known Folk in Social and Official Life,” Washington Star, October 16, 1921, 11.

  25. “Newport’s Glory Seems to Be Departing,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 11, 1921, 2.

  26. “Wall Street Topics,” Baltimore Sun, June 5, 1920, 10.

  27. “Women Conference Back Socialists,” New York Times, January 15, 1920, 4.

  28. “Republican Women Criticize Miss Hay,” New York Times, December 8, 1919, 2; “Senator Wadsworth,” New York Times, July 26, 1920, 10.

  29. “Republican Women Want Equal Status,” New York Times, January 11, 1920, 16.

  30. “Priming the Feminine Voter for the Primaries,” New York Times, April 4, 1920, XXX2.

  31. “Wadsworth Bowed to Women and Drys,” New York Times, February 13, 1920, 17.

  32. “Republicans Issue ‘Model’ Platform; Women Resentful,” New York Times, February 21, 1920, 1; “Sees Socialist Plot in Socialist Trial,” New York Times, February 7, 1920, 3.

  33. “Republicans Issue ‘Model’ Platform; Women Resentful,” New York Times, February 21, 1920, 1.

  34. Proceedings of the State of New York Republican State Convention, February 19–20, 1920, Bertrand Snell Papers, Special Collections, State University of New York–Potsdam, Box C6.4 Politics-Republican State Committees, 112 (hereafter abbreviated as BSP); “Mrs. Livermore a ‘Big 4’ Alternate,” New York Times, February 19, 1920, 1.

  35. “255 N.Y. Delegates Cheered as They Leave for Chicago,” Evening Telegram, June 5, 1920, page unknown; Box E-1, BSP.

  36. “Legislature Ends 37-Hour Session,” New York Times, April 25, 1920, 1.

  37. Charles D. Hilles to Mrs. Charles H. Sabin, June 24, 1920, Folder 1324, Box 113, Charles Hilles Collection, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, New Haven, CT (hereafter abbreviated as CHC).

  Chapter 2

  1. Katherine Philips Edson letter to Meyer Lissner, July 12, 1921, Folder 1, Box 1, KPEP.

  2. David Pietrusza, 1920: The Year of Six Presidents, New York, NY: Basic Books, 2009.

  3. Letter, Frank P. Doherty to Hiram Johnson, July 28, 1921, Hiram Johnson Papers, BANC MSS C-B 581, Part III, Box 33 (Doherty), Folder 1, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, CA (hereafter abbreviated as HJP); see also Letter, Katherine Philips Edson to Meyer Lissner, July 12, 1921, Folder 1, Box 1, KPEP.

  4. Richard Coke Lower, A Bloc of One: The Political Career of Hiram W. Johnson, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993, 29–30, 40, 140, 158, 266–68; Gilman M. Ostrander, “Prohibition in California, 1848–1933,” University Publications in History 57, editors Paul Schaeffer, D. M. Brown, and J. D. Hicks, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1957.

  5. George E. Mowry, The California Progressives, Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1951, 281–85.

  6. “Women Plan Party Rally,” New York Times, May 12, 1920, 2.

  7. “Women and Campaign Fund,” New York Times, June 4, 1920, 2.

  8. “Wall Street Topics,” Baltimore Sun, June 5, 1920, 10.

  9. “255 N.Y. Delegates Cheered as They Leave for Chica
go,” Evening Telegram, June 5, 1920, page unknown; Box E-1, BSP.

  10. Anna Steele Richardson, “Lessons Women Learned at Chicago,” New York Times, June 20, 1920, XX2.

  11. Charles D. Hilles to Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, June 16, 1920, Box 113, Folder 1324, CHC.

  12. Anna Steele Richardson, “Lessons Women Learned at Chicago,” New York Times, June 20, 1920, XX2.

  13. Kirk H. Porter and Donald B. Johnson, compilers, National Party Platforms 1840–1968, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 229.

  14. Anna Steele Richardson, “Lessons Women Learned at Chicago,” New York Times, June 20, 1920, XX2.

  15. Kirk H. Porter and Donald B. Johnson, compilers, National Party Platforms 1840–1968, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 229.

  16. Myra Nye, “Women’s Work and Women’s Clubs,” Los Angeles Times, July 11, 1920, III3; see also James N. Giglio, H. M. Daugherty and the Politics of Expediency, Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1978, 108.

  17. James N. Giglio, H. M. Daugherty and the Politics of Expediency, Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1978, 108.

  18. Charles D. Hilles to Dr. Nicolas Murray Butler, June 16, 1920, Box 113, Folder 1324, CHC.

  19. “New Yorkers May Swing to Sproul,” New York Times, June 12, 1920, 1.

  20. “Leaders Unable to Agree,” New York Times, June 12, 1920, 1; James M. Giglio, H. M. Daugherty and the Politics of Expediency, 109–110; William Allen White, A Puritan in Babylon, The Story of Calvin Coolidge, New York: Macmillan Company, 1958, 208–9.

  21. Anna Steele Richardson, “Lessons Women Learned at Chicago,” New York Times, June 20, 1920, XX2.

  Chapter 3

  1. “No Compromise Says Uncle Sam in War on Booze,” Seattle Times, May 2, 1920, 7.

  2. “Two Hundred Cases Against Dry Law Violators Are Set,” Seattle Times, May 2, 1920, 7.

  3. “Heavy Fines for Smugglers Nabbed in Raid,” Seattle Times, June 8, 1920, 1.

  4. “Harding Great Candidate, Declares Mrs. C. H. Sabin,” New York Tribune, June 15, 1920, 3.