Background

The entirety of the Leopold and Loeb case was very bizarre from the very beginning. Two teenage boys, Leopold, 19, and Loeb, 18, brutally murdered their young neighbor, seemingly for no reason at all. All three of the boys came from wealthy Jewish families and resided in Chicago’s Kenwood neighborhood within a walking distance from one another. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb seemed to have everything in life laid out for them.¹ Despite this, the privileged teenage boys threw away their lives through a single act of violence.

The minds of Leopold and Loeb were complex, revealing, and utterly disturbed. Both boys were excellent scholars, but had something darker residing in their minds. Loeb was popular among his peers, and began studying at the University of Chicago at 14. However, he was also involved with drinking and gambling, and desired to become a “master criminal”.² Additionally, he had always been obsessed with crime. He “read about crime, he planned crimes, and he committed crimes”, but he had never physically harmed someone.³ Leopold had graduated from the University of Chicago and had plans to attend Harvard Law School. Despite excelling academically, he was described as “arrogant” by people he encountered.⁴ Aside from law, Leopold was fascinated with psychology, especially with the works of Friedrich Nietzsche.⁵ Leopold “believed that legal obligations did not apply to those who approached ‘the superman’”, and brought his lover, Richard Loeb, into this mentality.⁶ In return, Loeb tied up Leopold in his crime schemes. When these two minds were put together, they became deadly. Historian Paula S. Fass asks the question of “why two rich, gifted boys would commit a murder embedded in the form of a ransom kidnapping”; a question that will likely never be fully answered.⁷ 

Together, the two boys desired to commit the “perfect crime” and the “crime of the century”. The premeditated murder of a random victim fit this criteria. “The two teenagers spent months discussing and refining a plan that included kidnapping the child of a wealthy parents, demanding a ransom, and collecting the ransom after it was thrown off a moving train as it passed a designated point”, and murder was crucial to get away with the crime.⁸ If murder was not involved, they risked being identified by their victim. Leopold and Loeb started planning this murder in November 1923, 6 months before it actually took place. They ruled against deciding who their victim would be beforehand, and instead opted to make it spontaneous.⁹ In the days leading up to the murder, they began to get their supplies together, including a chisel, which would be the murder weapon.¹⁰ Their last step was to rent a car the morning of the murder. 

Kidnapping and Murder

Bobby Franks was walking home from Harvard School for Boys around 5pm on May 21 following a baseball game.¹¹ At the same time, Leopold and Loeb were circling the area hunting for a victim. Leopold, who was driving the rented car, pulled up next to Franks and “asked him to get in the car to discuss a tennis racquet”, to which he complied.¹² Loeb, who was in the back seat of the car, grabbed Franks, covered his mouth, and “struck the boy with [sic] several times on his head with a chisel”.¹³ Loeb then suffocated young Bobby Franks to death.¹⁴ Sometime between 5:15 PM and 9:30 PM, the boys drove to the Illinois/Indiana border to dispose of the body.¹⁵ Leopold and Loeb shoved Frank’s body into a culvert under a railroad, poured acid on his naked body, and returned to Loeb’s home to burn his clothing.¹⁶ 

At 9:30 PM, Mrs. Franks received a menacing phone call from a man identifying himself as “George Johnson”.¹⁷ “Leopold told Franks that her boy had been kidnapped, but was unharmed, and that she should expect a ransom note soon”; the family received the note the next morning.¹⁸ The note reads: 

Dear Sir: 

As you no doubt know by this time, your son has been kidnapped. Allow us to assure you that he is at present well and safe. You need fear no physical harm for him, provided you live up carefully to the following instructions and to such others as you will receive future communication. Should you, however, disobey any of our instructions, even slightly, his death will be the penalty. 

1. For obvious reasons make absolutely no attempt to communicate with either the police authorities or any private agency. Should you already have communicated with the police, allow them to continue their investigation, but do not mention this letter.

2. Secure before noon today ten thousand dollars. This money must be composed entirely of old bills of the following denominations:

Two thousand dollars in twenty dollar bills, eight thousand dollars in fifty dollar bills. The money must be old. An attempt to include new or marked bills will render the entire venture futile. 

3. The money should be placed in a large cigar box, or if this is impossible, in a heavy cardboard box, securely closed and wrapped in white paper. The wrapping paper should be sealed at all openings with sealing wax.

4. Have the money with you, prepared as directed above, and remain at home after one o’clock P.M. See that the telephone is not in use.

You will receive a further communication instructing you as to your future course.

As a final word of warning, this is an extremely commercial proposition and we are prepared to put our threat into execution should we have reasonable grounds to believe that you have committed an infraction of the above instructions. 

However, should you carefully follow out our instructions to the letter, we can assure you that your son will be safely returned to you within six hours of our receipt of the money.

Yours truly, 

George Johnson¹⁹

A second note was to be placed on the train, but Mr. Franks never received this one. The 2nd note reads:

Dear Sir: 

Proceed immediately to the back platform of the train. Watch the east side of the track. Have your package ready. Look for the first LARGE, RED, BRICK factory situated immediately adjoining the tracks on the east. On top of this factory is a large, black watertower with the word CHAMPION written on it. Wait until you have COMPLETELY passed the south end of the factory – count five very rapidly and then IMMEDIATELY throw the package as far east as you can. Remember that this is your only chance to recover your son.

Yours truly,

George Johnson²⁰

At around 12PM the next day, “Leopold (‘George Johnson’) called Jacob Franks, Bobby’s father, shortly before three o’clock to tell him a taxi cab was about to arrive at his home and that he should take it to a specified drugstore in South Chicago”.²¹ Mr. Franks, of course, refused to do so. A few hours before this call, unbeknownst to the killers or Mr. Franks, a laborer had discovered Bobby’s body.²² Bobby’s uncle went to confirm the identity of the body as soon as he heard the news.²³ It was at the location of the body that a clue to the identity of the killer lay.

Linking Leopold and Loeb to the Crime

Little did he know, Nathan Leopold had lost a pair of eyeglasses at the site where he and Richard Loeb had dumped the body. This specific style of glasses “could be traced to a single Chicago optometrist, who had written only three such prescriptions, including the one to Leopold”.²⁴ Investigators began meticulously questioning Nathan Leopold on May 23, and soon after, Richard Loeb.²⁵ They confirmed each other’s alibis of driving girls around in Leopold’s car, but “state’s attorney Robert Crowe, heading the investigation, was skeptical”.²⁶ Upon further investigation and leads from classmates, prosecutors got ahold of a set of notes from a typewriter that belonged to Leopold, and the flaws matched those of the ransom note.²⁷ Leopold’s chauffeur attempted to defend him by saying the car “the boys claimed they had spent the night driving around with girls, had not left the garage on the day of the murder”.²⁸ He had unknowingly destroyed both the boys’ alibis. 

On May 30, 1924, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were arrested for the murder of Bobby Franks.²⁹ The following day, they both confessed to the murder, but neither would own up to actually killing Franks.³⁰ 

Trial

For the trial, “The Loeb and Leopold families hired Clarence Darrow and Benjamin Bachrach to represent the two boys”.³¹ Clarence Darrow was interested in the case due to the opportunity it gave him to “attack the death penalty, which he had called “an abomination”.³² Darrow had persuaded the boys to plead guilty to potentially avoid the death penalty. Professor Douglas O. Linder explains Darrow’s reasoning: 

“It was Darrow’s decision to change the boys’ initial pleas to the charges of murder and kidnapping from “not guilty” (suggesting a traditional insanity defense) to “guilty.” The decision was made primarily to prevent the state from getting two opportunities to get a death sentence. With “not guilty” pleas, the state had planned to try the boys first on one of the two charges, both of which carried the death penalty in Illinois, and if it failed to win a hanging on the first charge, try again on the second. The guilty plea also meant that the sentencing decision would be made by a judge, not by a jury”.³³ 

The defense worked around the testimony of 4 psychiatrists who interviewed the boys.³⁴ The issue was that “the prosecution argued that psychiatric testimony was only admissible if the defendants claimed insanity”, to which the psychiatrists said mental diseases should be considered in the sentencing.³⁵ The judge was convinced and allowed the evidence to be used. The entire trial, which Linder defines as a hearing due to the guilty plea, lasted a little longer than a month.³⁶ The defense claimed that Leopold and Loeb suffered from “emotional immaturity, obsessions with crime and Nietzschean philosophy, alcohol abuse, glandular abnormalities, and sexual longings and insecurities”.³⁷ Leopold was described as paranoid, delusional, and obsessed with Loeb; Loeb was called childish and called out for his lack of judgement.³⁸ Psychiatrist Wiliiam White claimed that “Nathan would never on his own initiative have murdered Bobby Franks. . . And I don’t believe Dickie would have ever functioned to this extent all by himself”, so the two came together to commit the murder.³⁹ The prosecution argued that neither boy was mentally ill.⁴⁰ The Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology highlighted the fact that ”this is probably the first instance of the offer of elaborate psychiatric analyses as the basis for remitting the law’s penalty for a calculated, cold-blooded murder, committed by persons not claimed to be insane or defective in any degree recognized by the law as making them not legally responsible”. This aspect made the case revolutionary when it came to the court becoming less reliant on the death penalty.⁴¹ 

Over the span of 12 hours on August 22, 1924, “Darrow argued that his clients should not bear full responsibility for their crime” due to several external factors.⁴² The basis of Darrow’s argument was that this murder happened due to “a series of infinite chances”; he claimed the boys were victims of nature.⁴³ Darrow had also attempted to sway the jury away from a death sentence by expressing that the boys were too young to have to sit in jail awaiting execution.⁴⁴

Attorney Robert Crowe stated “this was a premeditated crime committed by two remorseless defendants, and the appropriate punishment was obvious”, which he believed to be execution.⁴⁵ After weeks of debating, Nathan Leopold and RIchard Loeb were sentenced to life in prison, mainly due to their age and the inability of the court to determine responsibility.⁴⁶ 

Aftermath

The two boys were held in Joliet Penitentiary in Joliet, Illinois. Richard Loeb was killed here in 1936, and Nathan Leopold was released in 1958 due to his excellent behavior.⁴⁷ Leopold then moved to Puerto Rico, where “he earned a master’s degree, taught mathematics, and worked in hospitals and church missions”.⁴⁸ He passed away on August 30, 1971 following a heart attack.⁴⁹ 

Significance

Newspapers were critical to the entire incident, as well as the 1920s as a whole. Several newspapers provided the public with updated stories about a “sensational kidnap-murder”, provided “the prosecuting attorney with material assistance”, and gathered evidence that helped solve the case.⁵⁰ James Mulroy and Alvin Goldstein, two journalists for the Chicago Daily News, received and “shared some of the reward money as well as the Pulitzer Prize for helping to connect Nathan Leopold, Jr., and Richard Loeb to the abduction and murder of Bobby Franks”.⁵¹ Daily papers ”published the confessions, interviewed the families and friends, and speculated about the nature of the “million-dollar defense” to be mounted by Clarence Darrow and his expensive psychiatric witnesses”; this turned into a type of entertainment for some, and turned this into a nationwide phenomenon.⁵² In addition to keeping the public updated on the case, the newspapers also did some strange things, which are now seen as immoral. “On May 23, 1924, the day the newspapers reported that Bobby had been kidnapped, they also contained a detailed description of his dead body”.⁵³ To expose people, and potentially children, to such a disturbing scene was very odd. Despite this, the case would not have been solved without the contributions of press workers. 

The Leopold and Loeb case related to The Modern Temper by Lynn Dumenil in terms of psychology, beliefs, and human morality. Dumenil touches on the ideas of several individuals, including psychologist John B. Watson. Watson “described humans as hollow shells, formed by their environment, who responded to external stimuli”.⁵⁴ Leopold and Loeb’s minds and behavior was shaped by the privileged environment that they grew up in, and this led them to believe they could get away with murder. Fiction writer Sherwood Anderson wrote “fashioned dark, brooding stories dealing with marriage, morality, and individuals destroyed by success”.⁵⁵ It would be plausible to say that Loepold and Loeb were destroyed by the financial success of their parents and their own intellectual success. 

The murder of Bobby Franks by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb would go down in history as “cautionary story about the dangers of modern youth”.⁵⁶ The profiles of the killers were vastly different from those of a “typical” murderer. Their portrayals “set them apart and represented them as larger than life”, making the case even more sensational.⁵⁷

Citations

1. “The “Perfect Crime”: The Story of Leopold and Loeb and the Murder of Bobby Franks” ︎
2. “The “Perfect Crime”: The Story of Leopold and Loeb and the Murder of Bobby Franks” ︎
3. Douglas O. Linder ︎
4. “The “Perfect Crime”: The Story of Leopold and Loeb and the Murder of Bobby Franks” ︎
5. Douglas O. Linder ︎
6. Douglas O. Linder ︎
7. Paula S. Fass ︎
8. Douglas O. Linder ︎
9. “The “Perfect Crime”: The Story of Leopold and Loeb and the Murder of Bobby Franks” ︎
10. “The “Perfect Crime”: The Story of Leopold and Loeb and the Murder of Bobby Franks” ︎
11. “The Loeb-Leopold Murder of Franks in Chicago, May 21, 1924.”; Douglas O. Linder ︎
12. Douglas O. Linder ︎
13. Douglas O. Linder ︎
14. Douglas O. Linder ︎
15. “The Loeb-Leopold Murder of Franks in Chicago, May 21, 1924.” ︎
16. Douglas O. Linder ︎
17. “The Loeb-Leopold Murder of Franks in Chicago, May 21, 1924.” ︎
18. Douglas O. Linder ︎
19. Nathan F. Leopold, Jr. and Richard Loeb, University of Minnesota Web Archive ︎
20. Douglas O. Linder ︎
21. “The Loeb-Leopold Murder of Franks in Chicago, May 21, 1924.”; Douglas O. Linder ︎
22. “The Loeb-Leopold Murder of Franks in Chicago, May 21, 1924.” ︎
23. Paula S. Fass ︎
24. Douglas O. Linder ︎
25. “The Loeb-Leopold Murder of Franks in Chicago, May 21, 1924.” ︎
26. Douglas O. Linder ︎
27. Douglas O. Linder ︎
28. Douglas O. Linder ︎
29. “The Loeb-Leopold Murder of Franks in Chicago, May 21, 1924.” ︎
30. “The Loeb-Leopold Murder of Franks in Chicago, May 21, 1924.” ︎
31. Douglas O. Linder ︎
32. Douglas O. Linder ︎
33. Douglas O. Linder ︎
34. Douglas O. Linder ︎
35. Douglas O. Linder ︎
36. Douglas O. Linder ︎
37. Douglas O. Linder ︎
38. Douglas O. Linder ︎
39. Douglas O. Linder ︎
40. Douglas O. Linder ︎
41. “The Loeb-Leopold Murder of Franks in Chicago, May 21, 1924.” ︎
42. Douglas O. Linder ︎
43. Douglas O. Linder ︎
44. Douglas O. Linder ︎
45. Douglas O. Linder ︎
46. Douglas O. Linder ︎
47. Douglas O. Linder ︎
48. Douglas O. Linder ︎
49. “Nathan Leopold – Loeb, Murder & Death.” ︎
50. Paula S. Fass ︎
51. Paula S. Fass ︎
52. Paula S. Fass ︎
53. Paula S. Fass ︎
54. Lynn Dumenil, 146 ︎
55. Lynn Dumenil, 153 ︎
56. Paula S. Fass ︎
57. Paula S. Fass ︎

• Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s, 1995. 
• Fass, Paula S. “Making and Remaking an Event: The Leopold and Loeb Case in American Culture.” The Journal of American History 80, no. 3 (1993): 919–51. https://doi.org/10.2307/2080409.
• “Leopold and Loeb.” Wikipedia, April 11, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_and_Loeb.
• “Leopold and Loeb Ransom Note: Northwestern Magazine.” Northwestern University. Accessed April 29, 2026. https://www.northwestern.edu/magazine/spring2012/feature/full-of-drama-sidebar/ransom-note.html.
• Linder, Douglas O. “Map of the Scene of the Kidnapping and Murder of Bobby Franks.” Famous Trials. Accessed April 23, 2026. https://famous-trials.com/leopoldandloeb/1750-map.
• Linder, Douglas O. “The Leopold And Loeb Trial: An Account.” The Leopold and Loeb Trial: An account. Accessed April 23, 2026. https://famous-trials.com/leopoldandloeb/1741-home.
• “Nathan Leopold – Loeb, Murder & Death.” Biography, April 7, 2021. https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/nathan-leopold.
• Nathan F. Leopold, Jr. and Richard Loeb, University of Minnesota Web Archive (The Criminal Court of Cook County 1924). 
• O’Connor Davis, Susan. “Lost Hyde Park: Springtime Is for Lovers.” Hyde Park Herald, May 25, 2021. https://www.hpherald.com/news/local/lost-hyde-park-springtime-is-for-lovers/article_c5af7c6e-bd9f-11eb-aacd-779da1769005.html.
• “Psychiatrists’ (‘Alienists’) Phrenological Assessments of Mr. …” ResearchGate. Accessed April 29, 2026. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Psychiatrists-alienists-phrenological-assessments-of-Mr-Nathan-Leopold-and-Mr_fig5_344804194.
• “The Loeb-Leopold Murder of Franks in Chicago, May 21, 1924.” Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology 15, no. 3 (1924): 347–48. https://doi.org/10.2307/1134803.
• “The ‘Perfect Crime’: The Story of Leopold and Loeb and the Murder of Bobby Franks | WTTW Chicago.” WTTW. Accessed April 23, 2026. https://www.wttw.com/chicago-stories/deadly-alliance-leopold-loeb/the-perfect-crime-the-story-of-leopold-and-loeb-and-the-murder-of-bobby-franks. 

More Resources

For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Chicago– Simon Baatz (2008)

The Clarence Darrow Digital Collection

The Leopold and Loeb Trial: A Brief Account– Douglas O. Linder

PBS American Experience: “The Perfect Crime” (2016) (Documentary)

kconley

Ramapo College sophomore majoring in History and minoring in Museum Studies + Music Industry

 

Leopold and Loeb were both considered to be mentally deranged, but not insane. This fact brought up in court would spare their lives, as it was deemed to be inhumane to hang them. John B. Watson “described humans as hollow shells, formed by their environment, who responded to external stimuli”.¹ The privileged environment in which Leopold and Loeb both grew up shaped them to believe that they were superior to everyone else and the rules of society didn’t apply to them.

Dumenil discusses fiction writer Sherwood Anderson, and the ideas brought up in his work. He “fashioned dark, brooding stories dealing with marriage, morality, and individuals destroyed by success”.² One could say that Leopold and Loeb were destroyed by success. Their families were wealthy, they attended ivy league schools, and they lived in an upscale neighborhood, all of which fed into their mindset that they were superior humans. They also did not believe human morality applied to them, so they would be able to commit the “perfect crime” without being caught and without consequences. In one of Anderson’s stories, the main character “feels that ‘he himself wanted, more than anything else, to give way to the impulses within himself’”, which in Leopold and Loeb’s cases, was destructive and violent crimes.³ They had previously committed smaller crimes such as robbery and arson for the thrill of it, but they yearned for something more serious. A premeditated murder of a random victim would fulfill that adrenaline rush that they both so desperately needed and give into that impulse to feel powerful. 

Harry Emerson Fosdick “recognized that people shape religion to suit their needs”, which is what Leopold and Loeb seemed to have done.⁴ Although they both came from Jewish families, they picked up a different set of beliefs. They shared a belief in “the concept of the Übermensch – the superman who transcended conventional human morality – as explored by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche”, which is what drove them to murder.⁵ 

Dumenil also brings up the fact that in Chicago, “recent immigrants resented black encroachment in their neighborhoods and resisted with force and violence”.⁶ Even though Leopold and Loeb weren’t recent immigrants and Bobby Franks wasn’t black, the murder occurred in Chicago. Leopold and Loeb were responding to something with force and violence, even if that something seemed to be nothing at all. This rise in violence in their community may have encouraged or inspired the murder, or made them feel that they had to respond with something even bigger. 

These new developments in psychology shaped the way that the court handled the case, and spared the lives of two severely messed up individuals. Leopold and Loeb’s case was one of the first cases to incorporate psychology into the ruling. 

Sources:

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American culture and society in the 1920s. United States: Hill and Wang, 2024. 

Scovell, Adam. “Leopold and Loeb: The Grisly ‘crime of the Century’ That Fascinated Hitchcock and Others.” BBC News, February 1, 2024. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20240131-leopold-and-loeb-the-grisly-crime-of-the-century-that-fascinated-hitchcock-and-others. 

Featured Image: “Leopold and Loeb.” Wikipedia, March 20, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_and_Loeb.

Featured Image: Linder, Douglas O. “Nathan F. Leopold, Jr. (1904 – 1971).” Famous Trials. Accessed March 27, 2026. https://famous-trials.com/leopoldandloeb/1668-leopold.

Featured Image: Lybarger, Jeremy. “Reopening the Case Files of Leopold and Loeb.” The Paris Review, 2018. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/07/26/reopening-the-case-files-of-leopold-and-loeb/.

1. Lynn Dumenil (146) ︎
2. Lynn Dumenil (153) ︎
3. Lynn Dumenil (153) ︎
4. Lynn Dumenil (193) ︎
5. Adam Scovell ︎
6. Lynn Dumenil (255) ︎

kconley

Ramapo College sophomore majoring in History and minoring in Museum Studies + Music Industry

 

Introduction

The 1920s was a period defined by cultural excess and societal shifts in America. While many associate the decade with the glamour of jazz culture and flappers, a darker aspect of American life dominated the twenties. Fueled by the failures of Prohibition and an influx of organized crime, one of the most infamous events of the twenties was the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. The massacre served as a violent representation of the nation’s influx of organized crime, corruption, and lawlessness.

February 14, 1929 remains a defining moment in the history of organized crime in America. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre exposed many of the complexities of the Prohibition era. The mass killing not only changed how law enforcement viewed organized crime but also served as a reminder of the failure of the government. Specifically, the event demonstrated weakness in the government to enforce laws, particularly the 18th Amendment, which prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol.

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

On the morning of February 14, 1929, seven men were shot and killed in a garage at 2122 North Clark Street, Chicago. The victims were members of the North Side Irish gang, which was headed by George “Bugs” Moran, a notorious figure in Chicago’s organized crime scene. The victims were lined up against a wall and shot with Tommy guns, a common weapon used by gangsters during this period.¹

The shooters disguised themselves as uniformed policemen. They arrived at the garage in a stolen car and deceived Moran’s men into believing they were law enforcement officers. This disguise allowed them to get close to the gang members without raising suspicion. Once inside the garage, the men opened fire and killed all seven men.² The brutality of the massacre frightened Americans. The massacre represented a significant increase in the violent gang wars present in major American cities throughout the twentieth century.

Five of the victims were direct members of Moran’s North Side Gang: Moran’s second in command, Albert Kachellek, bookkeeper and business manager Adam Heyer, cleaning operator Albert Weinshank, gang enforcer Frank Gusenberg, and his brother Peter Gusenberg. Two affiliates of the gang were also murdered: Reinhardt H. Schwimmer and John Hay. All men were found dead at the scene except for Frank Gusenberg.³ Law enforcement transported Gusenberg to nearby St. Joseph’s Hospital where they questioned him about the attack. Gusenberg refused to provide any details on the shooters. This was a common practice of organized crime affiliates. Frank Gusenberg later died at St. Joseph’s Hospital from his wounds.  

The victims of the massacre were part of Moran’s North Side gang. The gang obtained immense power and wealth from the illegal bootlegging trade during the Prohibition era. They were also involved in a rivalry with the South Side Italian gang led by Al Capone. People widely suspected that Capone orchestrated the hit. Within days of the shooting, the court summoned Al Capone to testify before a grand jury on charges of Prohibition violations seemingly unrelated to the massacre. Capone’s gang was also heavily involved in bootlegging alcohol during this time period. The city would investigate numerous men affiliated with Capone’s South Side Gane, however, the lack of evidence left law enforcement clueless. Despite the growing suspicions, Capone and the South Side Gang were never officially charged or convicted of the hit. The rival gangs were in a constant struggle for control of Chicago’s illegal liquor trade. Thus, many people viewed the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre as an act of violence in relation to the gang war.

While the connections to Capone’s organization seemed obvious, no members of the South Side gang were ever convicted of the murders. Law enforcement questioned several suspects which included Capone and his men, but ultimately the case never closed. Despite never officially convicting anyone of the crime, law enforcement did identify connections to the massacre. On December 14, 1929 almost a year after the massacre, Michigan native Fredrick Dane, shot and killed an officer after a drunken car accident. The murder prompted the search of Dane’s Michigan home where law enforcements found a collection of Tommy guns which they believed to be the guns used in the massacre. Fredrick Dane had loose connections to Al Capone and his affiliates. Through the murder investigation, law enforcement linked Fredrick Dane to the massacre, however, they did not have enough evidence to convict him. Instead they sentenced Dane to life in prison for the murder of Officer Skelly. He served approximately 10 years before he died in 1940. Even with strong connections and links, law enforcement was unable to convict anyone of the crime. This lack of resolution after the massacre only added to the mass hysteria in Chicago and danger surrounding organized crime in the 1920s.

Prohibition’s Impact on Organized Crime

To understand the significance of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, it is important to understand the effects of the Prohibition laws. Ratified in 1919, the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. Groups such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League believed alcohol consumption was responsible for the social problems such as domestic violence, crime and poverty which caused them to contribute to the implementation of prohibition laws.⁴ Through a legal ban of the manufacture or sale of alcohol, many believed “prohibition would re-create a socially ordered community through the establishment of Protestant middle/class values.”⁵ Prohibition directly impacted the immigrant communities such as the Irish, Italians, and Germans as drinking was deeply ingrained in their culture and traditions. Law enforcement often targeted immigrants as speakeasies and bootlegging operations were frequently associated with their neighborhoods. Prohibition’s restrictive laws fueled resentment and widened cultural divides, reinforcing nativist prejudices. Figures such as Al Capone and George Moran rose to prominence through these large smuggling and distribution operations which further established organized crime within immigrant communities.

Despite its intended goals, Prohibition created a massive black market for alcohol and marked the rise of powerful organized crime groups who profited off the illegal liquor trade. Organized crime figures dominated the lucrative illegal trade which escalated the violent tensions in urban America; “there were fortunes to be made from the illicit trade, and prohibition agents were not up against individual lawbreakers, but faced well-organized and well-mannered gangs.”  Figures such as Al Capone and Bugs Moran profited immensely from this bootlegging.⁶ In addition to these figures, Prohibition led to the rise in underground clubs. Speakeasies became extremely popular across the country. However, this new industry caused even more competition and tension for control of this lucrative market which led to increased violence, corruption, and organized crime schemes.⁷

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was a direct consequence of this struggle for power. Moran’s North Side gang and Capone’s South Side gang fought for dominance in Chicago’s bootlegging operations for years prior to the hit. The gangs were constantly involved in violent situations. A prime example of this tension occurred on the Detroit River. The Detroit River was a major port for smuggling alcohol during Prohibition. One night while Capone and his men attempted to smuggle alcohol, the North Side Gang hijacked the boat and intercepted the alcohol.⁸ This event allegedly served as a catalyst for the massacre. This story further provides motive and supports the narrative that the massacre was an attempt by Capone’s men to eliminate their rivals and gain full control over the city’s illegal alcohol trade. If orchestrated by Capone, the massacre was not a random act of violence but instead a strategic move to gain power and profit further off the illegal trade market.

Law enforcement’s inability to convict anyone of the violent crime only further highlighted the lack of power the government presented to enforce Prohibition laws. Illegal trade, speakeasies, and violence thrived under Prohibition. The federal government established the Volstead Act to enforce the 18th Amendment. Law enforcement agencies were overwhelmed by the power, size, and violence of the illegal market. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre continued to serve as a reminder that Prohibition did not lead to a decrease in crime but had instead fueled a violent and lawless culture in the 1920s.

Organized Crime and Government Corruption

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre also further revealed the extent to which organized crime infiltrated American society and government. During the 1920s, corruption was rampant among police officers, politicians, judges, and other public officials because many received benefits from the respective gangs. Whether out of fear or financial pressures, many of these public officials were on the books of these criminal organizations and coerced to overlook some of the violent offenses.⁹ This caused substantial corruption as it was extremely difficult to distinguish between law enforcement and the criminals they were supposed to be policing. These factors created the environment of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and allowed organized crime to thrive.

Al Capone was infamous for his ability to bribe local officials and law enforcement officers to turn a blind eye to his criminal activities. As mentioned, Capone was one of the largest and wealthiest gangsters in America. Capone gained most of his wealth from the bootlegging trade and other illicit trades during Prohibition. The wealth he gained from Prohibition allowed him to gain significant influence over the political and legal systems in Chicago. He was protected not only by his men, but also a large network of corrupt individuals who turned a blind eye to his criminal activities and allowed him to continue to gain massive amounts of wealth and political power.¹⁰ Ultimately, through his connections, Al Capone remained one of the most powerful individuals in Chicago even beyond the 1920s.

The inability of the authorities to solve the crime and bring justice further undermined public confidence in the government’s ability to control organized crime. It also undermined the dangerous relationship between organized crime rings and corrupt officials. These connections continued to highlight the relationship between wealth and corruption. The more wealth a person amassed the more power they had to control the system, a common theme throughout the 1920s.

Broader Significance

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre represented a turning point in the culture of the 1920s. It was not only a violent representation of the tensions between rival gangs, but also an intense representation of the growing corruption and lawlessness in the twenties. While many often remember the 1920s for its culture, jazz, and the rise of consumerism, the massacre demonstrates how it was also a period of intense social and political violence and unrest. The massacre sparked a deep sense of public distrust and disillusionment with the government and its ability to control society. As more Americans understood the negative impacts of Prohibition, particularly the violence it had provoked, there were mass movements that called for the repeal of the 18th Amendment.¹¹ These movements led to the eventual repeal of Prohibition with the ratification of the 21st Amendment in 1933, shortly after the 1920s.¹²

Conclusion
The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was not just an isolated event, but part of a broader pattern of increasing gang violence present in the 1920s. It served as a defining moment of the 1920s that highlighted the challenges and contradictions of the decade. The massacre exposed the failures of Prohibition, the violent basis of organized crime competition, and the limits of law enforcement in an era of mass corruption. This massacre emphasized the tensions between rival gangs while fueling public outrage. It effectively demonstrated how prohibition failed as the movement promoted lawlessness and corruption rather than temperance. The massacre also marked a turning point in the way people viewed and trusted the government’s ability to control crime and the growing influence of organized crime. It remains a reminder of the unintended consequences of Prohibition such as escalated violence which led to the rise of organized crime in America. Ultimately, the massacre showcased the weaknesses of American political and legal systems which allowed for the eventual collapse of Prohibition, the only Amendment to ever be repealed.

Footnotes

1. “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Wall.” The Mob Museum, February 10, 2023. https://themobmuseum.org/exhibits/massacre-wall/.  ︎
2. The Mob Museum ︎
3. The Mob Museum in Downtown Las Vegas. https://themobmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/trio.jpg.  ︎
4. Lynn Dumenil. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s, ed. Eric Foner (New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1995) 229. ︎
5. Lynn Dumenil. The Modern Temper. 228. ︎
6. Daniel McDonough. “Chicago Press Treatment of the Gangster, 1924-1931.” Illinois Historical Journal 82, no. 1 (1989): 17–32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40192250. ︎
7. Jeffrey A. Miron, and Jeffrey Zwiebel. “Alcohol Consumption During Prohibition.” The American Economic Review 81, no. 2 (1991): 242–47. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2006862. ︎
8. Rumrunning and the Roaring Twenties: Prohibition on the Michigan-Ontario Waterway. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. August 1, 1995. p. 146. ISBN 978-0-8143-2583-4. ︎
9. Lynn Dumenil. The Modern Temper. 233. ︎
10. The Mob Museum. ︎
11. The Mob Museum. ︎
12. Lynn Dumenil. The Modern Temper. 234. ︎

Bibliography

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s, ed. Eric Foner (New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1995).

Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “Dane Linked in Chicago’s St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 7.” December 17, 1929, 1.

McDonough, Daniel. “Chicago Press Treatment of the Gangster, 1924-1931.” Illinois Historical Journal 82, no. 1 (1989): 17–32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40192250.

Miron, Jeffrey A., and Jeffrey Zwiebel. “Alcohol Consumption During Prohibition.” The American Economic Review 81, no. 2 (1991): 242–47. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2006862.

Rumrunning and the Roaring Twenties: Prohibition on the Michigan-Ontario Waterway. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. August 1, 1995. p. 146. ISBN 978-0-8143-2583-4.

“St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Wall.” The Mob Museum, February 10, 2023. https://themobmuseum.org/exhibits/massacre-wall/. 

The Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas. https://themobmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/trio.jpg.

Erin Pryor

Erin Pryor is a History and Philosophy double major in the Honors Program, graduating with the Class of 2025. She is a writing consultant on campus at the Center for Reading and Writing. She is the president of Phi Alpha Theta history honors society and a member of Phi Alpha Delta pre-law fraternity.

With the death of Thomas Salmon, M.D. in a sailing accident on August 13, 1927, the mentally ill lost one of their most respected and influential advocates of that era. Salmon’s journey from failed family doctor to the upper echelons of American psychiatry reflects both his personal drive and his empathy for those struggling with their mental health. He was also a man defined by paradoxes. Although Salmon wore the uniform of the U.S. Public Health and Marine Hospital Service or the U.S. Army Medical Corps for much of his career, he had an allergy to authority of all kinds. (A 1906 investigation by the Public Health Service into his refusal of a direct order on Ellis Island pronounced Salmon “far from loyal, obedient or even consistent” (Unrau 1984, 679).) Later, Salmon would be praised for his superb organization and management of psychiatric services for American soldiers in World War I, yet he was also well-known as one who couldn’t pay his own bills or debts on time.

Early Life

Born in 1875 in Troy, New York, Salmon was the son of a family doctor who had immigrated from England. He graduated from Albany Medical College in 1899 and returned home to establish a medical practice. Salmon was a skilled artist whose work appeared in at least one medical textbook (Gordinier 1899). Salmon’s career as a family doctor was short-lived. He refused to advertise in the local newspapers, despite the highly competitive nature of medicine in that era. Although certainly a competent physician, Salmon proved a terrible businessman. When he did bill for his services, he neglected to chase payments. By the time he left his practice, Salmon had uncollected bills of $15,000-$25,000 (Komora 1937,  McKown interview).

Seeking a steady income for his growing family, Salmon took a position at Willard State Hospital in New York, a mental institution, where he was hired to investigate—and end—a diphtheria epidemic (Russell and Salmon 1905).  Not satisfied with laboratory work, Salmon decided to enter the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service (later shortened to “Public Health Service”). He may have at first failed the highly competitive exam, which took place in Washington D.C. each year over a three-day span, but Salmon eventually passed and entered Public Health and Marine Hospital Service in 1903, and was assigned to Ellis Island.

Ellis Island

While Willard State served as Salmon’s entry into psychiatry, it was at Ellis Island that Salmon became fully immersed in the specialty. Salmon was initially assigned to the immigrant inspection line, where he and other Public Health and Marine Hospital Service physicians did a cursory examination of steerage-class passengers, seeking to identify those with dangerous contagious diseases, mental illness, and “feeblemindedness.” These immigrants would be sent to Ellis Island Hospital, a facility on its own artificial island that would grow to 650-beds, for treatment and observation. Some of them would be refused entry and returned to their home country on the basis of their condition.

Unsettled by the rough handling of insane immigrants, Salmon pushed for better care. Arriving immigrants, particularly in the early 1900s, suffered from the harsh conditions of steerage, without clean water, decent food, and proper sanitation for the 7-21 day journey to the United States. Sleep-deprived, they arrived at Ellis Island homesick, disoriented, and afraid. Salmon noted that a bath, clean clothes, good food, and rest often eliminated their “insanity.”

As there were no special wards for these immigrants, Salmon, with his drawing skills, designed one. It would be built after his conflicts with his superior officers, stemming from his unwillingness to work on the inspection line, resulted in his transfer to the port of Boston. With a growing number of foreign-born patients filling its state mental asylums, in 1911 the New York State Commission in Lunacy approached Salmon, whose work at Ellis Island had grown his reputation, to study its immigrant insane, provide statistics, and create a standardized system of reporting admissions and discharges. Granted a leave of absence from the Public Health Service, and offered a substantially higher salary, Salmon got to work. Salmon was among those who pushed for medical examination of immigrants before they departed from their home countries for the United States, so those with mental illness would not be permitted to come to the United States at all.

Mental Hygiene Movement

Salmon’s work in New York State attracted the attention of Clifford Beers, founder of the mental hygiene movement. A Yale graduate, Beers was himself a former mental patient and told his story in A Mind that Found Itself: An Autobiography, which was published in 1907. Beers exposed that too often the only “treatment” for the insane were straightjackets and violence on the part of the untrained attendants. Beers established the Connecticut Society for Mental Hygiene, which by the next year was renamed the National Committee for Mental Hygiene (NCMH). The organization lives on today under the name “Mental Health America” (“Mental Health America: Our History”).

Salmon joined the NCMH, serving as its Medical Director from 1912 to 1922, taking a leave of absence from 1917 to early 1919 to serve in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. With a salary paid by the Rockefeller Foundation, Salmon finally resigned his Public Health Service officer commission at the end of 1914. Salmon’s work at the NCMH exposed conditions in state asylums (“Annual Meeting of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene” 211). In the 1920s, the NCMH wrote and lobbied for model commitment laws (“Mental Health America”), which were passed by the states.

Advocating for “Shell-Shocked” Soldiers

In the  U.S. Army Medical Corps had the daunting task of  setting up psychiatric hospitals and recruiting doctors and nurses to work in France. Upon his return in 1919, Salmon pushed for proper care of soldiers suffering from “shell shock,” what is generally known today as post-traumatic stress disorder. When he learned that such victims would be put in hospitals and institutions without proper psychiatric staffing and treatment, he said that “… you can’t take care of these sick men in facilities like those, just as though they were so many stalls to house so many horses” (Komora 1937, Bryan interview). Salmon became a national figure in the 1920s, giving fiery speeches for the American Legion and testifying before Congress demanding that the country provide for veterans who returned with mental disorders. It put him at odds with the Harding administration and the Public Health Service (which was supposed to care for such men), and alienated the Rockefeller Foundation. But his advocacy helped establish what would eventually become the Veterans Administration.

Practical Psychiatric Treatment

After his return to the United States from France, Salmon became active in the American Psychiatric Association. He also developed a lucrative private practice, which didn’t end his lifelong money woes, but did improve his financial standing. Among his patients was Marion Frankfurter, the wife of the future Supreme Court Justice. Marion Frankfurter suffered from bouts of depression throughout her life. She lauded Salmon for the “extraordinary skill and gentleness with which he led me through the dark wood.” Her interviewer, Paul Komora of the NCMH, wrote, “As Mrs. F. put it, Salmon virtually saved her life” (Komora 1937, interview with Felix and Marion Frankfurter). Salmon turned down $50,000 a year to treat Stanley McCormick, an heir to International Harvester’s family fortune (Komora 1937, Brumley interview). At the time, physicians in private practice earned $5,000 to $10,000 a year (Bendix 2023).

Seeking to improve the teaching of psychiatry as a discipline and interest more capable medical students to enter the field, Salmon joined the faculty of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1921. Psychiatry was very much a rapidly developing field in the first decades of the Twentieth Century, as doctors sought ways to more effectively treat the mentally ill rather than simply warehousing them in institutions. Lynn Dumenil’s 1995 analysis of the forces that shaped the 1920s, The Modern Temper, highlights the work of Sigmund Freud and John B. Watson (146) in its discussion of psychiatry and psychology. Both of these thinkers could be put on the opposite ends of a spectrum. Freudianism, with its emphasis on the unconscious mind, sex, and repressed desires, could be located on one end, while Watson, whose work focused on the study of discernable, measurable behaviors and their manifestation in an individual’s external actions and reactions, could be placed on the other.

Salmon and the mental hygienists are in the middle of this spectrum. Mental hygienists certainly believed in talk therapy (Freud), and they saw the value of identifying behaviors and attempting to understand their relationship to the patient’s environment (Watson). For example, Salmon was called in to treat a boy who was caught tampering with the signal mechanisms of a railroad near his boarding school. Such vandalism could have proved deadly. After spending some time with the child, who was about to be kicked out of his school, Salmon found he displayed an unusual ability in mechanical and electrical work. His “prescription” was to arrange much more time for the boy to study these subjects. In this example there is an attempt to identify the issue and identify a practical solution, rather than delve deeply into a person’s psyche, on the one hand, or reduce them to a simple set of actions/reactions, on the other.

Expanding Psychiatry

This sort of approach was particularly important in the “child guidance clinics” the NCMH set up in cities (Blanton et al., 1927), as well as the work Salmon helped organized in Sing-Sing prison (“Psychiatric Services for Prisoners” 1916). Though neither he nor the mental hygiene movement are mentioned in Dumenil’s survey, Salmon and other leaders were effective in reducing the stigma of mental illness and pushing for treatment of the insane, rather than imprisoning  them in state institutions. They focused on not only ending the abuse and isolation of patients in mental institutions, but sought to end long-term, involuntary incarceration. They pushed for psychiatric treatment in the communities where the mentally ill lived, in an out-patient fashion, before such clinics were widely established. We particularly see the legacy of the mental hygienists in the lessening of the stigma of mental illness as well as the evolution of the principal profession body for psychiatrists, the American Psychiatric Association.

Founded in 1844 as “The Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane” and then in 1892 as “The American Medico-Psychological Association,” the organization finally became “The American Psychiatric Association” (APA) in 1921.  Such name changes signaled the transformation of psychiatry from a discipline concerned with patients in mental institutions to one with broad scope to treat the range of mental disorders (Ozarin and McMillan, “APA History”). In 1923, Salmon was elected the president of the APA, the first one who had not served in a leadership capacity at a state mental institution. “The ideal psychiatrist was no longer the institutional superintendent of the [eighteen] eighties, or even the man of the laboratory of the nineties,” wrote Barbara Sicherman (1967, The Quest for Mental Health in America, 280).  Ever progressive, the new psychiatrist, who worked in schools, prisons, and hospitals, collaborated with social workers and educated laymen, had become an advocate of “science with a public mission,” an apt description of Thomas Salmon.

Bibliography

“Annual Meeting of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene.” 1928. Mental Hygiene. 12: 211.

Beers, Clifford Whittingham. 1907. A Mind that Found Itself: An Autobiography. Doubleday & Company, Inc.

Bendix, Jeffrey. September 28, 2023. “A Century of Primary Care Transformation, Chapter 1: 1923 vs. 2023: A Doctor’s Daily Life.” Medical Economics Journal. 100:10.

Accessed May 4, 2025

Blanton, Smiley and Margaret Gray Blaxton. 1927. Child Guidance. Century Company.

Introduction by Thomas Salmon.

Bond, Earl D. with the collaboration of Paul O. Komora. 1950. Thomas W. Salmon: Psychiatrist. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Chafee, Jr. Z. May 26, 1937. Letter to Paul Komora. Thomas Salmon Papers. The Oskar Diethelm Library, DeWitt Wallace Institute for the History of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, Box 1, Folder 1.

Dumenil, Lynn. 1995. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. Hill and Wang.

Gordinier, H.C. 1899. The Gross and Minute Anatomy of the Central Nervous System. Blakiston’s Son & Co.

Komora, Paul. May, 1937. “Visit with Dr. Bryan in New London.” Interview. Thomas Salmon Papers. The Oskar Diethelm Library, DeWitt Wallace Institute for the History of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, Box 2, Folder 3.1.

Komora, Paul. (Undated, circa 1937). “Notes from Salmon Dossier in the Public Health Service.” Thomas Salmon Papers. The Oskar Diethelm Library, DeWitt Wallace Institute for the History of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, Box 1, Folder 1.

Komora, Paul. (Undated, circa 1937). “Visit with J.F. McKown, Carmel, N.Y.” Interview. Thomas Salmon Papers. The Oskar Diethelm Library, DeWitt Wallace Institute for the History of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, Box 1, Folder 1.

Komora, Paul. (Undated, circa 1937). “Visit with Justice and Mrs. Felix Frankfurter.” Interview. Thomas Salmon Papers. The Oskar Diethelm Library, DeWitt Wallace Institute for the History of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, Box 1, Folder 1.

Komora, Paul. (Undated, circa 1937). “Visit with Mr. Brumley.” Interview. Thomas Salmon Papers. The Oskar Diethelm Library, DeWitt Wallace Institute for the History of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, Box 1, Folder 1.

“Mental Health America: Our History.” Undated.

Accessed May 3, 2025.

Ozarin, Lucy, and Gary McMillan. “APA History.” Undated.

Accessed August 31, 2023

“Psychiatric Services for Prisoners.” 1916. The Survey. 36: 444.

Russell, W. L. and T.W. Salmon. 1905. “Report of Epidemic of Diphtheria in the Willard State Hospital.” Reprint.  Annual Report, New York State Commission in Lunacy, Oct. 1904. Brandow.

Sicherman, Barbara. 1967. The Quest for Mental Health in America, 1880-1917. Arno Press, 1980. First published as a PhD dissertation in 1967.

Unrau, Harlan D. 1984. Historical Research Study (Historical Component): Ellis Island Statue of Liberty National Historic Monument New York – New Jersey Volume II. U. S. Department of the Interior/National Park Service.

Brian Scanlan

Brian Scanlan is a former publishing executive with an interests in the history of the immigration and medicine. He has a B.A. in history from Rutgers University.

The 18th Amendment established Prohibition in 1920. Groups such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League believed alcohol consumption was responsible for the social problems such as domestic violence, crime and poverty which caused them to contribute to the implementation of prohibition laws.² Through a legal ban of the manufacture or sale of alcohol, many believed “prohibition would re-create a socially ordered community through the establishment of Protestant middle/class values.”³ Prohibition directly impacted the immigrant communities such as the Irish, Italians, and Germans as drinking was deeply ingrained in their culture and traditions. Native born Americans expected immigrants would “conform to the dominant English Protestant culture,” and prohibition attempted to legally enforce this conformity.⁴ Instead, the immigrant communities tended to oppose the prohibition which further exposed how the movement failed to unite the population through enforcement. Law enforcement often targeted immigrants as speakeasies and bootlegging operations were frequently associated with their neighborhoods. Prohibition’s restrictive laws fueled resentment and widened cultural divides, reinforcing nativist prejudices.⁵ Figures such as Al Capone and George Moran rose to prominence through these large smuggling and distribution operations which further established organized crime within immigrant communities.

While many viewed Prohibition as a progressive step towards social order and homogeneity, instead it marked the rise of powerful organized crime groups who profited off the illegal liquor trade. These gangs acquired immense wealth and political influence through bribery and coercion; “there were fortunes to be made from the illicit trade, and prohibition agents were not up against individual law breakers, but faced well-organized and well-mannered gangs.”⁶ Law enforcement and the government were easily persuaded and often turned a blind eye to organized crime activities potentially out of fear or financial pressure. These tactics led to the increase in violence and corruption in both the political and social spheres. These factors created the environment of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and allowed organized crime to thrive. 

 The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was not just an isolated event, but part of a broader pattern of increasing gang violence present in the 1920s. The massacre exposed the violent basis of organized crime competition and the limits of law enforcement in an era of mass corruption. This Massacre emphasized the tensions between rival gangs while fueling public outrage. It effectively demonstrated how prohibition failed as the movement promoted lawlessness and corruption rather than temperance. Ultimately, the increase in organized crime and violence exposed the failures of Prohibition and contributed to its eventual repeal in 1933.

Citations

Footnotes

1. The Mob Museum in downtown Las vegas. Accessed April 2, 2025. https://themobmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/trio.jpg.  ︎
2. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s, ed. Eric Foner (New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1995), 229. ︎
3. Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 228. ︎
4. Dumenil, The Modern Temper,204. ︎
5. Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 230. ︎
6. Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 233. ︎

Bibliography

“Divisions.” Labor & Capital, America in the 1920s, Primary Sources for Teachers, America in Class, National Humanities Center. Accessed April 2, 2025. https://americainclass.org/sources/becomingmodern/divisions/text6/text6.htm. 

McDonough, Daniel. “Chicago Press Treatment of the Gangster, 1924-1931.” Illinois Historical Journal 82, no. 1 (1989): 17–32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40192250.

The Mob Museum in downtown Las vegas. Accessed April 2, 2025. https://themobmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/trio.jpg. 

Erin Pryor

Erin Pryor is a History and Philosophy double major in the Honors Program, graduating with the Class of 2025. She is a writing consultant on campus at the Center for Reading and Writing. She is the president of Phi Alpha Theta history honors society and a member of Phi Alpha Delta pre-law fraternity.

Ross’ Early Years

Nellie Tayloe Ross was born on November 29, 1876, in St. Joseph, Missouri, on a plantation owned by her maternal grandfather in Andrew County. Her parents were James Wynns Tayloe and Elizabeth Blair Green. Nellie’s family had been devastated by the Civil War’s aftermath; in response, she had always feared poverty. Ross’ education was facilitated by her brothers who aided in helping her learn how to read when she was 5 years old. She attended the Maxwell School with her brothers. To achieve a more successful future, her family moved to Miltonvale, Kansas. She attended the United Presbyterian Church and her mother was involved in women’s suffrage. Here, she witnessed her mother in a position of leadership, a position which her father had respected. Her southern upbringing and her mother had influenced her political beliefs. She remained a Democrat for most of her life and gained the belief from her mother that women’s traditional roles were compatible with public responsibilities.² After her mothers death, her family moved back towards the Missouri river into Omaha, Nebraska. There, she became a kindergarten teacher. In 1900, she went to visit relatives in Tennessee where she met and married her husband, William Ross. They moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1902 and had four boys together. William started his own law practice and got involved in politics. He ran for governor and won with the state’s failing economy as his main concern.

The Election of Nellie Tayloe Ross

On September 25, 1924, her husband underwent an appendectomy. He died on October 2, just one month before the general election. The Democratic Party asked Nellie Tayloe Ross to be their candidate and after much convincing, she agreed. Both the Republican and Democratic parties held their conventions in Cheyenne on October 14 to choose their candidates. The Republican Party nominated Casper attorney and politician Eugene J. Sullivan. After receiving the Democratic nomination, Ross remained at home and let her friends lead the campaign. Political advertisements encouraged voters to support Ross because she promised to carry out her husband’s policies. This included policies that helped the economy and workers. They also portrayed her opponent, Sullivan, as a supporter of the founder of Sinclair Oil, Harry Sinclair, who was involved in the Teapot Dome Scandal. One advertisement in The Buffalo Voice encouraged voters to “Beat Texas to It,” encouraging Wyoming to become the first state to elect a female governor, as Miriam “Ma” Ferguson was also running for governor in Texas.⁶ While both Ross and Ferguson were the first women elected as governors in the U.S, Ross was sworn in first, earning her the title of “First Female Governor of the United States”. She defeated Sullivan by more than 8,000 votes. In addition, she even outperformed Republican Francis E. Warren, Wyoming’s senior U.S. Senator.⁷ On January 5, 1925, she was sworn in as governor of Wyoming during an inauguration ceremony in the Senate chambers in Cheyenne. She served as governor from 1925 to 1927.

Ross’ Governorship: Politics, Law, Economics, Prohibition, & Agriculture

The 1920s has the reputation of being a time of prosperity, economic growth, and the boom of the stock market. However, it differed from state to state. Before the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, Wyoming was facing an economic depression. Ross would be among the governors who confronted this depression. Wyoming’s economy depended on livestock, business, farming, coal production, and the Union Pacific Railroad. In post-WW1 Wyoming, the loss of government contracts, declining demand for certain commodities, deflation, and the 1919 drought contributed to this economic depression. To tackle these problems, Ross proposed a plan to address the state’s budget deficit and outlined strategies for managing it. She found that railroad property values were lower than those in neighboring states and that many mining corporations owned large amounts of property while avoiding taxes. She believed that more equitable taxation could help resolve the issue. In the 1920s, businesses and businessmen were becoming more idealized, striving to present a more polished and positive image. At the same time, the issue of business taxes became a significant concern in response to previous revisions to tax laws. People, such as Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, sought to reduce business tax, while Ross was concerned with equitable tax within her state.⁸ Following this, she discovered that falling oil prices were causing shortfalls and that light oil production was decreasing. In response, she supported producing more black oil and using it to build state’s highways. To her disappointment, her proposals to explore commercial possibilities for black oil were declined. Banks were also failing. Between 1920-1924, 68 state and national banks had failed in Wyoming. Half had closed by 1924.⁹ To address banking closures, Ross proposed laws to protect banks and depositors. This included laws that made sure that people wouldn’t lose their money if a bank failed. Lastly, Ross answered to further tax concerns by supporting a bill that would give one-third of mineral royalties to public schools. This would help with reducing local taxes. However, it was not approved by the legislature.

When we think of the 1920s, we also often think of Prohibition, a time when alcohol was banned across the U.S. During the late 19th century and into the 1920s, women had entered the political arena. One popular reform amongst them was Prohibition. This led to the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act that made the production, sale, and transportation of alcohol illegal. Women supported Prohibition because they believed male drinking led to reckless behavior, such as sexual excess, which harmed women and children in the home.¹¹ Ross, like these women, supported this law. She believed that the purchaser of alcohol was just as guilty as the bootlegger. She proposed a bill to enforce this, however, it was later declined by the legislature. During her term, she had to deal with two sheriffs who were involved in alcohol related acts. She received and agreed to a request from District Court Judge Metz to allow an investigation into Park County Sheriff William Loomis.¹² Loomis was accused of accepting pay from alleged bootlegger, Fay Willford, in protection money. Loomis faced charges for serving confiscated alcohol to prisoners, accepting bribes and protection money from Willford and James P. Morgan in relation to whiskey on Morgan’s property, and for appearing intoxicated in public. Ross ordered a removal of Loomis who she deemed unfit for his position. On June 17, 1925, The Park County Herald reported that “The Governor (Ross) having heard all the evidence, does find generally against the defendant, William H. Loomis”.¹³ Another Sheriff named Scott Hazen was charged with appearing intoxicated in public, taking confiscated alcohol for his own use, getting involved in a plan to transport and sell alcohol, and failing to serve warrants to known bootleggers while allowing speakeasies to operate. In response to his future hearings on this matter, he resigned from office.

In addition, Ross also dealt with several other issues, including farm and agricultural concerns, and protecting Wyoming’s claims to Colorado River water. Farm foreclosures and low prices were an issue in Wyoming. This prevented the settlement and expansion of farms on federal projects in Wyoming. Under her husband’s governorship, he had created a farm loan program which she continued by making it permanent. Later, Ross convinced Elwood Mead, the man behind water laws, and the Secretary of Interior, Herbert Work to review these projects. Mead explained that he could only point out the problems, and it was up to farmers and state officials to determine the additional funds and introduce legislation to address those issues. Ross worked with a man named George Kreutzer from the Bureau of Reclamation to address these issues. She used local newspapers to collect farmer’s concerns and seek help from the Bureau of Reclamation. She also created a reclamation committee made up of farmers to explain their challenges and issues to the Bureau of Reclamation.¹⁴

Women’s Rights, Feminism, Reform and Ross’ Views on Women

Beginning in the late 19th century and continuing into the 1920s, the “new woman” became more active in politics, with Ross serving as an example. They became political actors and lobbied for progressive reform. Suffrage was one of these reforms. Through this, women had gained the right to vote in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Wyoming, the state where Ross governed, however, already became the nation’s first suffrage state in 1869. This prompted many people and newspapers to declare Wyoming as the “Equality State”, further encouraging the election of Ross. Other reforms that “the new woman” supported included labor laws, which Ross had also aligned with. A suffragist named Grace Hebard had written to Ross in regards to a child labor bill. Ross responded by confirming her position on this issue claiming that the bill would be an important step in protecting the children of America. However, her child labor bill was later declined by the senate because of fear it would interfere with the rights of parents to give their children working roles.¹⁶ She also advocated for protective legislation to support female employees, but this proposal was also rejected. Ross continued to be dedicated to maintaining the welfare of workers. She supported and proposed mine safety legislation. These legislations were successfully approved.

While women became increasingly involved in politics, their views on women’s rights varied. Women, like Alice Paul and The Woman’s Party, advocated for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) that guaranteed equal rights for men and women. They believed that while suffrage was a major breakthrough in women’s political equality, the ERA would answer to the remaining limitations that women faced. This included the inability to execute contracts, unequal wages, and marriage property rights. In 1923, the legislation was introduced to Congress. Women like Julia Lathrop and Frances Perkins emphasized women’s distinctiveness, arguing that special labor protections tailored to their sex were necessary. This led them to reject the ERA in fear that it would undermine sex-based labor legislation that specifically protected women.¹⁷ Like these women, Ross held her own views on women’s roles, rights, and nature, which often left some feminists disappointed. Initially, many women’s rights advocates, suffragettes, and feminists viewed Ross’ election as a great victory. However, some women were left disappointed in Ross’ refusal to prioritize her influence on the women’s rights movement. Instead, she stated that her duty was to the people of Wyoming as their governor. In 1925, Hebard, the same woman who had written to Ross about a child labor bill, also suggested that Ross appoint women to positions in the Child and Animal Protection Board and the University Board of Trustees. This was left unanswered. Hebard continued to suggest that she attend a meeting of the “National League of Women Voters”, which Ross had declined.

Ross did believe in women’s capabilities within the political sphere and encouraged them to seek public office. However, she would often express her belief that a woman’s most important social role was being a wife and a mother. On March 28, 1926, The Brownsville Herald reported that “Although she (Ross) has faith in the future of America’s young womanhood and believes that ‘freedom of the younger generation of women will prove beneficial. Governor Nellie Tayloe Ross holds that the highest position of woman in life is matrimony and motherhood’”.¹⁹ Despite this, it did not stop her from believing in the importance of women in politics and positions of power. She was more concerned with the perception that engaging in politics had “unsexed” her.²⁰ She was committed to proving that despite her role in political power, she was still a feminine woman. In other words, femininity, politics, and public service were all compatible. While she praised motherhood, marriage, and domestic responsibilities, she also made it clear that women should not limit themselves to traditional roles alone.

Ross did not reject the traditional notion of women being wives and mothers. However, another reason for her distance from feminist ideology was the political climate of the 1920s. Politicians and political parties often supported women who did not engage in the feminist movement. If she had explicitly engaged in feminist activism, it is likely that she would not have been chosen as her party’s political candidate. She found herself having to prove that she could be as tough as any male politician while still maintaining her femininity. She advised women to not portray themselves as too “aggressive” when they entered office.²¹ Ross wanted people to support her because she was a capable candidate, not just because she was a woman. She hoped they would focus on her abilities and not discriminate against her because of her sex. In 1926, Ross responded to concerns that the entrance of women in politics would cause them to create havoc by exercising their newfound power. On January 24th, The Washington Post reported that she responded by stating, “It opens to woman the door for unbounded service and challenges her to prove whether she does possess high ideals.”.²² After losing her second-term election, she admitted regretting not doing more to appeal to women and challenge the sexist notions she faced.

Overall, despite Ross’ goal to distance herself from explicit feminist activism, she is still viewed as an important figure to women’s rights. Her title as the first woman governor in the U.S was and is still revered. She inspired other “new women” to get involved in the field of politics.

Wyoming’s Re-Election & Ross’ Post-Term

In 1926, The Democratic Party remained with her as their candidate for the next election. The Republican Party chose Frank Emerson, the state engineer. While Ross had won the 1924 election by a significant amount of votes, she did not succeed in re-election for a number of reasons. The most basic reason was that Wyoming was still an overwhelmingly Republican state, and the party had strengthened once again. Wyoming’s senior U.S. senator, Francis E. Warren, was believed to have been on the brink of passing away of old age. At the same time, Wyoming also had a Democratic junior senator, John B. Kendrick. If Ross had won re-election, she would have had the right to choose the next senior senator.²⁵ Republicans would not have preferred two Democrats. Another reason was that during the 1920s, the Klu Klux Klan had a resurgence, and many had controlled votes. Anti-immigrant sentiments and nativism surged during the decade, with Catholics and Catholic immigrants facing discrimination. Some Republicans portrayed Ross as a Catholic, which the KKK held hatred against. Lastly, Ross was a woman. Many still believed women were incapable of handling politics. Some female voters even believed that Ross didn’t automatically deserve their votes just because she was a woman. The Cody Enterprise reported on a woman who had voiced this. A woman named Mrs. Jenkins stated “What has Mrs. Ross done particularly to deserve the votes of women? Has she ever since taken any interest in Woman’s Suffrage? Has she ever been a delegate to a Woman’s Suffrage convention, to a Woman’s Christian Temperance meeting, to a Woman’s Relief Corps convention, to a meeting of the Federation of Woman’s clubs for Wyoming?.”.²⁶ However, while she had lost, she remained in politics and Democratic women’s groups. In the 1930s, she became a campaign orator and was even later on appointed as Director of the U.S Mint by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Significance

I chose Nellie Tayloe Ross’s achievement of becoming the first female governor in the U.S. because of my interest in women’s history. I was surprised to learn that a woman had already become a state governor as early as the 1920s. Ross’s victory was widely reported, with many 1920s newspapers covering her historic achievement and status as the first woman governor. It was perceived as a significant accomplishment.

The story of Nellie Tayloe Ross both reinforces and complicates our understanding of the decade. Common themes of the 1920s are flappers, economic prosperity, and prohibition. Flappers are known to have been young “new women” who strayed away from restrictive and traditional female roles. However, Ross represents a different kind of “new woman” who did the same. She was a woman involved in politics. Another aspect that her story demonstrates is that while women were increasingly becoming involved in politics, some had to distance themselves from feminism in order to gain support from male peers. Ross’ distance from feminism and her commitment to continuing what her husband left behind may explain why newspaper coverage of her victory was more positive than many people today would expect.

The theme of Prohibition is something many associate with the 1920s and Ross’ time as governor demonstrates that it is an accurate depiction. Prohibition had Americans question the amount of power the federal government possessed. Many people and certain senators argued that it violated the constitution by limiting states’ rights.²⁷ However, Ross’ stance on strict prohibition enforcement demonstrated that some state leaders supported it. She proved this by confronting two sheriffs who were accused of crimes associated with it.

Finally, Ross’s story complicates the common image of the 1920s as being filled with prosperity and fun. Wyoming was a state that was going through an economic depression and Ross’s election loss exposed a darker side of the decade. ​The KKK had reemerged and gained some influence in the political sphere.

Bibliography

Mackey, Mike. “Nellie Tayloe Ross and Wyoming Politics.” Journal of the West 42, no. 3 (2003): 25–34.https://research-ebsco-com.library2.ramapo.edu:2443/linkprocessor/plink?id=f5cae36e-3b49-3ace-ba5b-0cabe6b1f206

Scharff, Virginia. “Feminism, Femininity, and Power: Nellie Tayloe Ross and the Woman Politician’s Dilemma.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 15, no. 3 (March 1, 1995): 87–106. doi:10.2307/3346786.

Scheer, Teva J. 2005. Governor Lady: The Life and Times of Nellie Tayloe Ross. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.http://site.ebrary.com/id/10129006.

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.

“Beat Texas to It, and Elect Woman Governor,” The Buffalo Voice (Buffalo, Johnson County, WY), October 17, 1924. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92067096/1924-10-17/ed-1/seq-1/.

“Wyoming Inaugurates Nellie Tayloe Ross—First Lady Governor in United States.” Park County Herald (Cody, Wyo.), January 7, 1925. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92066928/1925-01-07/ed-1/seq-1/.

“Her Excellency, The Governess.” The Challis Messenger (Challis, Idaho), January 14, 1925. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88056159/1925-01-14/ed-1/seq-3/.

“Evening Star.” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), January 18, 1925. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1925-01-18/ed-1/seq-96/.

“Wyoming Senate Rejects Child Labor Amendm’t.” The Cody Enterprise (Cody, Wyo.), January 21, 1925. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92066929/1925-01-21/ed-1/seq-1/.

“Armed Prohibition Force Guards Gov. Nellie Ross.” The Washington Post (1923-1954), April 11, 1925. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post, pg. 1.

“Gov. Ross Removes Loomis from Office.” Park County Herald (Cody, Wyo.), June 17, 1925. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92066928/1925-06-17/ed-1/seq-4/.

“Matrimony Is Proper Thing.” Brownsville Herald (Brownsville, Tex.), March 28, 1926. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86063730/1926-03-28/ed-1/seq-5/.

“Woman Governor Sees No Havoc in Vote for Her Sex: Merely Opens Door…,” The Washington Post (1923-1954), January 24, 1926. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post, pg. A7.

“Clean Politics Urged On Women.” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), December 2, 1926. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1926-12-02/ed-1/seq-27/.

“Prominent Wyoming Lady Says Mrs. Ross Not Entitled to Woman Vote—Sympath Not Issue.” The Cody Enterprise and the Park County Herald (Cody, Wyo.), October 13, 1926. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92066930/1926-10-13/ed-1/seq-4/.

Rockpile Museum. Nellie Tayloe Ross for Governor. Postcard, 1926. Catalog No. 2004.025.0005. Accessed March 21, 2025. https://rockpilemuseum.pastperfectonline.com/archive/E78C4C54-6A62-4033-A6E8-793416583805.

Bettmann Archive. Nellie Ross and Eleanor Roosevelt. Photograph. July 1928.

Bettmann Archive. Governor Nellie Tayloe Ross Opens Gimbels. Philadelphia, 1926.

Bain News Service. Gov. Nellie T. Ross. [ca. 1915–1920]. George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/2014709682/.

Featured image: Bettmann Archive. Nellie Tayloe Ross Making a Speech with Clarence Morley, 1924.

Additional Resources

Nellie Tayloe Ross. YouTube video, 7:00. Posted by Wyoming PBS, 7 years ago.

National Governors Association. “Nellie Tayloe Ross.” National Governors Association. Accessed March 17, 2025. https://www.nga.org/governor/nellie-tayloe-ross/.

Rea, Tom. “The Ambition of Nellie Tayloe Ross.” WyoHistory.org, November 8, 2014. Accessed March 17, 2025. https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/ambition-nellie-tayloe-ross.

Wyoming History Day. “Nellie Tayloe Ross, First Woman Governor in the United States.” Wyoming History Day. Accessed March 17, 2025. https://www.wyominghistoryday.org/theme-topics/nellie-tayloe-ross-first-woman-governor-united-states

“Nellie Tayloe Ross: Wyoming, United States’ First Female Governor.” Wyoming Public Media, January 10, 2025. https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/open-spaces/2025-01-10/nellie-tayloe-ross-wyoming-united-states-first-female-governor.

“Nellie Tayloe Ross Papers, 1900-1977.” Archives West, accessed March 24, 2025. https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:80444/xv317842.

“Nellie Tayloe Ross.” Digital Public Library of America, accessed March 24, 2025. https://dp.la/search?q=Nellie+Tayloe+Ross.

Lucht, Tracy, and Chelsea Davis. “Gender, Race, and Place in Newspaper Coverage of Women ‘Firsts’ after the Nineteenth Amendment.” Journalism History 47, no. 4 (October 2, 2021): 333–52. doi:10.1080/00947679.2021.1982564.

Citations

1. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images, Governor Nellie Tayloe Ross Opens Gimbels, Philadelphia, featuring Ellis Gimbel, Governor Ross, and Mayor Kendrick of Philadelphia; Bain News Service, Gov. Nellie T. Ross, [ca. 1915–1920], George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2014709682/. ︎
2. Teva J. Scheer, Governor Lady: The Life and Times of Nellie Tayloe Ross (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2005), 27. ︎
3. Wyoming Inaugurates Nellie Tayloe Ross—First Lady Governor in United States,” Park County Herald (Cody, Wyo.), January 7, 1925, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92066928/1925-01-07/ed-1/seq-1/. ︎
4. “Her Excellency, The Governess.” The Challis Messenger (Challis, Idaho), January 14, 1925. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88056159/1925-01-14/ed-1/seq-3/. ︎
5. Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), January 18, 1925. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1925-01-18/ed-1/seq-96/. ︎
6. “Beat Texas to It, and Elect Woman Governor,” The Buffalo Voice (Buffalo, Johnson County, WY), October 17, 1924. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92067096/1924-10-17/ed-1/seq-1/. ︎
7. Mike Mackey, “Nellie Tayloe Ross and Wyoming Politics,” Journal of the West 42, no. 3 (2003): 26. ︎
8. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 32-35. ︎
9. Scheer, Governor Lady, 74. ︎
10. “Armed Prohibition Force Guards Gov. Nellie Ross,” The Washington Post (1923-1954), April 11, 1925. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post, pg. 1. ︎
11. Dumenil, Modern Temper, 229. ︎
12. Mackey, “Nellie Tayloe Ross and Wyoming Politics,” 28. ︎
13. “Gov. Ross Removes Loomis from Office.” Park County Herald (Cody, Wyo.), June 17, 1925. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92066928/1925-06-17/ed-1/seq-4/ ︎
14. Mackey, “Nellie Tayloe Ross and Wyoming Politics,” 30. ︎
15. “Wyoming Senate Rejects Child Labor Amendm’t.” The Cody Enterprise (Cody, Wyo.), January 21, 1925. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92066929/1925-01-21/ed-1/seq-1/. ︎
16. Scheer, Governor Lady, 83. ︎
17. Dumenil, Modern Temper, 105.
    ︎
18. “Clean Politics Urged On Women.” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), December 2, 1926. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1926-12-02/ed-1/seq-27/. ︎
19. “Matrimony Is Proper Thing,” Brownsville Herald (Brownsville, Tex.), March 28, 1926, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86063730/1926-03-28/ed-1/seq-5/. ︎
20. Virginia Scharff, “Feminism, Femininity, and Power: Nellie Tayloe Ross and the Woman Politician’s Dilemma,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 15, no. 3 (1995): 88. ︎
21. Scharff, “Feminism, Femininity, and Power,” 88. ︎
22. “Woman Governor Sees No Havoc in Vote for Her Sex: Merely Opens Door…,” The Washington Post (1923-1954), January 24, 1926. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post, pg. A7. ︎
23. Nellie Tayloe Ross for Governor, postcard, 1926, Catalog No. 2004.025.0005, Rockpile Museum, accessed March 21, 2025, https://rockpilemuseum.pastperfectonline.com/archive/E78C4C54-6A62-4033-A6E8-793416583805. ︎
24. Bettmann Archive, Nellie Ross and Eleanor Roosevelt, photograph, July 1928. ︎
25. Mackey, “Nellie Tayloe Ross and Wyoming Politics,” 31. ︎
26. “Prominent Wyoming Lady Says Mrs. Ross Not Entitled to Woman Vote—Sympath Not Issue,” The Cody Enterprise and the Park County Herald (Cody, Wyo.), October 13, 1926. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92066930/1926-10-13/ed-1/seq-4/. ︎
27. Dumenil, Modern Temper, 29. ︎

grlynn

Grlynn is a Ramapo College senior majoring in history

When I think about the 1920s, the immediate picture I believe many, including myself, imagine is that of flappers, speakeasies, music, and dances such as “The Charleston.” The 1920s is sometimes referred to as the “Roaring Twenties.”. It was the decade after World War 1 and possesses the reputation of being a time of prosperity, economic growth, consumerism, and the boom of the stock market. However, I know this is mostly a stereotypical image of the 1920s instead of a fully accurate interpretation. 

I view the image of the flapper as a prominent symbol of the 1920s. This decade brought new attention to the rights of women. Women had recently gained the right to vote, granted by the 19th Amendment. It was passed by Congress in 1919. It was ratified in 1920. I recall learning that the new fashion trends of the decade demonstrated the movement of women straying away from the norm and dressing more freely. They rejected the restrictive clothing that was deemed appropriate for women decades prior. Flappers wore shorter dresses that were sleeveless and had a more straight style. For their hair, the bobbed cut increased in popularity. This was a way for young women to rebel and demonstrate their new expression of femininity and independence. The 1920s was also the era of prohibition in the United States. Prohibition, through the 18th Amendment, banned the production, distribution, and sale of alcoholic beverages. It was officially put into effect in 1920. The illegalization of alcohol evokes the image of the illegal activities surrounding alcohol, referred to as bootlegging. It also evokes the image of organized crime within the 1920s. At the end of the 1920s, it is relatively common knowledge that the stock market crashed. This led to The Great Depression, ending a time of prosperity. 

In addition to the image and stereotype the 1920s evokes within America and American society, I am aware of the history of political tensions outside the country, including Europe and Asia. Last semester, I took a course on socialism and communism. This course explored the influence communism had in European and American politics throughout the late 19th century and the 20th century. These political movements and tensions had made their way into the decade of the 1920s. An event that occurred in the United States regarding the increasing fear of communism was the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti. Sacco and Vanzetti were Italian immigrants in the United States who were accused of murder and robbery. They were viewed as political radicals and anarchists. The fear of political ideologies considered radical, such as communism and socialism, coupled with anti-immigrant sentiments, led to the conviction and execution of these two men. I am also aware of the events that took place within Russia in 1922. The Russian Civil War had ended, and Russia transitioned into a socialist state. The Soviet Union was officially established, inspiring political movements in other regions.

My Impression on Images from the 1920s

While searching images of the 1920s, I came across these two pictures:

1. Louis Armstrong House and Archives. “Louis Armstrong with His Hot Five.” The Roaring 20s. Accessed January 28, 2025. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/crash-roaring-20s/.

This image is of Louis Armstrong and his “Hot Five” band. Louis Armstrong is a famous Jazz musician who started his first jazz recording band in the 1920s. After looking at this image, it confirms the image of the 1920s as a time of music and dance. I know that jazz music was one of the most popular genres of the decade. The 1920s is also considered to be “The Jazz Age”.

2. “Josephine Baker Performing the Charleston at the Folies Bergère, Paris.” Roaring Twenties. Accessed January 28, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties.

This image is of Josephine Baker, an African-American-born dancer and actress. She performed in Paris and danced “The Charleston.” She gained popularity mostly in Europe. This image confirms my initial image of the 1920s as a time of dance and performance. It also demonstrates a flapper-like appearance.

While these two images of Louis Armstrong and Josephine Baker confirm a popular image of the 1920s, It also leads me to think about a darker side of the 1920s. African Americans were still experiencing racial discrimination, segregation, and violence. Despite this, it seems African Americans played an important role in the culture of the 1920s through the expression of art and music.

Bibliography

Louis Armstrong House and Archives. “Louis Armstrong with His Hot Five.” The Roaring 20s. Accessed January 28, 2025. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/crash-roaring-20s/.

“Josephine Baker Performing the Charleston at the Folies Bergère, Paris.” Roaring Twenties. Accessed January 28, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties.

grlynn

Grlynn is a Ramapo College senior majoring in history

The Rosewood Massacre occurred from January 1 to January 7, 1923. This week of terror took place in Rosewood, Levy County, Florida, United States. It was a race riot that occurred in a black rural community.

The town of Rosewood was established in 1847 near the Gulf of Mexico. In its early beginnings, it relied on the timber industry. Cedarwood trees were fruitful there, and due to the reddish color of the wood, the town was there by named Rosewood. There were originally both black and white residents, but when most of the cedar trees were cut down for profit, the economy decreased, and most whites moved to other towns, such as Sumner. Sumner was a predominantly white town, and by the year 1900, Rosewood was now a predominantly black community. Sumner and Rosewood were generally friendly towards each other, that is, until the beginning of 1923.¹

Rosewood was a pleasant town. They had a school, different types of mills, three churches, two general stores, and a baseball team called the Rosewood Stars. There were about a dozen houses where some families even owned middle-class goods such as pianos and organs. About eighteen to twenty-five families were living in Rosewood.² The general consensus was that Rosewood was that it was a nice place to live and had nothing negative to say. Robie Mortin, a survivor of the Rosewood Massacre, said, “Rosewood was a town where everyone’s house was painted. There were roses everywhere you walked.”³

Before the week-long massacre, Rosewood was a nice, beautiful, quiet, and primarily black town. It was a whistle-stop on the Seaboard Air Line Railway, where people traveling would go to fill up on necessities. No one would stay long at whistle stops, and they were deemed to be swift and unimportant visits.⁴

The massacre started when a white woman accused a black drifter named Jesse Hunter of assaulting her in Sumner. The woman was Frances “Fannie” Taylor. She was twenty-two years old, married to a thirty-year-old man named James, and had two children. Neighbors and people living in the town stated that Taylor was very aloof, not well known, and very peculiar overall. Taylor’s face was indeed bruised when she made her claim, and she asserted she was not raped by the man, only beaten. Her neighbors, who arrived when they heard her screaming, could not find anyone else in the house despite Taylor saying there was a black man present. Sarah Carrier, a black woman living in Rosewood, worked for Taylor the day of the alleged attack. Carrier and her granddaughter Philomena Goins said they both saw a white man leave the Taylor house on the morning of January 1, 1923. This opposes what Taylor’s neighbors said. Carrier’s words meant very little, though, and she was shot dead and burned in her house during the massacre.⁵ In spite of being beaten, rumors spread that Taylor was raped and robbed, which fueled anger among the white mob at an exponential rate.⁶

Jesse Hunter, the accused man, was a Rosewood resident and was lynched by several white men from neighboring towns after Taylor’s claims were made public. These men hunted for him, and after his lynching, a mob consisting of several hundred white individuals started to reign down in the countryside to hunt for more black people, where the Rosewood massacre soon transpired.⁷

Every building in Rosewood was burnt down or demolished, tragically with people still inside. During the massacre, the citizens of Rosewood either hid in their houses, tried to run, fought back, and ran to adjacent swamps. Those who hid in the swamps were there for days until they were rescued and sent to different towns for hospitalization for hypothermia and wound care.⁸

The impact the Rosewood Massacre had was not only physical but mental and emotional, especially for the women and children. Minnie Lee Mitchell Langley, just nine years old at the time, witnessed her uncle almost being lynched, her great-grandmother killed, her cousin kill and injure others in order to save the family and to run and hide in the woods and swamp until the massacre ended. Minnie Lee, who was eighty years old at the time of her story being told, can still feel how cold the nights were when she saw the enormous flames of the Rosewood buildings being burned from the swamp. Minnie Lee recounted her story in 1993, at age 79. She was one of five women who survived the massacre who were willing to testify.⁹

After the Rosewood Massacre, the town was abandoned. No one, either black or white, moved back. The site was officially cleared, and the empty site remained a painful memory. There is now a plaque to commemorate the atrocity.¹⁰

The death tolls are debated. According to officials, at least six black and two white people were killed, with numerous people injured and traumatized. Some survivors claim that twenty-seven black residents were murdered and that the number of white deaths was also higher. Minnie Lee stated that she stepped over many white bodies, which is contradictory to the official death records. Perhaps the public did not want to say there were more white deaths. In 1984, a newspaper estimated that one hundred fifty people died, which others claim to be an exaggeration and misinformation.¹² 

However, very few official records and documents about the Rosewood Massacre exist. Even the survivors and their descendants, as well as the perpetrators, did not speak about the Rosewood Massacre. It was not until the 1980s, sixty years after the event, that it started to gain publicity, and there was a demand for an investigation. Since so much time has passed, many survivors are too elderly or have passed away to testify or hear their stories, meaning there is little to confirm or deny the many claims.¹³

There were attempts to receive justice for the Rosewood Massacre. First, there was a pursuit to sue Florida for the failure to protect the black community in Rosewood. Then, in 1993, the Florida Legislature had finally commissioned a report on the Rosewood Massacre. In its findings, Florida gave the survivors and their descendants financial compensation for the physical damages that occurred due to the racial violence. However, many do not think this was enough. In 1997, there was a feature film dedicated to the Rosewood Massacre, directed by John Singleton, called Rosewood. It is an excellent film and stars Don Cheadle, Ving Rhames, Jon Voight, and Esther Rolle. Minnie Lee served as help in the set design. The film does have mixed reviews, as it offers a fictional story amidst the panic and there is a “happy ending.” In 2004, Florida designated the site where Rosewood was as a Florida Heritage Landmark, where people can visit a plaque and pay their respects.¹⁴

Minnie Lee testified in the 1994 Florida House of Representative hearing In The Matter For Relief Of Arnett T. Goins, Minnie L. Langley, et. al, Claimants vs. State of Florida, Respondent. The other four women were Robie Robinson Mortin, Mary Magdalene Hall, Margie Hall Johnson, and Dorothy Goins Hosey.¹⁵ Each woman got $150,000 but will never be the same.¹⁶

Dr. Carolyn Tucker said that those who testified exhibited signs of post-traumatic stress disorder and that the massacre had a negative impact on their parenting, social, and economic skills.¹⁸ When they were children, the survivors dreamed of being pianists, singers, and politicians, yet those dreams were crushed, and they all became maids, domestic servants, cooks, and other low-paying jobs. Richard Hixson, the hearing officer, said to establish a scholarship fund for the Rosewood families and descendants. The Florida House of Representatives passed the Rosewood Compensation Bill on April 4, 1994, in which two million dollars were given to the Rosewood survivors and descendants.¹⁹ 

Significance

In the 1920s, the United States was experiencing a time of rapid social change, and people today typically think of the richness and exuberance of The Great Gatsby when picturing the 1920s. Flappers, gangsters, and lavish parties take up the mind. However, in reality, for black people in the South, things were terrible. Blacks were losing political power, were in dire economic struggles, and were subject to lynchings and terror caused by white residents on a consistent basis.

At this time, other race riots different from the Rosewood Massacre were generally reported. Lynchings also increased exponentially in the 1920s. For example, Florida’s history included the highest records of lynchings against black men in this decade. Just one year before the Rosewood Massacre, in 1922, the Perry Massacre occurred, where whites killed four black men and destroyed Perry, a black community. Charles Strong, a victim of the Perry Massacre, was lynched and burned at the stake.²⁰

Black women were not excused from lynching. According to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), in 1916, two black women named Stella Long and Mary Dennis, both mothers, were lynched. Long had four children, and Dennis was pregnant with her third at the time of their deaths.²¹ 

White supremacy started to be very active, and southern states started to decrease black voters as a way to keep the South white. In the middle of the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) had a peak in membership in Southern states and the Midwest. The KKK had a revival around 1915 due to the influx of black people settling in towns, and society’s views started to change towards social issues and rapid industrialization. The KKKs main targets were African Americans, Jews, Catholics, and immigrants before its ultimate demise in the mid-1920s.²² The KKK supported and executed many white mobs throughout black communities, such as Rosewood, where the authorities did little to nothing. Rosewood is just one of many unfortunate communities terrorized and abandoned by white supremacists and racists.²³

To contextualize, the 1920s was also when prohibition started. Prohibition was not just about alcohol, but it gave power and dominance to white Anglo-Saxon Protestants in American society. These whites controlled the law through prohibition against the ever-growing consciousness of change.²⁵ Working-class citizens, typically African Americans, were more boisterous regarding alcohol consumption. Saloons were popular, as was bare-knuckle fighting, where African Americans and other minorities were able to let loose and have alcohol as a point of leisure and outlet.²⁶ 

In addition to working-class leisure, attractions like amusement parks were taken by storm in the 1920s. African Americans and other minority groups were able to express themselves, yet were frequently appropriated by white entertainers.²⁷ Blackface was popular at the time. The Modern Temper talks about Jack, an Americanized Jewish entertainer who performed in blackface. The Jazz Singer helps to see how African American and immigrant performers influenced the new culture that the 1920s is known for. One reason people did blackface was because they offered whites a mask to be more expressive than their Victorian norm.²⁸

The Petersburg Index published a newspaper on January 12, 1923, that focused on the whites who died rather than the atrocious massacre that occurred. It stated that the result of the massacre was from the “brutal assault upon a young white woman,” which paints a different picture. In the newspaper article, it lists those who died and puts the two whites first instead of putting the black victims by age and gender. There is a section in the newspaper article titled “Two Whites Shot Dead” with no highlights on the racist reasons.²⁹ 

The Rosewood Massacre is significant for numerous reasons. Black communities before the 1920s, during the 1920s, and beyond have been threatened and destroyed due to racism. We can see repeats in history to current times, where the violence against BIPOC communities is ever-present.

Citations

Footnotes

1. Wikipedia contributors, “Rosewood massacre.” ︎
2. Maxine D. Jones. “The Rosewood Massacre and the Women Who Survived It.” 194. ︎
3. Wikipedia contributors. ︎
4. Wikipedia contributors. ︎
5. Jones, 195. ︎
6. Wikipedia contributors. ︎
7. Wikipedia contributors. ︎
8. Wikipedia contributors. ︎
9. Jones. ︎
10. Wikipedia contributors. ︎
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood_massacre#/media/File:Rosewood,_Florida_historical_marker_(1).jpg. ︎
12. Jones. ︎
13. Wikipedia contributors. ︎
14. Wikipedia contributors. ︎
15. Jones, 207. ︎
16. Jones, 208. ︎
17. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood_massacre#/media/File:Sara_Carrier.jpg. ︎
18. Jones, 207. ︎
19. Jones. ︎
20. Wikipedia contributors. ︎
21. Jones, 193. ︎
22. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper (Hill and Wang). 9. ︎
23. Wikipedia contributors. ︎
24. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood_massacre#/media/File:Rosewood_1923_map_from_Tropic_Magazine.jpg. ︎
25. Dumenil, 9. ︎
26. Dumenil, 81. ︎
27. Dumenil, 81. ︎
28. Dumenil, 81. ︎
29. Newspaper ︎
30. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood_massacre#/media/File:Rosewood_Florida_Highway_Marker.jpg. ︎

Bibliography

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper (Hill and Wang).

Jones, Maxine D. “The Rosewood Massacre and the Women Who Survived It.” The Florida Historical Quarterly 76, no. 2 (1997): 193–208. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30146346.

Wikipedia contributors, “Rosewood massacre,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rosewood_massacre&oldid=1219583334.

More Resources

Asante, Molefi Kete. “Litany of Horror: A Survey of Newspaper-Reported Lynchings.” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, no. 43 (2004): 116–23. https://doi.org/10.2307/4133570.

Colburn, David R. “Rosewood and America in the Early Twentieth Century.” The Florida Historical Quarterly 76, no. 2 (1997): 175–92. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30146345.

Dye, R. Thomas. “The Rosewood Massacre: History and the Making of Public Policy.” The Public Historian 19, no. 3 (1997): 25–39. https://doi.org/10.2307/3379554.

Edward González-Tennant. “Intersectional Violence, New Media, and the 1923 Rosewood Pogrom.” Fire!!! 1, no. 2 (2012): 64–110. https://doi.org/10.5323/fire.1.2.0064.

Jackson, David H., and Kimberlyn M. Elliott. “African Americans in Florida, 1870-1920: A Historiographical Essay.” The Florida Historical Quarterly 95, no. 2 (2016): 152–93. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44955672.

Newman, Richard. “Rosewood Revisited.” Transition, no. 80 (1999): 32–39. https://doi.org/10.2307/2903166.

Photo Citation: Florida Memory. https://www.floridamemory.com/discover/photographs.

Isabella Apgar

History major and Human Rights and Genocide Studies minor at Ramapo College of New Jersey class of 2025.

 In The Modern Temper, the author does not have a whole chapter relating to the KKK but does have a section explaining their beliefs, wrongdoings, and influence in American culture. I believe that this is connected to conformity and community when looking at it within the book. In the book, it explains how the KKK only believed in protestant Christians and being of the white race, and that every other person who was not in the lines of their ideology was beneath them or outright a disgrace to society. These groups of people and beliefs should be stopped and not continue in their country or in their state. We can see this happening with the Nazi party and Hitler’s discrimination against the Jewish people, and how they are the reason that Germany has all of these problems. These communities or organizations believe different types of people are poisoning their bloodline or are the reason for their problems. 

This way, these organizations and groups are sort of a callback to ideas that have been happening for centuries. As the author explains, the KKK discriminated against African Americans and Catholic Americans due to their beliefs and place in society.! We can see this in America with slavery and religious rhetoric when Irish and Italian immigrants started immigrating to America. Most of them immigrating to America had a different religion than what “standard Americans” had at the time. This also connects with the Nazi Party’s very conservative/far-right ideology. Everyone who looked like a German (blue eyes, blonde hair) and had ancestors who were German was the pure blood of the country, and everyone else was the problem in Germany’s downfall. This is a prime example of a call back to two older ideas because conservatism, or very far-right ideology, has been around for decades. As well as discrimination towards people who are slightly different than you in terms of skin, color, religion, class, etc. 

When looking at the framing of the KKK and the Nazis in their decades, it gives me a better understanding that history commonly repeats itself. When comparing the Nazi Party and the KKK, many of their ideas and ideologies are not that different. If you think about it, imagine if the KKK had the kind of support the Nazi Party had. We could have seen a movement where the KKK could have gotten into power and started spreading their propaganda and discrimination throughout the United States. These two crops are more similar than different. The only thing different was that one of them got to power and the other one faded away over the years. However, we have seen throughout history that discrimination and hate still come around but do not ultimately stay.

Bibliography

• Chao, Jade. 2019. “The Everyday and the Extreme: The Far Right in the USA through the Magnum Archive.” Magnum Photos. November 27, 2019. https://www.magnumphotos.com/newsroom/society/everyday-extreme-far-right-usa-magnum-photos-archive-right-wing-extremism/.
• Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper (1995). 

The 1920s aimed to bring American society to the modern world amidst the political corruption, victimization of industrialization, and growth of the Socialist Party.¹ During this time, many social justice and humanitarian laws were produced, such as milk codes, child labor laws, public health laws, and workers’ compensation.² Amidst this was another very overlooked action: the changing of the death penalty.

The first state execution using lethal gas was at Nevada State Prison in Carson City, Nevada, where Gee Jon, a twenty-nine-year-old Chinese immigrant, was the first human to be given this penalty. The switch occurred because lethal gas was considered more humane than the usual execution style of a firing squad, hanging, and electrocution. If done correctly, people would inhale the gas and, within seconds, become unconscious and choke to death. However, it was almost always done incorrectly, and those would suffer for up to twenty minutes in excruciating pain.³

First, officials initially attempted to pump the gas directly into Gee Jon’s cell while he was asleep. However, it was unsuccessful, as the gas leaked out of his cell. In response, a makeshift gas chamber was set up outside of the prison, in the old butcher shop. The gas chamber was eleven feet long, ten feet wide, and eight feet high and killed at least one cat to test the effectiveness of the gas. When Gee Jon was put inside at 10:00 a.m., after eating a last meal of ham, eggs, toast, and coffee, the electric heater failed. The chamber should have been at 75 °F, the ideal temperature, but was instead at 52 °F due to the broken heater. This caused acid to form a toxic puddle on the ground.^{4 5}

One testimony states that after about five seconds, Gee Jon seemed to lose consciousness, and his head nodded up and down for six minutes. After about ten minutes, he was completely immobile.⁶ However, other sources claim he was in more apparent pain and was being berated by the prison officials. It cannot be precisely known what occurred as it was a closed event, and there are few records. The records that are there contradict each other.

Not everyone was in favor for this execution. Four guards who did not want to participate immediately resigned. Many others, some important officials, sent letters to Nevada State Prison pleading to halt the execution and change his sentence. They thought it was cruel and unusual punishment, and that Gee Jon did not deserve to die.

“From my observations of Gee Jon… I am of the opinion that he is in a mental collapse and in a state of mental irresponsibility amounting to insanity… I hope at this time that you… can see your way clear to commute the sentence of Gee Jon to life imprisonment.”

Nevada State Prison. Record Blank. 15.

During the execution, witnesses claim they thought they smelled almond blossoms, which is believed to be the odor of cyanide, leaking from the chamber. That caused Warden Dickerson, who was present at the time of the execution, to clear the area. After Gee Jon’s death, they opened a vent and put on a fan in the gas chamber to clear the air, and waited to open the door until the puddle on the floor evaporated. At 12:20 p.m., Gee Jons’ body was removed and taken to the prison hospital. Seven doctors pronounced him officially dead, but Warden Dickerson said an autopsy was not allowed because they were worried his body would release the toxic gas.⁷

Official records claim that there is no correlation between using an immigrant for the first gas execution. However, one can infer that it symbolizes progressiveness or shows the deep-rooted racism towards immigrants. First, there is symbolism in using an Asian immigrant for the most modern and humane execution style. It shows a step towards a more accepting country, especially since other countries used “outdated” options. For example, the United Kingdom and Japan primarily used hanging, and the Soviet Union and France used the guillotine. Nevertheless, it can also be viewed in a negative light.

It is no secret that Americans and the government disliked immigrants. The National Origins Act, passed in 1924, heavily excluded the amount of Asian immigrants in the United States.⁸ This act highlights the anti-Asian sentiment during the mid-nineteenth century, specifically on the West Coast and among the Chinese.⁹ Chinese immigrants were particularly discriminated against, which is reflected in a law passed in 1882 that stated the Chinese were a “vilified…debased, corrupting race.”¹⁰ Immigrants as a whole were seen as challenging to American culture and society.¹¹ Americans linked immigrants to the crisis of the cities, making immigration seem like a multifaceted threat to American society.¹²

“CHINESE KILLER MUST DIE TODAY.” Nevada State Journal. February 8, 2024.

People

Hughie Sing was a newly recruited Hip Sing Tong gang member and Gee Jon’s apprentice of two months. Sing found and pointed to Tom Quong Kee as the target for the murder. Sing was nineteen at the age of the shooting and got life imprisonment instead of the death penalty. Sing was born in the United States, which helped his case, unlike Gee Jon who was described as an “illiterate Chinese unacquainted with American customs.” Sing was bilingual, unlike Gee Jon, and was told to cooperate more with the authorities. He was released on parole in 1938.^{13 14} The treatment of Sing versus Gee Jon shows a vast difference. Since Sing was more “American,” he was sentenced to a lesser degree.

Tom Quong Kee was an elderly member of the rival gang, the Bing Kung Tong, in Mina, Nevada. Gee Jon murdered him with a .38 caliber revolver with two shots to the heart.¹⁵

James M. Frame was Hughie Sing’s attorney and Fiore Raffetto was Gee Jon’s attorney. Sing and Gee Jon both pled not guilty. Frame argued that Gee Jon’s punishment was a cruel and unusual punishment, but the appeal was denied. Raffetto filed a writ of certiorari but was unsuccessful. Frame and Raffetto tried to keep the execution from happening up until the deed was done.^{16 17}

Denver S. Dickerson was the warden at the time of Gee Jon’s death and oversaw the execution. Warden Dickerson thought the use of lethal gas was impractical and that the best method of execution was the firing squad.¹⁸

Events and Timeline

America in the 1880s had a very negative view of Chinese immigrants, which marked the height of anti-Chinese sentiment. Like most immigrants, Chinese immigrants were more likely to work in cheap labor jobs. This “took away” job security for Americans, and were perceived as a threat. They were also discriminated against due to their cultural and religious differences.

The death penalty in America in the 1880s was much different than it is now. Hanging was the primary execution style; each state had its own laws regarding the death penalty and execution. Public executions were still common, and people started to advocate more for ending it.

• May 6, 1882: The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed.²¹

From 1900 to 1919, America still had a negative view of Chinese immigrants. Their racial stereotypes were strong in popular culture, which highlighted anti-Chinese sentiment.

The death penalty in American in the 1900-1919 had a shift in thinking. The electric chair was starting to replace hanging as it was considered more humane, execution rates had times of increased and decreased, and there was a stricter checklist to qualify for the death penalty.

• 1913: Nevada invents an “automated firing squad.” This is an execution method where three rifles are mounted on an iron frame, and all fire simultaneously. It is used one time in the execution of Andriza Mircovich.²²

In the 1920s, America regarding the death penalty showed a time of change. They now introduced lethal gas, but it was still not widespread. Execution rates decreased, and instead of the death penalty, there was greater advocacy for rehabilitation, reformative justice, and the right to live.

• March 17, 1921: Assembly Bill No. 104 was passed, which authorized the use of lethal gas in Nevada.
• August 28, 1921: Gee Jon murders Tom Quong Kee.
• February 8, 1924: Twenty-nine-year-old Gee Jon dies by lethal gas in Carson City, Nevada.
• May 26, 1924: The National Origins Act passed, which heavily limited the number of Asian immigrants into the United States.

From the 1940s to the 2000s, America experienced major changes regarding Chinese immigrants. During World War II, America and China were allies against Japan, leading to a better portrayal of Chinese people and immigrants in America. An increase in Chinese immigrants in America in 1965 made them more visible, and there was significant political and social reform advocating for their rights.

From the 1940s to the 2000s America, the death penalty had a significant change. Hanging and electric chair were the most common, yet towards the 2000s, lethal injection was the most favored, the legal procedures and reasons why a person is given the death penalty is stricter than ever, there was an increase in abolishing the death penalty, and the execution rates still fluctuated.

• December 17, 1943: The Chinese Exclusion Act is repealed.
• 1955: Eleven U.S. states adopted lethal gas as their primary method of execution.²³
• May 4, 1990: Donald Harding, also known as Jesse Tafero, was executed by lethal gas in Florida. He was convicted of murder in 1976.
• 1996: A federal appeals court says that California’s statute authorizing lethal gas violated the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments. The primary execution style was replaced by lethal injection.²⁴
• The early 2000s: In California and Missouri, there is a right to choose between lethal gas or injection.

In America in the 2020s, anti-Chinese sentiment grew due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While things are better than they were a hundred years ago, Chinese immigrants and Chinese-Americans are still treated unjustly and unfairly.

In America in the 2020s, a hundred years later after the first lethal gas execution, lethal injection is the primary style as it is the most painless, and more and more people want to end the death penalty.

• January 25, 2024: Kenneth Smith is given the lethal gas execution in Alabama. It is likely to constitute torture, which violates international human rights treaties ratified by the U.S.

Significance

While browsing lesser-known events of the 1920s, this immediately piqued my interest. I had never given the death penalty’s history much thought, so it stood out to me. As I started researching more and more, I realized there was more to this topic than it seemed. The death penalty has been around since humans began walking and has since been a widely debated topic for centuries, with the controversy still ongoing. It is just a prevalent topic now, as it was a hundred years ago when Gee Jon was executed. It also ties into Chinese immigration, which also spans human history. Studying the historiography of the death penalty, not just in the United States, is very interesting, just as the history of immigration. As I was researching, it was fascinating to see the change in the death penalty and Chinese immigration within the United States and compare to how it is now. Presently, the death penalty is still a highly controversial topic that causes quite a stir, which shows the increasing fight for human rights. Chinese immigration and the way Americans view the Chinese and Chinese Americans is a shaky relationship, too. Due to racism and xenophobia, Chinese immigrants and citizens are still heavily discriminated against in the United States. A prime example is the COVID-19 pandemic when anti-Chinese sentiment peaked in the early 2020s. This topic both shows the history of the death penalty and Chinese immigration, where in the present-day conversation, it is vital to stay knowledgeable in the history of it and how it is viewed in the American past.

While lethal gas execution may still whisper within the United States, this torturous method remains largely unused. Nevada State Prison, the infamous starter to the deadly gas execution, executed thirty-two men with this method from 1924-1979. Since then, it has stopped, yet the state’s execution chamber that killed Gee Jon a hundred years ago still remains.²⁵

More Resources

Newspapers.com

“Past to Present: 100 Years Since the United States’ First Lethal Gas Execution, a Recently Renowed Practice.” Death Penalty Information Center. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/past-to-present-100-years-since-the-united-states-first-lethal-gas-execution-a-recently-renewed-practice.

Bibliography

Bye, Raymond T. “Recent History and Present Status of Capital Punishment in the United States.” Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology 17, no. 2 (1926): 234–45. https://doi.org/10.2307/1134506.

Chan, Loren (1975). “Example for the Nation: Nevada’s Execution of Gee Jon”. Nevada Historical Society Quarterly.

“Chinese Killer Must Die Today.” Nevada State Journal. February 8, 2024. https://www.newspapers.com/article/nevada-state-journal/144232683/.

“Death Penalty Information Center.” Death Penalty Information Center, December 1, 2023. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/.

Denno, Deborah W.. “gas chamber”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 Oct. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/topic/gas-chamber.

Gerber, Rudolph Joseph; Johnson, John M. (2007). The Top Ten Death Penalty Myths: The Politics of Crime Control. Greenwood Publishing Group.

“History of the Death Penalty.” Death Penalty Information Center. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/state-and-federal-info/state-by-state/nevada.

Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper (Hill and Wang).

Nevada State Prison. Record Blank.

Reid, John Bevis; James, Ronald Michael (2004). Uncovering Nevada’s Past: A Primary Source History of the Silver State. The University of Nevada Press.

“Waiting on Nevada’s Death Row… 55 years ago.” Nevada State Journal. September 23, 1979. https://www.newspapers.com/article/nevada-state-journal/144232683/.

Wikipedia contributors, “Gee Jon,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gee_Jon&oldid=1213442489.

Featured Image: Nevada State Prison. Gee Jon Mug Shot. Photograph.

Citations

1. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper (Hill and Wang). 17. ︎
2. Modern Temper. 18. ︎
3. Reid, John Bevis; James, Ronald Michael (2004). Uncovering Nevada’s Past: A Primary Source History of the Silver State. University of Nevada Press. ︎
4. Chan, Loren (1976). Example for the Nation: Nevada’s Execution of Gee Jon. Chinese Historical Society of America. ︎
5. “Descriptions of Execution Methods: Gas Chamber”. Death Penalty Information Center. 2010. ︎
6. Reid. ︎
7. Christianson, Scott (2010). Fatal Airs: The Deadly History and Apocalyptic Future of Lethal Gases That Threaten Our World. ABC-CLIO. pp. 49–51. ︎
8. Dumenil. 207. ︎
9. Dumenil. 208. ︎
10. Dumenil. 208. ︎
11. Dumenil. 204. ︎
12. Dumenil. 205. ︎
13. Reid, 108. ︎
14. Chan, 90-106 ︎
15. Wikipedia contributors, “Gee Jon,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gee_Jon&oldid=1213442489. ︎
16. Chan, 90–106. ︎
17. Gerber, Rudolph Joseph; Johnson, John M. (2007). The Top Ten Death Penalty Myths: The Politics of Crime Control. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 9–10. ︎
18. Reid, 108. ︎
19. “Waiting on Nevada’s Death Row… 55 years ago.” Nevada State Journal. September 23, 1979. https://www.newspapers.com/article/nevada-state-journal/144232683/. ︎
20. Nevada State Prison. Record Blank. ︎
21. Dumenil. 207. ︎
22. “Death Penalty Information Center.” Death Penalty Information Center, December 1, 2023. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/. ︎
23. Denno, D. W.. “gas chamber.” Encyclopedia Britannica, October 20, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/topic/gas-chamber. ︎
24. Denno,”gas chamber.” ︎
25. “History of the Death Penalty.” Death Penalty Information Center. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/state-and-federal-info/state-by-state/nevada. ︎

Isabella Apgar

History major and Human Rights and Genocide Studies minor at Ramapo College of New Jersey class of 2025.