Research Catalog

The girl on the velvet swing : sex, murder, and madness at the dawn of the twentieth century

Title
The girl on the velvet swing : sex, murder, and madness at the dawn of the twentieth century / Simon Baatz.
Author
Baatz, Simon
Publication
  • New York : Mulholland Books / Little, Brown and Company, 2018.
  • ©2018

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Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person.

TextUse in library JFE 18-8838Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description
392 pages : illustrations, portraits; 25 cm
Summary
  • A chronicle of the events surrounding the 1906 murder trial of millionaire Harry Thaw details the victimization of teen actress Evelyn Nesbit and Thaw's vengeance-fueled, public murder of legendary architect Stanford White.
  • "In 1901 Evelyn Nesbit, a chorus girl in the musical Florodora, dined alone with the architect Stanford White in his townhouse on 24th Street in New York. Nesbit, just sixteen years old, had recently moved to the city. White was forty-seven and a principal in the prominent architectural firm McKim, Mead & White. As the foremost architect of his day, he was a celebrity, responsible for designing countless landmark buildings in Manhattan. That evening, after drinking champagne, Nesbit lost consciousness and awoke to find herself naked in bed with White. Telltale spots of blood on the bed sheets told her that White had raped her. She told no one about the rape until, several years later, she confided in Harry Thaw, the millionaire playboy who would later become her husband. Thaw, thirsting for revenge, shot and killed White in 1906 before hundreds of theatergoers during a performance in Madison Square Garden, a building that White had designed. The trial was a sensation that gripped the nation. Most Americans agreed with Thaw that he had been justified in killing White, but the district attorney expected to send him to the electric chair. Evelyn Nesbit's testimony was so explicit and shocking that Theodore Roosevelt himself called on the newspapers not to print it verbatim. The murder of White cast a long shadow: Harry Thaw later attempted suicide, and Evelyn Nesbit struggled for many years to escape an addiction to cocaine. The Girl on the Velvet Swing, a tale of glamour, excess, and danger, is an immersive, fascinating look at an America dominated by men of outsize fortunes and the women who were their victims"--Jacket.
Subject
  • White, Stanford, 1853-1906
  • Nesbit, Evelyn, 1884-1967
  • Thaw, Harry Kendall, 1871-1947
  • Murder > New York (State) > New York > Case studies
  • Trials (Murder) > New York (State) > New York > Case studies
  • TRUE CRIME > Murder > General
  • HISTORY > United States > 20th Century
  • HISTORY > Social History
  • Murder
  • Trials (Murder)
  • New York (State) > New York
Genre/Form
  • Case studies.
  • True crime stories.
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (pages 359-380) and index.
Contents
First encounter -- Rape -- Marriage -- Murder -- First trial -- Second trial -- Asylum -- Escape -- Final verdict -- Epilogue.
Call Number
JFE 18-8838
ISBN
  • 9780316396653
  • 0316396656
LCCN
2017942372
OCLC
1018380270
Author
Baatz, Simon, author.
Title
The girl on the velvet swing : sex, murder, and madness at the dawn of the twentieth century / Simon Baatz.
Publisher
New York : Mulholland Books / Little, Brown and Company, 2018.
Copyright Date
©2018
Edition
First edition.
Type of Content
text
still image
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 359-380) and index.
Research Call Number
JFE 18-8838
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