The Girl on the Velvet Swing

October 9, 2017
Baatz (For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz Age Chicago) buries the lead in this uneven account of one of the most sensational murders in New York City history, the 1906 murder of architect Stanford White. White was attending a musical revue at Madison Square Garden, a venue he designed, when he was shot three times in full view of the audience. The shooter was a man named Harry Thaw, whose motive was ostensibly chivalrous. He was seeking revenge for the 1901 date rape of his future wife, actress Evelyn Nesbit, and was later found not guilty by reason of insanity. The main narrative presents, without caveats, a chilling account of White drugging Nesbit in his townhouse and raping her while she was unconscious. Oddly, Baatz waits until the afterword to assert that “it is impossible to know if the rape, as Evelyn Nesbit described it, did take place,” revisiting some of the arguments made by the prosecutors during her cross-examination at trial and noting the major differences in Nesbit’s account of the contested encounter decades later in her memoir. Rather than incorporating this analysis into the main narrative, the book presents a thin recounting of the historical record that relies on dramatizations (as with an unsourced description of Thaw’s emotional state during a suicide attempt) and ends with a hollow attempt to give Nesbit’s life lasting significance (“Evelyn Nesbit’s life, in the end, was little different from the lives of millions of others”). Readers interested in understanding this case would be better served by Suzannah Lessard’s The Architect of Desire: Beauty and Danger in the Stanford White Family. 28 b&w photos.

October 15, 2017
The history of a crime of passion that revealed the sordid underside of the Gilded Age. In 1906, millionaire Harry Thaw strode up to Stanford White (b. 1853), who was seated at a theater production in Madison Square Garden, and shot and killed him. Thaw claimed he was avenging the rape of his wife, actress Evelyn Nesbit, which had occurred in 1901, when Nesbit was a 16-year-old chorus girl. The shocking murder and the titillating details disclosed by Thaw's two trials have been chronicled many times by historians as well as by the two protagonists in their gossipy memoirs. Baatz (History/John Jay Coll., CUNY; For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder that Shocked Chicago, 2008, etc.) takes a fresh--though groundbreaking--look at the scandal, drawing mostly on newspaper reports to create a fast-paced narrative. At the time of his murder, White was one of the most esteemed architects in New York, the designer, in fact, of Madison Square Garden. Although married, he was known for his liaisons with pretty young actresses and models, upon whom he bestowed pricey gifts. Anthony Comstock, in his campaign to suppress vice, claimed that White, along with other wealthy men, participated in orgies with young, vulnerable girls. Baatz questions just how vulnerable Nesbit was: even after the alleged rape, she benefited from White's largesse. Thaw was astonishingly wealthy, too, and Nesbit overlooked his often strange behavior to marry him. During a European trip, Nesbit apparently--the author questions the veracity of some testimony--confided details of the rape, which incensed Thaw. Apparently, his anger fomented for years before the killing. Baatz recounts Thaw's trials and testimony, including evidence of Thaw's violent treatment of women. Finally, Thaw was deemed insane and incarcerated in a mental asylum. By the time he escaped, he "had achieved an almost mythic status as the heroic individual who had succeeded against the odds and had emerged victorious." Nesbit, who continued to perform on stage and film, overcame drug addiction to live a quiet life. An entertaining recital of a notorious scandal.

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November 15, 2017
The lives of actress Evelyn Nesbit, architect Stanford White, and millionaire Harry Thaw were intertwined in early 1900s New York. Nesbit met White in 1901 at age 16 while she performed in her first play, and her beauty captured his attention. He soon drugged and raped her. Years later, Nesbit met and married Thaw. She told him about the rape, and he raged about White's crime. The pair encountered White during a 1906 performance at Madison Square Garden, where Thaw shot and killed White in front of an entire audience, claiming it was a justified defense of his wife. Baatz chronicles the events leading up to the murder and the subsequent trials, which scandalized the public. The second half of the book focuses on Thaw and his legal team's debates over his sanity. Readers will appreciate Baatz's exciting, novel-like approach, and those interested in early twentieth-century law especially will enjoy the courtroom scenes. More attention to Stanford's and Thaw's alleged abuses of other young women would have provided additional context about the era.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

February 1, 2018

In 1906, a renowned public figure, a jealous husband, and a beautiful young showgirl set the stage for one of the most sensational trials of the 20th century. Debauchery, seduction, courtroom drama, payoffs and bribes, detention and escape--the high-profile murder of influential New York architect Stanford White had it all. Did wealthy benefactor White drug and rape 16-year-old actress Evelyn Nesbit, as she originally claimed? When playboy tycoon Henry Thaw publicly shot and killed White, was it a crime of honor, passion, revenge, envy, or long-term mental instability? Based primarily on the extensive press coverage of the day and the autobiographies of Nesbit and Thaw, Baatz's (history, City Univ. of New York; For the Thrill of It) account details the events that led up to and surrounded the murder and the lengthy scandals that followed. Sexual impropriety, economic privilege and power, legal and political maneuvers, and the impact of psychological testimony continue to fascinate readers today. VERDICT For those who enjoy true crime procedurals and Gilded Age popular history.--Linda Frederiksen, Washington State Univ. Lib., Vancouver

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2017

The seduction of 16-year-old chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit by womanizing architect Stanford White and White's subsequent murder five years later by Nesbit's playboy millionaire husband Harry K. Thaw are well-known events. New York Times best-selling author Baatz (For the Thrill of It), who holds appointments in history at John Jay College and CUNY's Graduate Center, aims to document and just as thoroughly vivify what really happened. With a 40,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.