A Deadly Thrust: The Hatpin Panic

When women discovered newfound freedom on the streets of turn-of-the-century America, they also observed new dangers. When society failed to protect them from those perils, women demanded the right to defend themselves with increasingly violent and un-ladylike methods that sent men into a panic. This episode is about the "Hatpin Panic" and the murders of Elizabeth Mize and William Keller.

Sources:

Abbott, Karen. “‘The Hatpin Peril’ Terrorized Men Who Couldn’t Handle the 20th-Century Woman.” Smithsonian Magazine. April 24, 2014. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/hatpin-peril-terrorized-men-who-couldnt-handle-20th-century-woman-180951219/

Adler, Jeffrey S. “‘I loved Joe, but I had to shoot him’: Homicide by Women in Turn-of-the-Century Chicago.” The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. Vol. 92. 2003. https://homicide.northwestern.edu/docs_fk/homicide/LawJournal/JCLC12.pdf

Bowman, Cynthia Grant and Altman, Ben. “Wife Murder in Chicago: 1910-1930.” The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. Vol. 92. 2003. https://homicide.northwestern.edu/docs_fk/homicide/jclc739-790.pdf

Burnett, Zaron III. “Daggers in Their Hair: The Gilded Age Women Who Fought off Gropers With Deadly Sharp Hatpins.” Mel Magazine. 2022. https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/hatpin-panic-1900s

“Case Number: 1553.” Homicide in Chicago, 1870-1930. Northwestern University School of Law. https://homicide.northwestern.edu/database/1541/

Croyle, Jonathan. “1911: To Make City Safer, Syracuse Considers Taking on a Public Menace: ‘Bristling Hat Pins’.” Syracuse.com. 2021. https://www.syracuse.com/living/2021/01/1911-to-make-city-safer-syracuse-considers-taking-on-a-public-menace-bristling-hat-pins.html

Freedman, Estelle. Redefining Rape: Sexual Violence in the Era of Suffrage and Segregation. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013).

Jones, Mother. The Autobiography of Mother Jones. (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 1974).

Rose, Shari. “Hatpin Panic: How Hat Pins Upended Gender Politics in the 20th Century.” Blurred Bylines. March 4, 2019. https://blurredbylines.com/blog/hatpin-panic-mashers-stabbings-hat-pins/

Segrave, Kerry. 

Beware the Masher: Sexual Harassment in American Public Places, 1880-1930   (Jefferson: MacFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, 2014).

The Hatpin Menace: American Women Armed and Fashionable, 1887-1920 (Jefferson: MacFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, 2016).

Temby, Anna. “‘With daggers in her bonnet’: The Australian Hatpin Panic of 1912. 3rd edition.” Australian Women’s History Network. July 20, 2017. http://www.auswhn.org.au/blog/hatpin-panic/

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Music: Dellasera by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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