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The true story of the murderesses who became media sensations and inspired the musical Chicago. There was nothing surprising about men turning up dead in Jazz Age Chicago. Life was cheaper than a quart of illicit gin in the gangland capital of the world. But two murders that spring were special, or so believed Maurine Watkins, a "girl reporter" for the Chicago Tribune, the city's "hanging paper." Newspaperwomen were supposed to write about clubs, cooking and clothes, but the intrepid Miss Watkins zeroed in on murderers instead. She made "Stylish Belva" Gaertner and "Beautiful Beulah" Annan--both of whom had brazenly shot down their lovers--the talk of the town. Soon more than a dozen women preened and strutted on "Murderesses' Row" as they awaited trial, desperate for the same attention that was being lavished on Maurine Watkins's favorites.--From publisher description.… (more)
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I picked this up because of my interest in Maurine Watkins and her background as the daughter of a Disciples of Christ minister. However, the book quickly skims over Watkins's life prior to her arrival in Chicago, as well as her life after writing the play.
The book's structure is a little problematic. Leopold and Loeb weren't girls, yet part of the book focuses on their crime and its media coverage. It's included because this crime became the top news story, forcing continuing coverage of the murdering women out of the top headlines.
Overall, the book seems to be carefully researched and well documented. However, I did spot one error. The author states that one of the women in jail for murder, Sabella Nitti, “would be the first woman ever to hang in Illinois.” Most readers probably wouldn't question that statement. However, several generations of my father's family lived in Lawrence County, Illinois, where Elizabeth Reed was the first woman to hang in Illinois in 1845.
Recommended for readers interested in Chicago's history, true crime readers, and fans of the movie or musical.
In 1924 there were a surprising number of murders committed by women in Chicago. Two of the most famous cases involved Beulah Annan and Bella Gaertner. Both women were arrested and tried for murder and both were acquitted. The two women inspired the characters of Roxie Hart (Beulah) and Velma Kelly (Belva) in the 1926 play Chicago (originally called “Brave Little Woman”).
The play was written by Maurine Dallas Watkins. She covered both trials while working as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. She took a course at Yale on play writing and Chicago was the result. It didn’t become a musical until the 1970s. I did think it was fascinating that Beulah and Belva actually saw Chicago performed live!
The entire time I was reading the book I kept hearing all the songs from the musical in my head. When I read about the defense lawyer I heard “All I Care About” and during the descriptions of Beulah roping her husband into covering for a murder she committed “Funny Honey” was on repeat in my brain.
I related the most to the reporter Maureen. She was originally from Crawfordsville, IN, about 15 minutes from the city where I worked when I was first a reporter at a daily newspaper. I actually covered a few trials in Crawfordsville during that time.
Watkins also reported on the famous Leopold and Loeb case, which quickly overshadowed the coverage of the murderesses’ verdicts. It’s interesting how a piece of news can become a huge deal, or so easily be cast aside depending on what else has happened that day. Like celebrities dying on the same day, Michael Jackson’s death left no room for coverage of Farrah Fawcett’s and the same is true for other major events in history. If it had been a slow news day, the women’s acquittals might have been a huge deal, but instead they were barely noted while all eyes focused on the now infamous Leopold and Loeb case, which inspired the film Murder by Numbers and the play Never the Sinner.
So if you’re looking for a great nonfiction read in the same vein as The Devil in the White City or if you’ve ever been curious about the story behind Chicago, this one is for you.
The writing is ok, but sometimes redundant--the author doesn't trust the
I will probably also remember this book as the first book I read on my Kobo e-reader. The e-reader edition lacked pictures and a usable index, both of which I would have really liked to see.
The stories of the various women in this book, including those of Belva Gaertner and Beulah Annan, are interesting snapshots in time. From all walks of life the women portrayed primarily murdered the men in their lives, although at least one of them murdered a stranger during the commission of a burglary. In most cases alcohol was involved (because what Prohibition primarily accomplished was encouraging everyone to drink everywhere, including women) and there is often a hint of boredom right around the edges of the tale.
Perry hasn't written an incisive social history with lots of detailed analysis, but he has told a wonderful pulpy story. Great fun.
Perry relies on both contemporary accounts and later works in his exhaustive research for The Girls of Murder City, but the last adjective that describes this work of narrative nonfiction is “dry.” Its primary subject is the consecutive murder trials of “Beautiful Beulah” Annan and “Stylish Belva” Gaertner - the models for Chicago’s Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly - both in court during the spring of 1924 to defend against charges of shooting and killing men who were not their husbands. Both cases were salacious and scandalous, and Chicago’s many newspapers fed the public appetite for news about the glamorous defendants. Women were rarely convicted of murder by Chicago’s all-male juries - especially if they were good-looking women - but following a couple of recent guilty verdicts, there was more at stake for Beulah and Belva.
Within this framework, Perry also delves into the stories of several other Chicago murderesses of the time, the reporters - mostly women, including Watkins - who told those stories to the public, the way things operated and the challenges faced by women at the newspapers where those reporters worked, and the unrestrained climate of Prohibition-era Chicago, where underground jazz clubs flourished and illegal liquor flowed freely. (If you ask me, Prohibition is an object lesson in irony.) He’s got great material to work with, and he crafts it into a page-turner with a firm sense of its time and place. The pace is brisk, and the writing is vivid and occasionally breathless, but Perry succeeds in putting the reader right in the midst of events, including Watkins’ application of her satirical eye to shape them into a hit, prize-winning stage comedy (the musical adaptation came years later).
The environment described in The Girls of Murder City seems to be the birthplace of the celebrity-obsessed, fame-for-its-own-sake mindset we know all too well these days, and it’s fascinating in much the same way. Despite being almost a century old, the story here has a sense of immediacy and a contemporary feel, and its blend of true crime and modern history absolutely held my attention - even without “The Cell Block Tango.”
I really enjoyed this book! It's very well-researched and not in the way that the author just claims it's well-researched, but in the way that there is documentation to prove it.
I feel like I knew that Chicago was inspired by actual events but I didn't know that the
Crime reporter Maurine Watkins covered the trials of some of a string of women in Chicago charged with killing a man, and watched them declared not guilty through a combination of being young and pretty and having really smart lawyers. The