Elizabeth Kerri Mahon

“Hello Suckers!” was the regular greeting of the tall, leggy, blonde dripping jewels as the demimonde of New York society crowded into the smoky speakeasy, rubbing shoulders with the criminal class. In the 1920’s Texas Guinan ruled the night, the undisputed Queen of the Night Clubs. A wisecracking, besequined, outrageous dame, who became an exuberant symbol of the Roaring Twenties, as well known as Babe Ruth, Charlie Chaplin and Lucky Lindy. She was extravagant and frivolous, with a heart as large as the state she hailed from. Notorious for her ability to slither through the cracks on nuisance charges, Tex was the best known and loved hostess on the Great White Way, the Toast of Times Square. She was a bundle of contradictions: a good “bad woman” who hung out with gangsters and illegal booze, but who still lived at home with her parents who she supported to the end of her life. She was also a loyal friend who never forgot the people who helped her on the way up, a lover of antiques, an...

This post is borne out of a lecture I attended at the New York Historical Society about Notorious New York women. Everyone has heard the name of Typhoid Mary but how many of us really know who she was or what she did? In the summer of 1906, in the tony resort town of Oyster Bay, Long Island (home to Theodore Roosevelt and part of what they call the Gold Coast on Long Island), the daughter of William Henry Warren, fell ill with typhoid at their rented summer home. Typhoid was a highly contagious communicable disease (Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's consort died from typhoid fever). During the 19th Century, thousands of people died from typhoid fever. In the year 1906 alone, 23,000 people died in the United States. Soon five more people in the Warren household fell ill with the fever, including Warren's wife. Experts were brought in to determine what caused the outbreak. Typhoid fever was usually found in the cities slums where sanitary conditions were primitive. Most tenements ...