From Brooklyn to Broadway: How Bertha Klausner Built America’s Most Innovative Literary Agency

Posted on July 14, 2025 by ahcadmin

This is Part 1 of a two-part series exploring the remarkable life of Bertha Klausner, one of America’s most influential literary agents. Read Part 2 here.

Bertha Klausner was among one of the most influential literary agents in the United States and internationally throughout the twentieth century. 

Born in Brooklyn in 1901 to Austro-Hungarian immigrant parents, she was known for her tireless work ethic, innovative strategies, and deep commitment to her clients during the course of a career that spanned over six decades. Klausner played a pivotal role in the literary, art, and entertainment markets and solidified her role as a trailblazer for women nationally and internationally.1

Bertha Klausner, n.d. Biography File, Bertha Klausner Papers, Coll. No. 9562, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming

Early Years and Family Influence

As a child, and throughout most of her adult life, her father Jacob Adler—a prominent writer who was often referred to as the “Mark Twain of Jewish writers”—introduced Klausner into the world of literature and politics.”2 Her rich educational upbringing was set against a background of economic hardship; consequently she was no stranger to adversity.3

This fact, and the tenacity of her own father to realize his dream of being an influential author, served to shape her leadership and entrepreneurial spirit. These qualities led her to weave together an intricate sphere of influence. These inclinations would serve her well over the course of a career that was marked by resilience and an unyielding dedication to literature, the arts, and above all else her family and clients.

Innovation through the Women’s Exchange

After the 1929 Wall Street crash cost her structural engineer husband his financial backing, Klausner took the family’s last $2,000 and, with two young children in tow, invested it in researching and establishing a Woman’s Exchange in Asbury, New Jersey.4 At the turn of the century Woman’s Exchanges boasted approximately one hundred organizations and, while their numbers have diminished significantly, they continue to be one of the oldest operating charitable organizations in the United States.5 The Federation of Woman’s Exchanges’ website states that while women “received valuable training in retail organization and management, something they could not hope to attain in the male-dominated retail market in the late 1800s and early 1900s . . . its numbers began to die out shortly after women received the right to vote [in 1920] and began to join the work force.”6

Klausner patterned the Asbury Park Exchange after the historic agencies that were first established in the 1830s. They existed in part to address the lack of legal and economic protections for widows in accordance with the doctrine of coverture—the status of married women during the time that placed them lawfully under the control of their husbands, and erased any legal rights they may have had to own their own property, children, or to advocate on their own behalf.

This document predates Klausner’s exchange but shows how carefully exchanges were organized and managed throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The Federation of Woman’s Exchanges still provides guidance for contemporary exchanges across the United States. “Rules of the Richmond Woman’s Work Exchange [broadside],” Social Welfare History Image Portal,
https://images.socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/items/show/545. Accessed April 15, 2025.

While the doctrine of coverture was gradually mitigated at the end of the 19th century and early in the 20th, the need for women to earn an income to support themselves and their families was not. These exchanges were run by women and provided an opportunity for women to submit handiwork which, in turn, would be sold at the exchange. It provided needed income for women and their families as well as charitable organizations.7 In light of this, her efforts did not go unrewarded. Klausner’s biographer, Howell Hurst, noted in his unpublished manuscript that, “[The Exchange] was an instant success. With over 300 carefully-selected women’s handcrafts for sale, Bertha garnered offers from the local mayor and the major department store for financial assistance.”8

Klausner’s initiative proved crucial after bank failures resulted in the loss of her husband’s engineering work, at which time she assumed the role as the primary provider for their family. She engineered an intricate network of housing for her family, rent free, in agreement with banks to take care of mansions left empty after the stock market crash, and afforded a place to live, not just for herself, her husband, and their children, but for a diversity of individuals. These members of her “extended” family provided child care, helped to maintain the household, and prepared meals for them. One of the chefs who resided with the family also cooked at a tea room located at Klausner’s Women’s Exchange.9

Community Leadership

Klausner was also involved in her faith and local communities. In November 1930, she attended a joint session of the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Associations (Y.M.H.A. and Y.W.H.A., respectively). In an article published in The Long Branch Daily Record on November 14, 1930, it was noted that “Mrs. Edward S. Klausner, president of the Y.W.H.A. of Asbury Park” was on the itinerary and presented at the same program alongside her father.10

The first Y.W.H.A. was founded in New York in 1902 and provided “social recreational activities for Jewish working girls and, in some instances, temporary housing, all of which [afforded] ‘hundreds of hard-working girls with a chance of bettering their condition and of helping them, in many cases, from a condition of want and necessity to a place in the world where they can become independent and self-supporting.’”11 Both Klausner and her husband, Edward, were advocates of the communities they lived in and provided leadership and assistance wherever they were needed.

Klausner 1935. From the Ruth Adler Torres family album. Image courtesy of Dennis Torres.

Breaking into Publishing

As though this was “not enough” (which in the storied career of Bertha Klausner is really a phrase that held little or no meaning to her), Klausner was also instrumental in establishing a newspaper, The Monmouth Independent, which played a pivotal role in exposing and dismantling a corrupt local government in Monmouth County, New Jersey, through its investigative journalism and detailed reporting on bribery, embezzlement, and other illegal activities by local officials. Her activities in the publishing world included developing the Independent Publishers Syndicate, which served over 500 papers and became a model for current features such as Parade and This Week.12 These early ventures established her as a formidable businesswoman and paved the way for her later success as a literary agent.

Launching a Literary Career

In 1945, after a career of representing artists and illustrators, the mother of now two adolescents established the Bertha Klausner Literary Agency (which later became the Bertha Klausner International Literary Agency).13 This led to the beginning of a vast and lauded career.

Prior to launching her literary agency, Klausner represented artists (and later authors) including those who were influenced by the Harlem Renaissance (1918-1937).14 This is a facsimile of her business card, pre-1945. Box 13, folder 6, Klausner papers

Building on her success, “in 1945, Klausner transitioned to representing primarily writers, quickly gaining a reputation for her ability to sell diverse literary works, from radio scripts to full-length dramas, to major networks and publishers.”15 Through it all, Klausner challenged the status quo in the marketplace. She undertook this career within the framework of a male-dominated industry. In the early part of the twentieth century only 5% of “most [married] women in the United States [worked] outside of the home, and only 20% of all women were gainfully employed.”16

When Klausner began to focus her attention on the literary side of her agency, women had made some gains. Beginning in the 1940s “approximately 12% of married women were in the labor force and the overall total of women working had risen to 50%.”17 Klausner was well-positioned to capitalize on this growing trend.

The challenges for women in the workplace were further aggravated following World War II when the large number of women who had entered the workforce during the war faced pressure to leave and make room for returning servicemen. “Seventy-five percent of women who were employed during the conflict in the 1940s indicated that they wanted to stay in the workforce; however, despite this, there were mass layoffs of women at the end of the war.”18 Even so, 35% of women worked outside of the home and, by the end of the decade, approximately one-half of those were married. “This was a decrease in the number of women who were in the workforce prior to World War II, nevertheless, an increase in the number of married women participating.”19 Klausner maintained her employment status throughout this fluctuation of women’s participation in the job market. What’s more, she opened an office in Hollywood working on both American coasts until 1960.

Hollywood

Ten years after the establishment of her first agency in 1938, Klausner turned her sights to Hollywood and began maintaining an office and regular presence on the West Coast. From the late 1940s until 1960, Klausner fostered valuable relationships in Hollywood. In 1955, she wrote to her secretary, Jean Cappel, “I am convinced that I should be here every other month. I can sell fast—as I make friends & they are anxious to cooperate.”20

Klausner would often host parties to showcase her clientele.  This image depicts author, inventor, and patron of the arts Caresse Crosby (shown left) with renowned archeologist Sam Lothrop with wife Eleanor at a Klausner cocktail party in 1953. Klausner took the photo. Caresse Crosby Photograph Collection, Special Collections Research Center, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University Carbondale

She entertained personalities from her Hollywood base. One such event in 1957 was reported on in the Los Angeles Citizen News: “Authors Robert Payne and Caresse Crosby were feted at a dinner party recently at the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel. Bertha Klausner was hostess to guests, who includes Messrs. and Mmes. David O. Woodbury, Joseph Lederman, Jack Guss, . . . Art Cohn, . . . Vernon Duke, Ivy Crane Wilson, Whitney Stine, Leona Taub . . . [and] Lili Valenty.21 She also worked with top names in the film industry, which included individuals such as Stanley Kramer, who directed and produced such films as Inherit the Wind, Judgment at Nuremberg, Ship of Fools and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. 

She likewise represented film notables such as Basil Rathbone, who was known for his Shakespearean roles, Sherlock Holmes films (1939-1946), and the film The Mark of Zorro. Among her many others clients were actors who worked across film, radio, and the stage.  Klausner was Rathbone’s agent from the 1950s until his death in 1967; during that time, she encouraged him as he wrote his memoir which was published in 1962.22 

Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes. Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library. New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed May 7, 2025. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e2-aee8-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

Handwritten letters to Klausner from Rathbone chronicled the famed actor’s writing process and underscored the intimate relationship that she enjoyed with her clients. In one letter to Klausner, Rathbone wrote, “I may be going mad I don’t know! But I can’t stop writing way into every night.”23 In a later letter he pondered, “I am not a writer & this book cannot be treated as a literary project.  Nor can anyone else assume to understand anyone else’s thoughts & feelings in this matter. Anxious as I am to go on with this book it must be a complete expression of myself or it will be no good.”24

Not all of her relationships with her Hollywood clients were as cordial, however. Klausner represented Joseph “Joe” E. Brown. A versatile entertainer, Brown performed in vaudeville, on the stage, and in film, starring in dozens of plays and movies. Two of his best known pictures were Show Boat, based on Edna Ferber’s 1926 novel by the same name, and Some Like It Hot, which starred Marilyn Monroe along with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. Klausner had solicited Brown to write his memoirs, which he agreed to.

She represented him through the publication of his autobiography, Laughter is a Wonderful Thing (1956), as told to Ralph Hancock. Temperaments certainly flared in her relationship with Brown. While Klausner had intimate and amiable relationships with most of her clients, her relationship with Brown was rocky at times. Hancock, who worked directly with Brown, had written to Klausner on January 20, 1955, concerning Brown’s dissatisfaction with her. In his letter, he reported that Brown was “fuming” because he believed that Klausner was “peddling” his idea for the autobiography. Hancock wrote, “He said he didn’t want you to peddle the idea [memoir] door to door and cheapen it that way. He was also peeved that you called him collect last week. And on top of all that he has a general dislike for agents as a whole.” Hancock also suggested that “he [Brown] is going to be very difficult to handle.” He went on to write, “I do not want you to promise him or me anything you can’t deliver, nor make any more statements about what you have lined up until you have it in writing. Neither he nor I can be fooled by such kidding. We’ve both been in business too long for that. And I think it hurts your own reputation too.”25 

Joe E. Brown during the filming of the motion picture Fireman, Save My Child. Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library. New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed May 7, 2025. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/b0231c14-0904-265e-e040-e00a18060b99.

Klausner replied on January 24, 1955: “Your letter of January 20th certainly threw me for a loop. I thought that you knew me well enough to believe that anything I told you was on the level. I have built my reputation as an agent on my honesty and the complete sincerity I feel is due my clients… I seldom have any friction with anyone, as I have conducted my business on a very friendly basis and have made associations with my clients which have become lifelong friendships. Most people who work with me recognize that I have qualities which are not the usual in a relationship between agent and author. I like to keep my arrangements with clients a close and warm family tie. I thought you knew this, and that was why I am at a loss to understand how you could write a letter to me as you did.”26

Klausner was occasionally brought to task by clients, publishers, and others; however, she did not back down. She advocated for herself with the same vigor she brought to representing her clients. She went on to see Brown’s project through to completion.

The expense of maintaining an office on both coasts began to take its toll on the Bertha Klaunser International Literary Agency. A 1956 letter from Cappel, her secretary, underscored the inadequate financial condition of the agency: “I am sorry if I disturbed you with my plea for checks—I know the situation but didn’t quite know what to do with all the calls & letters I got from the clients asking for their monies. Hope things will go more smoothly next month.”27 By October, Jean was beseeching Klausner to send money to manage the day-to-day operations of the agency; she was paying for postage and office supplies out of her own pocket.28 In November, in reference to a debt owed by the agency, the beleaguered secretary mentioned that it was “a bit embarrassing for me to go in the story [sic] as he has asked for it now several times.”29

In the midst of this, always the optimist, Klausner later replied, “Today a miracle happened to me.  Something so rare I still can’t believe it—but it will change my course for at least the coming year and during this year.  I will have an opportunity to carry out plans which were always dreams.  We have an angel.  I’ll tell you more later… I have acquired quite a bit of new property & clients… I must sell all I can in New York on my return & collect payments to straighten out accounts.”30 There is nothing more to indicate what the “miracle” may have been; regardless, Klausner maintained her office in Hollywood until 1960 at which time she closed it down and returned to working full time from New York. 

Coming up in Part 2: How Klausner built an international literary empire and became known as “The Big Bertha of Literary Agents.”

Post contributed AHC Archives Aide Patty Kessler.

  1. Howell Hurst to Bertha Klausner, May 7, 1987 (outline of edited material and biography attached, 13), box 1, folder 1, Bertha Klausner papers, Coll. No. 9562, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. ↩︎
  2. Hurst, 1-2. ↩︎
  3. Morna Murphy, “Sinclair Play in Klausner Projects,” The Hollywood Reporter, April 2, 1981; Biography File, Klausner papers; Hurst, 2. ↩︎
  4. Hurst, 2. ↩︎
  5. “Detroit Women’s Exchange,” Encyclopedia of Detroit, Detroit Historical Society, https://detroithistorical.org/learn/encyclopedia-of-detroit/detroit-womens-exchange. Accessed April 15, 2025. ↩︎
  6. Becky Lower, “The Federation of Woman’s Exchanges,” History Imagined: For Readers, Writers, & Lovers of Historical Fiction, WordPress.com, October 5, 2018, https://historyimagined.wordpress.com/2018/10/05/the-federation-of-womans-exchanges/. Accessed May 6, 2025. ↩︎
  7. Ellen E. Dickinson, New York Exchange for Women’s Work, Women & The American Story (New York Historical Society, 1879), https://wams.nyhistory.org/a-nation-divided/reconstruction/ny-exchange-for-womens-work/ . Accessed January 12, 2025; Jane Weizmann, “Federation of Women’s Exchanges,” Blogspot.com, December 1, 2022, https://wefed.blogspot.com/. Accessed January 12, 2025. ↩︎
  8. Hurst to Klausner, May 7, 1987, 2, Klausner papers. ↩︎
  9. Maya Reiser, interview by Patty Kessler, January 23, 2025, interview transcript, American Heritage Center. ↩︎
  10. “Hebrew’s Have Joint Session: Monmouth and Ocean County Representatives Convene; Tumen Honorary Head,” The Daily Record 29, no. 267 (1930): 1. ↩︎
  11. David E. Kaufman, “Young Women’s Hebrew Association,” The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women, Jewish Women’s Archive, https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/young-womens-hebrew-association. Accessed January 12, 2025. ↩︎
  12. Hurst to Klausner, May 7, 1987, notes from recorded interviews, Klausner papers. ↩︎
  13. Klausner to Jean Cappel, Tuesday, 5 P.M., 1955, box 65, folder 11, Coll. 9562, Klausner papers. This is the first written suggestion that she was considering the establishment of her agency internationally. ↩︎
  14. Rebecca Spence, interview by Patty Kessler, February 26, 2025, interview transcript, American Heritage Center. Later in the century, Klausner represented authors who were influential in the Black Arts Movement including Dorothy West.  Dorothy West was an author during the Harlem Renaissance and a friend and one-time roommate of Zora Neil Hurston. ↩︎
  15. Hurst to Klausner, May 7, 1987, 2-4, Klausner papers. ↩︎
  16. Janet L. Yellen, “The History of Women’s Work and Wages and How It has Created Success for Us All,” The Brookings Gender Equality Series 2020, Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, Brookings Institute, May 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-history-of-womens-work-and-wages-and-how-it-has-created-success-for-us-all/. Accessed January 15, 2025; Mickey Moran, “1930s America—Feminist Void? The Status of the Equal Rights Movement During the Great Depression,” The Student Historical Journal 1988-1989, History, College of Arts & Sciences, Loyola University, http://cas.loyno.edu/history/student-historical-journal-1988-1989. Accessed January 15, 2025. ↩︎
  17. Yellen, “The History of Women’s Work and Wages”; Moran, “1930s America—Feminist Void?” ↩︎
  18. “Women on the Home Front,” Khan Academy, https://www.lessonplanet.com/teachers/khan-academy-american-women-and-world-war-ii. Accessed January 15, 2025; Ellen Carol DuBois and Lynn Dumenil, Through Women’s Eyes: An American History with Documents, 4th ed. (New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016). ↩︎
  19. Ibid. ↩︎
  20. Klausner to Jean Cappel, Friday, 8 P.M., October or November 1955, box 65, folder 11, Klausner papers. ↩︎
  21. “March Party Whirl Roars In With Weekend Fetes,” Los Angeles Citizen News 52, no. 287 (1957): 10. The Jack Guss papers (Coll. No. 10899) are held at the American Heritage Center. ↩︎
  22. After Rathbone’s death she continued to field questions and work on behalf of The Actors’ Fund (now known as The Entertainment Community Fund) to which he had bequeathed his papers and memoirs. She also continued to represent his wife, Ouida (Bergére), who was an actress, screenwriter, and playwright. ↩︎
  23. Basil Rathbone to Klausner, April 30, 1961, box 99, folder 2, Klausner papers. ↩︎
  24. Rathbone to Klausner, January 30, 1961, box 99, folder 2, Klausner papers. ↩︎
  25. Ralph Hancock to Klausner, January 20, 1955, box 14, folder 16, Klausner papers. ↩︎
  26. Klausner to Hancock, January 24, 1955, box 14, folder 16, Klausner papers. ↩︎
  27. Cappel to Klausner, July 30, 1955, box 13, folder 5, Klausner papers. ↩︎
  28. Cappel to Klausner, October 26, 1955, box 65, folder 11, Klausner papers. ↩︎
  29. Cappel to Klausner, November 1, 1955, box 65, folder 11, Klausner papers. ↩︎
  30. Klausner to Cappel, November 15, 1955, box 65, folder 11, Klausner papers. ↩︎
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Territory Girl, Statehood Pioneer: Mary Godat Bellamy’s Wyoming Story

Posted on July 7, 2025 by ahcadmin

Imagine hearing the actual voice of someone who watched Civil War soldiers march past her childhood home, then lived to see the atomic age. That’s exactly what you can experience with Mary Godat Bellamy’s 1947 recordings—a remarkable audio document from Wyoming’s frontier era.

Bellamy witnessed and helped shape an extraordinary chapter in American political history. Wyoming entered the Union as something genuinely unprecedented: the first state where women could vote, hold office, and serve on juries. It was a bold move that raised more than a few eyebrows back east. There was a tradition here of creating firsts for women that was rare anywhere in the United States at that time. Bellamy was part of that tradition, and her voice tells us what that looked like from the inside.

A Voice from Two Eras

In 1947, at age 85, Bellamy began a set of interview with University of Wyoming archivist Lola Homsher to record her memories using a cutting-edge tool for that time – a SoundScriber dictation machine. Homsher, who would later become the first Wyoming State Archivist in 1951, was conducting these interviews as part of a larger collection documenting early Wyoming residents, conducted between 1947 and 1956 by employees of what would evolve into the American Heritage Center.

Bellamy’s interviews produced an extraordinary set of recordings—among the few where we can actually hear someone who lived through Wyoming’s transformation from raw frontier territory to established state. The original discs had deteriorated by the time they were digitized in 2010, creating scratchy audio with frequent skips. For this article, I asked AHC colleague Tana Libolt to enhance the audio so you can better hear Bellamy’s distinctive voice and personality that shine through with remarkable clarity.

Portrait of Mary Bellamy, photographed around 1910 by W.G. “Billy” Walker, one of Cheyenne’s leading photographers. Photo file: Bellamy, Mary Godat, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

A Civil War Memory

Bellamy’s matter-of-fact recounting of her earliest memories reveals the casual way extraordinary history unfolded in ordinary lives. Her child’s-eye view captures the kind of authentic details—the everyday reality of living through momentous events—that make oral history so valuable.

In these two interview excerpts, Bellamy recalls her earliest childhood memories, including from the Civil War years.

In these two interview excerpts, Bellamy recalls her earliest childhood memories, including from the Civil War years.

Journey to Wyoming

What began as a journey to help with family tragedy became the foundation of a remarkable Wyoming life. Arriving in Laramie at age 12, she would become one of the town’s first high school students and eventually one of its most distinguished citizens.

Bellamy explains how the death of her sister Alice brought her and her mother from Illinois to Laramie in 1873 to care for Alice’s young son.

“We Had Dances Every Friday Night”

Some of Bellamy’s warmest memories are of growing up in the brand-new town of Laramie, which had been founded just five years before her arrival in 1873. The young Laramie she describes was a place where social life thrived despite—or perhaps because of—the frontier challenges.

Hear Bellamy’s recollections of Laramie’s lively dance culture—square dances, lancers, waltzes, polkas, the Schottische, and the Varsouvienne, evidence of Laramie’s refined cultural life despite its frontier setting.
This 1875 sketch of Fort Sanders shows the military post that still operated when Mary Godat arrived in Laramie in 1873. The fort, established in 1866 to guard the railroad and frontier settlement, would close in 1882. Photo file: Fort Sanders, Wyoming, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

Musical Laramie and the “Scotland’s Burning” Incident

One of the most charming stories Bellamy tells reveals early Laramie’s surprisingly rich cultural life and her own infectious sense of humor about the musical activities of her youth.

Here she tells the delightful story of musical Laramie and a singing school incident that accidentally summoned the fire department.

From Joke to History

What started as deflection became history. Despite being on the Democratic ticket in a strongly Republican county, she won—proving that Wyoming voters were ready for capable leadership regardless of gender.

With characteristic humor, Bellamy recounts how her offhand comment about running for the legislature—meant as a joke to deflect pressure to run for school superintendent—immediately resulted in her nomination and eventual election as Wyoming’s first woman state legislator.

Recognition and Respect, and a Confession

Despite the era’s gender barriers, Bellamy earned genuine respect from her legislative colleagues. But that didn’t mean it was always a comfortable atmosphere. This endearing recollection reveals the delicate balance she had to strike as the sole woman in a male-dominated institution, managing both practical challenges and social expectations with grace and humor.

Bellamy fondly recalls a gift from the House and Senate, but also confesses some “unladylike” behavior.

Political Horse-Trading and Strategic Thinking

Her strategic thinking and political acumen shine through as she recalls this legislative victory, demonstrating that being the only woman in the room made her observant, not invisible.

With evident pride, Bellamy describes a time when she outmaneuvered her male colleagues in the legislature.
Mary Bellamy at work in the Wyoming House of Representatives in 1911, where she served as Wyoming’s first woman state legislator. Photo file: Bellamy, Mary Godat, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

A Pioneering Spirit with Humility

Her approach to being a pioneer shows both strategic thinking and genuine humility, understanding that her success would pave the way for other women in Wyoming politics.

Bellamy reveals her strategic approach as the first woman legislator—and shares a compliment she received from future Wyoming governor Frank L. Houx.

A Life that Shaped a State

Bellamy’s interviews remind us that our state’s story is fundamentally about people who seized opportunities, built communities from scratch, and refused to be limited by conventional expectations.

Born in Richwoods, Missouri, on December 13, 1861—Friday the 13th, as she laughingly noted—Mary Godat Bellamy lived through nearly a century of American history, from the Civil War to the atomic age, before her death in Laramie on January 28, 1955, at age 93. Her earliest memory was of Confederate soldiers passing through her family’s Missouri farm; her final years saw the dawn of the nuclear era. Few people bridge such momentous historical periods, and even fewer left us their actual voice telling the story. She rests in Laramie’s Greenhill Cemetery beside her husband Charles Bellamy, who died in 1934. The couple raised three children together, though one died in infancy—a common tragedy of that era.

Bellamy’s voice connects us directly to Wyoming’s frontier past in ways that written records simply cannot. Her laughter as she recalls accidentally summoning the fire department with enthusiastic singing, her pride in outmaneuvering other legislators, her lingering embarrassment about chewing gum—these moments reveal the personality behind the historical achievements. Through these recordings, we meet both the spirited teenager who helped build a community and the experienced politician who helped shape a state.

The Mary Godat Bellamy oral history interviews are held in the Wyoming Pioneers Oral History project, and are available for research. Much of the project can be accessed digitally. The AHC also houses the Mary Godat Bellamy papers, which include artifacts from around the world, manuscript materials on Albany County and Wyoming, scrapbooks, and photographs of Laramie people and events. For more information about Bellamy, visit her profile on WyoHistory.org.

Discover More Pioneering Women in Wyoming History

Mary Godat Bellamy wasn’t the only woman making history in Wyoming politics. Her groundbreaking service as the first woman elected to the state legislature was part of a remarkable tradition that started when Wyoming became the first territory in the United States to grant women’s suffrage in 1869.

Want to learn about other trailblazing women who followed in her footsteps? Check out our online exhibit “In Pursuit of Equality,” which features three women who through their actions as elected officeholders, challenged and changed the conventional understanding of equality in Wyoming. Like Bellamy, these women used courage, wit, and political savvy to break barriers and expand what it meant to be the Equality State.

Post contributed by AHC Archivist Leslie Waggener and Archives Aide Tana Libolt.

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How a Civil War Farmer’s Letters Changed My View of Independence Day

Posted on June 30, 2025 by ahcadmin

I’ve been an archivist at the American Heritage Center for almost 25 years, and I thought I knew our collections pretty well. But as I was searching for the perfect topic for this year’s Independence Day blog post, I found myself drawn to a collection I’d never fully explored: the John H. Hull family papers. What I discovered there has deepened how I think about what we celebrate on July 4th.

Who Was John Hull?

The John H. Hull family papers contain a remarkable collection of Civil War correspondence—letters written by an Indiana farmer to his wife Agnes and their eight children during his service from January 8, 1864, to July 10, 1865, with the 120th Indiana Infantry Regiment, Company D. John Henry Hull was born on May 3, 1818, settled near Folsomville, Indiana, in 1836, and married Mary Agnes Phillips in 1840. At age 45, with a large family depending on him, he made the difficult decision to enlist as the Civil War entered its bloodiest phase.

The collection preserves Hull’s letters home during his service in some of the war’s most significant campaigns: the Atlanta Campaign, operations against Confederate General Hood in Alabama and Tennessee, the Battle of Nashville, and finally the Carolina Campaign that ended with Confederate surrender in April 1865. He served during what many historians consider the war’s turning point—the period when Union forces finally gained decisive momentum that would end the conflict within a year. His are not the polished memoirs of generals or the official reports of commanding officers—they’re the immediate, unfiltered thoughts of an ordinary American caught up in extraordinary circumstances.

  • June letter written by Hull.

An Unexpected Journey

I’ll admit, I was initially looking for something from the Revolutionary War era—something that would tie directly to 1776. But as I pulled up the digitized Hull letters on my computer and began reading his careful handwriting, I realized I’d stumbled onto something just as powerful: the story of how ordinary Americans in every generation have had to fight to preserve what the Founders started.

As I worked through Hull’s letters chronologically, I was struck by how much they revealed about the personal cost of preserving American independence. Hull wasn’t writing for posterity or public consumption—these were private communications with his family filled with mundane concerns about sick children, farm business, and the simple desire to stay connected across impossible distances.

One of his earliest letters in the collection, dated April 1, 1864, immediately establishes the tone: “Dear wife and children I take this opportunity to let you know that I am well and hearty hoping that these few lines may find you all enjoying the same good blessing.” Here was a man hundreds of miles from home, trying to maintain connection with his family while serving in the army that would determine his nation’s survival.

Although the Hull family papers do not contain an image of John H. Hull or his wife Agnes, there is a photo of their son Thomas Jefferson Hull (1853-1916) later in life with his wife Adline Cox Hull. Thomas would have been a young boy of 10 when his father joined the Union army in January 1864.

The Reality of War

But Hull’s careful reassurances to his family would soon give way to the stark realities of warfare. Writing from an unknown location on May 21, 1864, with characteristic understatement he described one of his early combat experiences: “i was in a fight whear the big gun howl and the bullets whisled but we went right on and they ran like dogs. i think if they dont run me to death I dont think they will kill any other way for the bullets whisle les.”

He continues in the same letter: “we are in hear ing now of the Canon and I dont know how quck I will have to start. This is the days rest sense we left Charleston. We left thear the 5 of may… Thear was non of our Company killed. Thear was some killed in the riegment. The rebs and us was fiting 8 days. Thear was a good many killed on both sides but we keep them a running all the time so no more.”

This was likely during the grueling advance toward Atlanta, where General Sherman’s forces faced constant skirmishing and entrenchment battles that wore down both armies. Reading these words, I found myself thinking about the gap between how we remember the Civil War—with its grand strategies and famous battles—and how it was actually experienced by men like Hull. Eight days of continuous fighting. Bullets whistling overhead. The constant uncertainty about survival.

The physical toll of the campaign became increasingly evident as summer wore on. By June, writing from near Allatoona, Georgia, during the Atlanta Campaign, Hull’s exhaustion seeps through his careful script: “[W]e have a hard march sense this other letter and stood a Heap of heavy rains. We was hurried out and I did not git to mail this other letter. We are being in a lin of battle now and expecting a fight all the time but I think the rebs will skedadle and run us to death.”

His next lines reveal the true cost of Sherman’s relentless pursuit: “we have run them about 50 or 60 miles and have fit all the way. They are running more of us to death than they are killing. We have not had many man killed in our riegment but a heap sick and gave out on the march.”

Gaining control of the railroads leading into and out of Atlanta was key to Union victory during the Civil War. On June 3, 1864, Union general William T. Sherman overcame the Confederates at Allatoona Pass—near where John Hull would soon write to his family about the grueling march and constant fighting. The Allatoona train depot appears in the center of this 1864 photograph by George N. Barnard. Photo from National Archives and Records Administration.

Even in the midst of describing military operations, Hull’s thoughts turn to home and his oldest son: “Jim I want you to bee a good boy to your mother and the children til I get home again.” The juxtaposition is striking—tactical assessments mixed with fatherly advice, battlefield reports interwoven with domestic concerns.

Holding It Together

What emerges from these letters is a portrait of someone trying to hold multiple roles together under impossible circumstances. In August 1864, Hull writes to Agnes: “Dear Companion I dont feel Capable of in structing you much about any thing. I wat you to manage as you think best. If you want my advice about any thing write to mee and I will send it. I want you to give my respects to all inquiring friends and pray for me that when i dy i may be prepared for a better world. i am in a hard place but i think the same one made me will prserve mee til I get back with you.”

The weight of command responsibility added to his burden. A week later, his responsibilities as a non-commissioned officer become clear: “We had a pretty hard days march but thank god I am able to stand it yet and i am the only Corporel left in the Company that was first apointed.” By late August 1864, Hull was one of the few original corporals still standing in his company—a sobering reminder of the attrition that characterized Civil War service.

Despite everything, Hull maintained remarkable resilience. Writing from camp near Pulaski, Tennessee, on September 18, 1864: “Dear wife and children i once more take the opertunity to write you a few lines to let you know that i am well and heart hoping these few lines may find you all enjoying the same good blessing. i am whear in camp in a very pretty place. the boys is in good spirits. they think we are a going to get to come hear to the Election.”

Testing Hull’s Resolve

But this period of relative calm wouldn’t last long. Hull’s regiment faced Confederate General Hood’s forces at the Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864, where they suffered significant casualties. Later, Hull would write about the fierce fighting: “we had a hot time at franklin. our mager was killed. we had one man killed in our Co. It was S [B]owers.1 tha was 5 kil and 15 wounded and missen out of the riegment but the Johneys died by the hundreds.”

Even after the losses at Franklin, Hull’s confidence in his fellow soldiers remained unshaken. By December 1864, as his regiment prepared for the Battle of Nashville, Hull remained optimistic: “we are whear at Nashville expecting a big fight. We are whear some said [H]ood is and some he is going to fight. whear and dont know what he will do if he forfites. We can whip him. We run after him and whipped him and i know we can whip him whear well.” The Battle of Nashville would prove Hull’s confidence well-founded—it became one of the most decisive Union victories of the war, effectively destroying Hood’s Confederate army as a fighting force.

Writing home after the campaign concluded, Hull’s December 26th letter reported on the pursuit of Hood’s retreating forces: “we are following them back south and taking prisoners.”

Union defenses at Nashville, December 1864, photographed from Fort Negley. John Hull’s 120th Indiana Infantry was among the Union forces at Nashville. Photo from Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs, LC-DIG-cwpb-02089.

The Cost of Service

Throughout his letters, Hull’s concern for his family’s welfare never disappears. Writing from Raleigh, North Carolina, in February 1865, as the war was finally winding down: “Well old woman this leaves me well and hearty and i hope it will find you [and] the children the same… i will send you ten dollars in this letter. i am sorry i hant money to send you all i wanted but if i hant got any more let i come home and i wll tend to it my self.”

These weren’t wealthy people. Hull was sending what little he could from his soldier’s pay, promising to “tend to it” when he got home. The sacrifice wasn’t just his time or his safety—it was his family’s financial security, their farm’s productivity, everything they’d built together over two decades.

This patriotic song sheet celebrates the victories of the 23rd Army Corps—Hull’s corps—at Franklin, Murfreesboro, and Nashville. He sent it home to his family, telling his son Jim: “well Jim i will send you a song for you to read for your mother.”

A Different Kind of Independence Day Story

The more I read, the more I realized that Hull’s story illuminates something important about what we celebrate on July 4th. The Declaration of Independence wasn’t just signed once in 1776 and then safely preserved forever. Each generation has faced the choice of whether those principles were worth defending, often at enormous personal cost.

Hull left his Indiana farm, endured months of combat and hardship, sent his meager soldier’s pay home to Agnes and the children, and somehow maintained enough hope and determination to see the war through to its conclusion. His letters reveal no grand rhetoric about saving the Union or preserving democracy—just a steady commitment to duty and family that somehow sustained him through his years of service.

What I Take Away

I’ve been working with historical documents for many ears, but Hull’s letters affected me in ways I hadn’t expected. Maybe it’s because they’re so immediate and unguarded. Maybe it’s because I can picture him trying to write by candlelight in a tent, or imagine what it meant for Agnes to wait weeks between letters.

Whatever the reason, these letters have given me a different appreciation for what we commemorate on Independence Day. It’s not just the Declaration of Independence itself, but the ongoing commitment of ordinary Americans to defend those principles across generations. Hull and hundreds of thousands like him made that choice in 1864, just as others have made it in every era since.

Post contributed by AHC Simpson Archivist Leslie Waggener.

The John H. Hull family papers are available for research at the AHC. The collection includes biographical information, Hull’s Civil War correspondence, family letters, and photographs spanning from 1841 to 1976. Researchers can access digitized portions of the collection online or visit our reading room to explore the complete materials.

  1. Pvt. Stephen Bowers of Oakland City Indiana, was killed in action on November 30, 1864, during the Battle of Franklin. https://marshaswarrickweb.com/military/120coD.htm
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From “Caucasians Only” to Hall of Fame: The Remarkable Journey of Wayman Wing

Posted on June 23, 2025 by ahcadmin

Did you know the University of Wyoming College of Engineering and Applied Science has a Hall of Fame? Among its distinguished members is Wayman Chung Wing (1923-2020), whose journey from facing discrimination to international acclaim exemplifies resilience, innovation, and barrier-breaking achievement.

A Wyoming Beginning with Unexpected Challenges

Wayman Chung Wing.

Growing up in Evanston as a first-generation Chinese American, Wing enrolled at the University of Wyoming in 1941 to pursue engineering. But his academic journey soon revealed the barriers of his era. In 1942, despite his academic excellence, Wing was denied entry into an honorary engineering fraternity because of a “Caucasians Only” clause in their constitution.

This setback coincided with global turmoil. After news of Pearl Harbor reached the U.S., Wing’s education took a detour when he joined the Army Air Corps. “I joined the Army Air Corps and waited to be called up,” he recounted in his 2006 memoir housed at the American Heritage Center.

Excerpt from Wing’s memoir that details his feelings and reasoning for joining the Army Air Corps during WWII. Box 1, Wayman C. Wing Papers, Coll. No. 11463, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

Finding Cultural Connection Through Military Service

By 1943, Wing’s aptitude for science earned him selection for specialized training. “I was an engineering student with a background in science courses. I was one of a group of 175 sent by the Army Air Corp to an accelerated meteorology course at New York University,” Wing wrote.

This deployment proved unexpectedly meaningful in ways beyond military service. Growing up in Wyoming, Wing had limited exposure to Chinese American communities. In New York, this changed dramatically: “I enjoyed the nine months in New York because I met more Chinese friends and experienced Chinese culture more than ever before in Wyoming.”

With characteristic humor, Wing noted he passed the demanding meteorology program despite “the large amount of beer [he] consumed.” After training, he served at a British base on Terceira Island in the Azores during WWII, where his weather forecasting supported critical Allied operations.

Lagens Field in the Azores in December 1944 as Wayman Wing would have known it. Photo from Warfare History Network.

Breaking Through Barriers

Following the war, Wing returned to Wyoming, completing his Civil Engineering degree in 1947. The sting of the “Caucasians Only” clause remained, but Wing wasn’t alone in recognizing this injustice. Several faculty members joined his fight against the discriminatory policy. Their combined efforts paid off—in 1949, seven years after his initial rejection, Wing was finally inducted into the Omega Chapter of Sigma Tau (now known as Tau Beta Pi).

Wing’s academic excellence earned him acceptance to Stanford University for his master’s degree. There, he found “the engineering studies much easier than at UW”—a testament to the solid foundation provided by his Wyoming education. At Stanford, Wing deliberately expanded his knowledge, taking additional courses in law and business alongside his engineering curriculum.

From Student to Revolutionary Engineer

After earning his master’s in 1948, Wing worked in the industry for about a decade before making a bold decision that would define his career: founding Wayman C. Wing Consulting Engineers in 1960.

His timing intersected perfectly with growing international demand for safer building designs. Wing pioneered revolutionary approaches to earthquake-resistant structures at a time when conventional wisdom often fell short. His innovations earned the trust of prestigious clients like the Hilton and Sheraton hotel chains.

Wing’s earthquake-absorbent designs shaped skylines worldwide. The Meridien Hotel in Egypt, the Great Wall Hotel in China (particularly meaningful given his heritage), the Hartford National Bank, the Indonesian Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair, and the Washington Hilton Hotel all incorporated his innovative approaches to structural safety.

Recognition and Hall of Fame Induction

The University of Wyoming recognized Wing’s achievements through the H.T. Person Endowment Committee and named a Civil Engineering classroom in his honor. His military service received recognition with a nomination for a Congressional Medal of Honor.

In 1999, nearly four decades after launching his firm and over half a century after facing discrimination as a student, Wing was inducted into the University of Wyoming College of Engineering and Applied Science Hall of Fame. The institution that had once been the site of exclusion now celebrated him as one of its most distinguished graduates.

Wing’s invitation to the honor society in 1949. Box 3, Wayman C. Wing Papers, Coll. No. 11463, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

A Legacy of Opening Doors

Wing understood how education had transformed his own possibilities. His commitment to helping future generations was expressed in his characteristic humility: “If I can contribute in some small way to enhance the College’s reputation and possibly motivate subsequent generations of student engineers, I certainly am deeply honored to give it a good old ‘Rag Time Cowboy Try.’”

This commitment took tangible form through numerous scholarships established by Wing and his family, including the Roger G. Wing Scholarship, the Wong Gin Wing Family Scholarship, the Susan Mc Cormack Scholarship, the Dr. Sandra M. Wing Veterinary Scholarship, and the Eugenia C. Wing & Ursula R. Foster Scholarship.

Wing and his five siblings all graduated from college as first-generation Chinese Americans—a remarkable achievement for that era. His success opened doors for others, creating opportunities far beyond what he could have imagined when facing that “Caucasians Only” clause as a young student.

For those interested in exploring this Hall of Fame engineer’s remarkable journey in greater depth, the Wayman C. Wing papers at the American Heritage Center provides insights into a life defined by breaking barriers and building bridges—both literally and figuratively.

Information for this post provided by University of Wyoming English Department graduate students Katelyn Hayward, Cheyenne Hume, and Makayla Kocher for Dr. Nancy Small’s Spring 2025 course “Qualitative Analysis: Inquiry for Public Humanities Engagement.”

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Neutral Ground: FDR’s Man in Ireland During WWII

Posted on June 16, 2025 by ahcadmin

In February 1940, as war engulfed Europe, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent an unlikely diplomat to Ireland – his wife’s 70-year-old uncle who had never held a diplomatic position. David Gray’s mission would become one of the most challenging diplomatic assignments of World War II.

Gray arrived in Ireland (or Eire, as it was then called) with a diverse background. Prior to this appointment, he had enjoyed a successful career as a journalist, newspaper editor, practicing attorney, and novelist. Now largely retired, he brought no formal diplomatic training to his role as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, but he did possess a fondness for the country after multiple visits since 1933.

During his visits to Ireland, Gray particularly enjoyed the hunting and fishing opportunities available in the countryside. While he married into the Roosevelt family through his wife Maude Livingston Hall, the aunt of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Gray was straightforward in his papers that this connection was instrumental to his appointment.

David and Maude Gray. Box 21, David Gray papers, Coll. No. 3082, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

In 1940, the relationship between Eire and the U.S. was complicated. There were millions of Irish immigrants living in America and feelings of goodwill between people in both countries was strong. But Éamon de Valera, the prime minister (or Taoiseach) of Eire, was fiercely independent. On September 2nd, 1939, with World War II imminent, he had declared Eire to be in a state of emergency. The state of emergency gave sweeping powers to the government, including censorship of the press and correspondence and control of the economy. At the same time de Valera declared that Eire would remain neutral in any European war.

It was a popular position among the general population, although there were some factions in Eire that admired Germany, some Irish who rejected anything having to do with the British and some that believed Eire should support the Allies.

Éamon de Valera speaking at a rally in Dublin, June 16, 1940. Box 18, David Gray papers, Coll. No. 3082, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

Once he arrived in Eire, Minister Gray discussed with de Valera their countries’ mutual positions of neutrality. (At that time, the U.S. had also technically adopted a position of neutrality.) About de Valera, Gray wrote, “I not only liked his country and his people, but I liked him.”

In June of 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill told de Valera that the United Kingdom would push for Irish unity, under de Valera’s leadership, if Eire would abandon its position of neutrality and allow British use of ports in Eire. De Valera had long argued that Northern Ireland (which was part of the United Kingdom) and Eire should be united. But de Valera had turned down the offer, doubting that Churchill could deliver on his promise and fearing Eire would be flattened by a German attack. Despite de Valera’s official stance on neutrality, tens of thousands of Irish enlisted in the British Armed Forces to fight against the Germans.

As Gray’s diplomatic posting stretched into years, he maintained regular meetings with de Valera while corresponding with President Roosevelt twice monthly. De Valera came to Gray with requests – including asking him to lobby Roosevelt to provide American arms for Eire’s self-defense. Roosevelt remained noncommittal as de Valera continued to insist on neutrality.

Letter from Éamon de Valera to David Gray, April 15, 1942. Box 36, David Gray papers, Coll. No. 3082, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

Through their many meetings, Gray had come to believe that de Valera’s perspective on Irish neutrality could change if the U.S. entered World War II. But that was not to be the case. Churchill had, in secret, offered de Valera a second chance to denounce neutrality and join the Allies when it became evident that the U.S. would enter the war.

Shortly after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, de Valera gave a speech in Cork. In his remarks, he recounted the long history of friendship between Ireland and America but reiterated that Ireland “can only be a friendly neutral.”

Extracts from a speech delivered by Éamon de Valera, December 14, 1941. Box 29, David Gray papers, Coll. No. 3082, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

Gray’s frustration with de Valera mounted. Gray wrote, “this very peculiar man … could be extremely hostile one minute and the next sympathetic, without trace of rancor.”

With the entry of the U.S. into World War II, Eire and Northern Ireland became even more strategically important. Geographically the two countries occupied a critical position. They were both the guardian of the eastern approach to Europe from the Atlantic as well as the western approach to Great Britain. Ports and airfields in Eire were strategic militarily.

Map showing Eire, Northern Ireland, the North Atlantic and the west coast of Great Britain, January 18, 1942. Box 6, David Gray papers, Coll. No. 3082, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

Before long, the decision was made to station American troops in Northern Ireland. But the border between Eire and Northern Ireland was porous. American troops stationed in Northern Ireland could easily be spied upon. In fact, Allied intelligence services knew that German spy Herman Goertz was working out of Eire, where the Irish Republican Army (IRA) had helped him evade capture. Additionally, it was known that the German minister in Dublin had a secret radio transmitting set, which was being used to relay weather reports and information gathered by spies to the Nazis. As D-Day (the planned Allied invasion of Europe, beginning in Normandy, France) approached, there was an enhanced need to shut down German espionage in Eire. De Valera refused to cooperate.

De Valera objected to the stationing of American troops in Northern Ireland. Cordell Hull, the U.S. Secretary of State, responded, saying, “The decision to dispatch troops to the British Isles was reached in close consultation with the British Government as part of our strategic plan to defeat the Axis aggressors. There was not, and is not now, the slightest thought or intention of invading Irish territory or threatening Irish security.”

Gray continued to discuss with de Valera Eire’s position of neutrality and the Allies’ need for access to ports, airfields and naval bases in Eire. He also relayed President Roosevelt’s frustration with de Valera’s stance.

First page of a letter from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to David Gray, December 18, 1942. Box 36, David Gray papers, Collection No. 3082, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

To the Americans, de Valera’s attitude made no sense. Eire was dependent on imports from Great Britain of coal, gasoline, wheat and medicine. Irish ships depended on British convoys when they crossed between Eire and Britain. And ironically, in May of 1941 German aircraft had even dropped bombs on Dublin, the capital of Eire. (The Germans claimed to have made a mistake, intending the attack to have been on Belfast in Northern Ireland. The Allies believed Germany was sending a warning to Eire.) Still, de Valera clung stubbornly to neutrality.

Gray wrote Roosevelt, encouraging him to implement an embargo on petroleum and other products to Eire and expressing Gray’s belief that Britain should do the same. Gray was determined to put pressure on de Valera. The friendship between the two men reached a new low. De Valera said to Gray, “You have never been able to understand the Irish point of view; often I would rather have had anyone else representing America than you.” Gray replied to de Valera, “The trouble is that you don’t understand that I am here to represent the American point of view and to try to make you understand it, in which I have always failed.”

From de Valera’s perspective, Eire largely escaped the devastation of German bombing campaigns by maintaining its neutrality. What remained of the relationship between de Valera and Gray dissipated further in 1945 when de Valera controversially visited the offices of the German ambassador in Dublin to offer his condolences on the death of Adolf Hitler. By July 1947, when Gray was finally recalled from his post in Dublin, seven years had passed, and World War II was over.

Newspaper photograph of David Gray and Éamon de Valera, July, 1947. Box 19, David Gray papers, Collection No. 3082, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

Upon his return to the U.S., Gray wrote about his experiences in Eire. Gray concluded that de Valera thought that Germany would win the war. De Valera kept Eire neutral in the hope that Northern Ireland and Eire would be reunited under his leadership if the Nazis won.

The David Gray papers at the American Heritage Center contain correspondence with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Éamon de Valera and many others. There are also manuscripts and research notes related to Ireland in World War II as well as various pamphlets and periodicals. Gray’s papers remind us of the complicated diplomatic realities that have shaped Irish-American relations.

Post contributed by AHC Writer Kathryn Billington.

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Murder, Memory, and Victorian Gender: The Florence Maybrick Case

Posted on June 9, 2025 by ahcadmin

“Deep in the heart of the American Heritage Center lies a small but rich series of archival puzzle pieces that tell the story of Mrs. Florence Maybrick, the American lady found guilty of murdering her husband in 1889 Victorian England.” So begins Andrea Hastings-Arrollo’s award-winning analysis of one of the most controversial murder trials in Victorian history—a case that reveals how gender ideologies could literally determine life or death.

Using materials from the Trevor Christie papers at the AHC, archives assembled by journalist Trevor Christie for his 1969 book Etched in Arsenic, Andrea uncovered a story that goes far beyond a simple murder trial. Her research reveals how “the doctrine of true womanhood had been hammered into the societal psyche, which made fairness virtually impossible” for women like Florence Maybrick.

Cover of Christie’s 1969 book Etched in Arsenic: A New Study of the Maybrick Case, which Kirkus Reviews praised at the time for its “objective and resolute” handling of the infamous 1889 Liverpool murder trial. Source: Amazon.com

The Impossible Position of Victorian Women

Andrea’s analysis centers on a fundamental contradiction in Victorian society. As she explains, women “had to cope with the irreconcilable perceptions of women as domestic angels and seductive whores.”

Florence Maybrick, an eighteen-year-old American who married forty-two-year-old English cotton merchant James Maybrick in 1881, found herself trapped by these contradictions. While James openly maintained mistresses and fathered children with them, Florence’s own romantic attachments outside her troubled marriage became the foundation for a murder charge.

Andrea discovered through AHC archives that the household staff at Battlecrease House “endured her because she was Mr. Maybrick’s wife,” and that “her multiple affairs were common knowledge in the household and discussed regularly with condemnation between the servants, and the double standards of the period guarded her spouse from the same brutal judgement.”

When Morality Overrode Evidence

What makes Andrea’s research particularly compelling is her analysis of how gender bias shaped the actual legal proceedings. When James Maybrick died in May 1889 after a brief illness, the evidence against Florence was remarkably thin—his body contained only slight traces of arsenic, not enough to cause death. Yet as Andrea notes, “Morality carried more weight than tangible proof before empirical science had been fully developed and incorporated into law.”

Florence Maybrick, from an illustration by H. Uhlrich published in The Graphic, August 24, 1889. The image appeared during intense media coverage of the Maybrick murder case. Image via Wikipedia, public domain.

Most damning was Judge Sir James Fitzjames Stephen’s explicit statement that Florence’s adultery proved she was capable of murder. Andrea writes: “He told the grand jury that her adulterous intrigue supplied motive, and he obsessed over this point throughout the trial.” The judge literally argued that sexual transgression equaled murderous intent.

Andrea’s archival research revealed an even more troubling detail: the death certificate was altered after Dr. Humphrey spoke with James’s brother Michael, who was convinced of Florence’s guilt after reading her love letter. Originally listing “acute inflammation of the stomach,” the certificate was changed to suggest “arsenical poisoning”—medical evidence rewritten to match moral assumptions.

The Double Bind of Victorian Womanhood

Andrea’s analysis illuminates the impossible position Victorian women faced: “Women were caught between the expectations that they are both incapable of sin and also most susceptible to it because of the unwitting quality projected onto them by a patriarchal system.”

This contradiction played out dramatically in Florence’s case. As Andrea explains, “Maybrick was perceived by the public as both a distressed damsel in need of rescuing and an abomination in need of cleansing.” The same gender ideologies that condemned her as morally corrupt also protected her from execution, leading to her death sentence being commuted to life imprisonment.

“It was precisely the true woman credo which compelled some to condemn the execution of any woman ever,” Andrea notes, while Queen Victoria opposed Florence’s release “primarily because of her moral lapses since no true woman could betray her family as she had.”

Memory and the Construction of History

One of Andrea’s most sophisticated insights involves her analysis of how the Maybrick case was remembered and retold decades later. Using Christie’s interviews from the 1940s, she examined how the journalist gathered memories from people like Florence Aunspaugh, who had spent time at the Maybrick house as a child.

Trevor Christie’s wrote this letter of introduction in November 1941 to Florence Aunspaugh asking her to “enlighten” him on her impressions of James and Florence Maybrick, their relations, “whether their children were well-trained,” their friends, the general atmosphere of the home and other details. Folder: Aunspaugh letters, Box 1, Trevor L. Christie papers, Coll. No. 3266, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

Andrea astutely observes that these memories were “culturally and historically conditioned.” She writes: “The subjects and author Christie all brought their own preconditioned beliefs into the project in terms of gender values. Pre-suffrage events had to be reconciled with a post-suffrage culture, one that had been through World War I and was going through World War II as Christie gathered his research.”

This insight reveals Andrea’s sophisticated understanding of how historical memory works: “Miss Aunspaugh was eight years old when she spent a summer at the Maybrick house, and she recalled, or reconstructed, those childhood memories as a woman of sixty-five. Surely the combination of that singular childhood summer in England, the significant passage of time, and the overwhelming media coverage absorbed by society as a whole had some creative power over the memories she contributed.”

Excerpt from Florence Aunspaugh’s 70+ page letter to Christie with her impressions of Florence Maybrick and other details. Here she remarks, “My father said her eyes were a birth-mark. I heard him remark once that ‘a pair of birth-marked eyes had poor James Maybrick to hell.’” But in another excerpt she wrote that her father remembered  Florence Maybrick’s eyes had “the look of a frightened animal.” Folder: Aunspaugh letters, Box 1, Trevor L. Christie papers, Coll. No. 3266, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
This excerpt draws a telling parallel between James Maybrick’s “bull-dog tenacity” in courting Florence and his brother Michael’s later relentless pursuit of her conviction. Michael Maybrick, who “hated Florence” according to historical accounts, orchestrated her house arrest and was instrumental in her prosecution. Folder: Aunspaugh letters, Box 1, Trevor L. Christie papers, Coll. No. 3266, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

A Tragic Aftermath

Florence served fifteen years in British prisons under brutal conditions, including nine months in solitary confinement. After her release in 1904, she initially lectured about prison reform and her experiences, but eventually became a recluse in Connecticut, living under her maiden name. She died alone and penniless in 1941, never having seen her children again.

The Lasting Significance

Andrea’s conclusion powerfully synthesizes her analysis: “What we do know for certain based on a widely studied dual definition of women is that Victorian gender ideologies damned Florence Maybrick to prison and a life of struggle, but they also saved her from the immediate finality of a noose.”

Her research demonstrates how the Maybrick case became “a lightning rod for wide social and gender anxieties” as “traditional gender notions were under tension in the late nineteenth century.” Through careful analysis of AHC archival materials, Andrea shows how this single case illuminates the broader contradictions and impossible expectations placed on Victorian women.

American petition for Florence Maybrick’s clemency, published by Chicago’s Inter Ocean, November 28, 1894. The appeal was signed by prominent women journalists and press league members nationwide. Folder: Pardon Crusade, Box 2, Trevor L. Christie papers, Coll. No. 3266, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

Perhaps most importantly, Andrea’s work reveals how these historical patterns continue to resonate: “The Trevor Christie Collection exposes an intimate, lesser-known side of Florence Maybrick, but it also tells us a great deal about those who did the remembering in Trevor Christie’s research, including Christie himself.”

Discovering History Through Archives

Andrea’s award-winning research exemplifies the kind of original scholarship possible through careful work with primary sources. The Trevor Christie’s papers at the AHC contains the materials he gathered for his biography of Florence Maybrick: correspondence with Florence Aunspaugh and other witnesses, newspaper clippings spanning decades, photographs, research files on the trial and prison term, and even Christie’s original manuscript. These materials allowed Andrea to reconstruct not just what happened to Florence, but how that story was understood, retold, and reinterpreted across decades of changing social attitudes. As Andrea demonstrates, understanding how memory and gender ideology intersect can reveal profound truths about both past and present.

This post is adapted from Andrea Hastings-Arrollo’s award-winning paper “Gender Ideologies and Memory: A Case Study of the Murder Trial of Florence Maybrick,”written for Dr. Peter Walker’s HIST 3020: Historical Methods course. Andrea received the 2025 American Heritage Center Award for Graduate Student Research for this exceptional work.

About the AHC Graduate Student Research Award

The AHC annually awards $500 to recognize excellence in graduate student research using the Center’s primary sources. Open to University of Wyoming graduate students in any discipline, the award accepts projects in various forms—research papers, creative writing, exhibits, podcasts, websites—as long as they’re based substantially on AHC materials.

The next deadline for nominations is May 17, 2026. For more information, contact AHC Toppan Rare Book Curator Dr. Mary Beth Brown at Mary.Brown@uwyo.edu.

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At the Copa: Antonio Morelli and the Musical Legacy of Mid-Century Las Vegas

Posted on June 2, 2025 by ahcadmin

You know what they say: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But then, what is the American Heritage Center of Wyoming doing with personally autographed photos from the likes of Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., and Dean Martin? Where did it get all these fantastic postcards from the Sands Hotel in its heyday? Well, my curious friend, it is my great honor to introduce you to Antonio Morelli and his music.

Anthony “Antonio” Morelli. From Photo File: Morelli: Antonio, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

A New Dawn in Las Vegas

But before we can meet him, let’s set the stage: In the post-war era of the late 1940s and 1950s, Las Vegas, Nevada, found itself in serious need of a rebrand. American sensibilities were changing and the “sin city” image of a mob-run gambling capital and swinger’s paradise just did not fit the bill anymore. While the allure of gambling would remain the crown jewel of Vegas, the casino owners and businessmen of the city were determined to paint a new image of the neon oasis – One of high-class entertainment nestled in resort casinos, designed to attract both wealthy tourists and families looking for a vacation. But just how were they to bring this kind of refined sheen to the Mojave Desert?

For Jack Entratter, then president of the Sands Hotel and Casino, the key to revitalizing the Vegas image was to bring the pomp and shine of classical music behind his headliners. Thus, enter Antonio Morelli. Instantly recognizable by his finely waxed, pencil-tipped mustache, Morelli had previously been met by Entratter in New York City’s famous Copacabana Club, and in 1954, was recruited by him as the musical director of the Sands

“The Toscanini of the Desert”

Morelli’s time at the Copacabana was only one of many qualifications that made him fit the bill of a new Las Vegas. The son of a fine arts professor and symphony flutist, Morelli studied classical music for eleven years in Italy, first at Milan’s San Celso Military Academy, and then the Royal Conservatories of Music of both Milan and Parma.

In 1925, he returned to the United States to a dizzying number of roles across the country. He once served as the musical director of the St. Louis Musical Opera. In New York, he took on both choral composer and orchestrator for Radio City Music Hall and was the orchestra leader for Albany’s RKO Palace Theater. He toured the United States, conducting both civic orchestras in cities like Dallas, Denver, New Orleans, and Chicago, as well as to conduct the pit orchestras of various theater chains such as Warner, Paramount, Pantages, and Shubert.

Clearly, the Sand’s orchestra, purportedly the biggest the Strip had at the time, was in experienced hands. As Entratter brought in the stars, Morelli transformed the Sands’s Copa Room (named, funnily enough, for the Copacabana Club) time and time again to create performances worth paying for.

While many performers tended to bring their own musical directors to Vegas, Morelli insisted on constant collaboration, upping the Copa Room’s small brass band to a full stringed orchestra. The Sands saw performances and residencies from stars known far and wide, from figures like Nat King Cole, to, most famously, the Rat Pack. As the Sands championed headliners like Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and Sammy Davis Jr., just below those big names on the marquee, and just behind them in the show, was Antonio Morelli and his orchestra.

Morelli (back left) watching the antics of Frank Sinatra (blindfolded, left), Sammy Davis Jr. (center), and Dean Martin (right). From Photo File: Martin, Dean Martin, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

Beyond the Copa Room

Entertaining the new brand of wealthy, educated tourists on the Strip was far from Morelli’s only impact on the city of Las Vegas. Not only did he bring classical culture to the Sands, but he brought it to the vast population living in the valley. Not long after his arrival in 1954, Morelli established his Las Vegas Pops Concert Orchestra. These pops concerts, often referred to as “Shirt Sleeve Symphonies,” were free to attend, and offered a wide range of musical exposure to the Vegas community. Performed first at the Sands’s own convention center and then ballooning into the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Shirt Sleeve Symphonies offered anything from popular music to concertized versions of operas such as Aida.

Additionally, Morelli organized countless holiday concerts, often in collaboration with the Las Vegas Community Choir. These programs, again free to the public, drew thousands of community members – At one point, both the Christmas and Easter programs drew up to 5,000 audience members, with a Good Friday concert boasting more than 10,000.

Marquee of the Las Vegas Convention Center for a Morelli Mother’s Day Concert, undated. Box 61. Antonio Morelli papers, Coll. No. 6347, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

Morelli cared about the musical and cultural health of the city he came to call home – a far cry from his childhood home of Erie, Pennsylvania. Outside of his accessible concerts, he also put forward a music performance trust fund to subsidize the salaries of his musicians, and he would often showcase young musicians in his pops performances as “Musicians of the Future.” To this day, a scholarship he arranged way back in 1969 continues to provide opportunities for students looking to pursue music at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas – the Antonio Morelli Friends of Music Endowment Fund.

Program to the Christmas Concert and Pageant, performed by Morelli and the Las Vegas Community Chorus, 1960. Box 6B, Antonio Morelli papers, Coll. No. 6347, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

After the Curtain Call

Today, despite his impact on one of the most notable eras of Las Vegas and midcentury America, this once so-called “Toscanini of the Desert” seems to have faded into the background of the great performers he supported. His legacy lives well beyond his passing in 1974 and the demolition of the Sands in 1996 – if you know where to look for it.

Now that you know his name and his face, maybe you can imagine him and his orchestra elevating the sounds of the Rat Pack when you listen to their live recordings at the Sands. Maybe you can keep an eye out for him in the background of those fellas making fools of themselves in the Copa Room, grinning at their antics behind that signature mustache. And maybe, if you’re a real Vegas nerd like yours truly, you’ll come scour the boxes of his collection at the American Heritage Center and see just how much of Las Vegas he touched.

Frank Sinatra, Antonio Morelli, and an unknown pianist. From Photo File: Sinatra, Frank, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

Post contributed by AHC Audiovisual Archivist Aide Marty Murray.

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TransMontana: Preserving the Journey of Bobbie Zenker

Posted on May 26, 2025 by ahcadmin

This Pride Month, the American Heritage Center highlights the Roberta R. “Bobbie” Zenker papers, an important addition to our collection documenting varied experiences in the American West. Acquired in March 2023, this collection provides researchers with valuable primary source material chronicling one person’s unique journey through Montana’s legal, social, and natural landscapes.

A Montana Legal Career and Personal Transformation

Born in Silver Spring, Maryland, in 1957, Zenker established a distinguished legal career in Montana, eventually serving as Madison County Attorney from 1997 to 2006. The collection documents both this professional journey and Zenker’s subsequent personal transformation as a transgender woman, as chronicled in her memoir TransMontana: A Memoir of Transformation in Body, Mind, and Spirit.

Embracing freedom in the Montana wilderness. During her transition period, Zenker would occasionally drive into the mountains to be her authentic self in nature, capturing these moments with self-portraits. As she described in her 2024 oral history: “I had these photographs that I took of me when I would get dressed, get in the truck and drive up in the mountains and just me and my face in the sun. It was glorious.” This image embodies what Zenker called  “coming out of the box” – the emergence of her true self in a space where she could experience joy and authenticity away from societal constraints. Roberta R. “Bobbie” Zenker papers, Coll. No. 12881, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming

“At the pinnacle. I was 48 years old. I was the county attorney,” Zenker recalls in her December 2024 oral history with AHC Archivist Leslie Waggener and collaborator Gregory Hinton. The collection offers researchers unique insights into both professional life in rural Montana’s legal system and the personal challenges of gender transition in a small-town context.

Faith Across Transitions

A distinctive aspect of Zenker’s papers is the documentation of her spiritual journey. Raised Catholic and later experiencing what she describes as a “born again” moment during a high school retreat, Zenker’s collection reveals how faith remained constant throughout life’s transitions.

“I think it kept me alive,” Zenker notes when discussing spirituality’s role during difficult periods. These materials provide researchers with nuanced perspectives on the intersection of faith and personal identity in rural America—perspectives that often defy simple categorization.

Bobbie Zenker in 2009, two years after her transition. Throughout her journey, spirituality remained a constant anchor in Zenker’s life. This faith was present even during her most difficult transitions. Her mother, who initially consulted with her parish priest about Bobbie’s transition, became one of her strongest supporters and was present for her gender confirmation surgery. Roberta R. “Bobbie” Zenker papers, Coll. No. 12881, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

The Photographer’s Eye: From Hunter to Observer

Perhaps the most visually compelling elements of the Zenker collection are her wildlife photographs, which represent another significant transformation. After decades as a hunter in Montana, Zenker eventually exchanged her rifle for a telephoto lens—a shift she describes poignantly in her oral history:

When you hunt, you train your scope on the vitals of an animal. When you take a photograph, at least I trained my lens on the eyes… And I believe that the eyes are in fact a window to the soul. And once you’ve looked into the soul of an animal, you can never shoot them again.”

This philosophical evolution is documented through photographs and writings that will interest researchers studying changing relationships with Montana’s natural environment.

“Vixen” by Bobbie Zenker, 2021.
“His House” by Bobbie Zenker, 2021.

Documenting Changing Times in Montana

Beyond personal narrative, the Zenker collection provides important documentation of Montana communities from the 1980s through the 2010s. Her experiences in Ashland, Virginia City, Helena, and other locations offer researchers windows into these communities during decades of significant change.

The Roberta R. “Bobbie” Zenker papers are available for research at the AHC. The collection includes correspondence, newspaper clippings, photographs, speeches, manuscripts, notes, and her published memoir, offering scholars a comprehensive resource for understanding multiple aspects of Montana history.

Bobbie Zenker at a Pride celebration. After her transition, Zenker became an outspoken advocate, conducting ‘Trans 101’ workshops throughout Montana for healthcare providers and various organizations. Despite being the ‘first and only transgender lawyer in Montana’ at the time, Zenker faced both acceptance and hostility, including at legislative sessions where she testified for transgender rights. Her advocacy work included serving as a plaintiff in an ACLU case and speaking on platforms like Montana Public Radio. Roberta R. “Bobbie” Zenker papers, Coll. No. 12881, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

Explore More LGBTQ+ History at the AHC

The story of Bobbie Zenker’s journey reflects the broader narrative of LGBTQ+ visibility that evolved throughout the late 20th century. To explore how mainstream media portrayed queer experiences during these pivotal decades, visit our online exhibit “A Different Kind of Spotlight: How the media has portrayed queerness throughout the decades.”

This digital exhibition features materials from the Bennett Hammer collection, showcasing LGBT+ community representation in media from the ‘80s and ‘90s—the same era when Zenker was establishing her legal career and beginning her personal transformation.

Post contributed by AHC Archivist Leslie Waggener.

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Felicia Gizycka and Cissy Patterson: The Relationship that Defined a 20th Century Life

Posted on May 19, 2025 by ahcadmin

Felicia Gizycka was born in 1905 to Count Josef Gizycki and his wife, Countess Eleanor “Cissy” Patterson. Her early years were colored by her father’s kidnapping of her and her mother’s aloofness. Her adult life was one of “international flapper,” failed romances, and writing. From her parents to her choices in romantic partners, Felicia’s story exhibits hallmarks of 20th century life. Today the American Heritage Center is excited to share her and her mother’s story.

Felicia’s story begins with her mother, Cissy, who was the granddaughter of Chicago Tribune powerhouse Joseph Medill. Cissy’s mother, Elinor “Nellie” Patterson was the second born daughter, who married Robert Patterson.

Born in November 1881, Cissy’s childhood was one of privilege. She was educated at Miss Porter’s school in Farmington, Connecticut- preparing for her eventual role as wife and mother. But Cissy had a stubborn, independent streak that had her mother in fits and made her a darling of her grandfather.

Cissy, like many other young women of her social class, came with a sizable dowry – one that would draw attention from various suitors. Prime among them were Nicholas Longworth (the future husband of Alice Roosevelt, who was the daughter of Theodore Roosevelt and one of Cissy’s friends and enemies) and Count Josef Gizycki.

Eleanor “Cissy” Patterson. Image from the Harris & Ewing Collection, Library of Congress.  

Cissy’s romance with Count Gizycki reflects the same story as other heiresses of her time, the so-called “Dollar Princesses,” who left the United States and married aristocracy elsewhere. Cissy’s count was impoverished, his estates in Russian Poland as destitute as they were remote. Josef had a gambling problem, creating debts that had Cissy’s dowry catching his eye.

The pair first met when Cissy traveled abroad with her aunt and uncle, who was the ambassador to Austria-Hungary, and later Russia. They met at a horse race and maintained correspondence even after Cissy returned to the United States. He asked for her hand, multiple times, and finally traveled to America himself in 1904 to push the issue. He was unpopular with her family, thanks to his reputation, but she came with a $30,000 a year income that her destitute gambling fiancé needed. They were finally wed in April of 1904, and that is where Cissy’s fairytale ended.

Newspaper illustration depicting European aristocrats hunting American heiresses while wealthy American women pursue titled nobility. Image from “Short History,” https://short-history.com/american-dollar-princesses-b571b543dcd.

They traveled to Josef’s remote, barren estates in Russian Poland, and upon arriving home, the count told his new bride that he only married her for her dowry and to beget a legitimate child. In 1905, the couple welcomed that child, Felicia, but family life was never smooth for the small family. Josef was abusive, when he wasn’t out sleeping with other women. He and Cissy separated and rejoined many times before she decided to leave him. This time, still bruised and battered from her husband, and with the help of servants, Cissy and her daughter attempted to flee to London, and from there, America.

But Josef was not so willing to let his legitimate heir, or his wife, go. He followed them and kidnapped Felicia from a London park, disguised in goggles and a fur coat, and took her to an Austrian convent. This was a deliberate choice on Josef’s part – Europe did not recognize divorce, so it would take the order of the Tsar to return Felicia to her mother. However, the count was unlucky.

The Patterson family happened to be friends with then President-elect Taft, who agreed to intercede in the matter for the family. Felicia settled in Vienna, waiting for the debacle to end, while Taft wrote a personal letter to Tsar Nicholas II asking him to return Felicia to her mother. When the count returned to his estate, he was arrested by the Tsar and ordered to return Felicia to her mother.

The scandal had become international news in the interim; newspapers dubbed the child “the Little Countess Felicia” in their stories and inflamed the pressure on all parties involved.1 Amidst rumors of a $500,000 ransom in the same newspapers, Felicia was returned to her mother’s hotel suite in Vienna. Felicia never saw her father again, and after eighteen months, she was returned to her mother and together they left for the United States. For the rest of her childhood, Felicia was accompanied by a private detective after her father’s actions. It took her mother thirteen years to obtain a divorce from the Count, and it would only be recognized in the United States, as Europe didn’t support the idea of divorce.

Felicia Gizycka and Cissy Patterson circa 1910. Image from the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff History Center, https://exhibits.lflbhistory.org/stories/40.

Cissy and Felica settled close to other Patterson family members in Lake Forest, Illinois; however, the family had many residences, and Cissy also purchased homes of her own over the course of Felica’s childhood, including Flat Creek Ranch in Jackson, Wyoming. Other homes included the Patterson mansion in Washington D.C. – 15 Dupont Circle, a Long Island estate, and Mount Airy Mansion in Washington D.C.

Cissy returned to Washington D.C. in 1913, and by 1920 her brother caved to her pleas to allow her to work for his paper The New York Daily News. She also got a job working for William Randolph Hearst, the man from whom she would eventually purchase both the Washington Herald, and the Washington Times papers. She would go on to combine them and turn them into one of the most successful dailies in the capital. But her familial life was far less smooth.

Tension between mother and daughter grew early and followed them both through the rest of their lives. Felicia was raised mostly by servants and was just as stubborn and independent as her mother before her. Mother and daughter quarreled often, and Cissy was prone to ignoring the similarities between herself as a child and her daughter – choosing to blame her daughter’s willfulness on the “Polish” side. As for Felicia, she grew up rotating between her family’s many estates and properties. She spoke multiple languages from an early age, including some French learned in the convent, German, Russian, and English (though not as well).

By the time she reached young adulthood, Felicia was as prone to dramatics as her mother had been before her. She ran away from the ranch in Wyoming, allegedly riding a horse down a canyon, taking money from her account before leaving, and traveling first to Salt Lake and then on to San Diego. There Felicia was able to live undetected for four months, working as a waitress and living in a rooming house.

Excerpt from a newspaper article titled “My Ride up to the Ranch” about Felicia Gizycka from the Jackson Hole News. Box 2, Felicia Gizycka papers, Coll. No. 12924, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

It was not Cissy that followed her daughter to California and attempted to bring her home. Rather, it was a suitor that Felicia had already rebuffed once, calling him a bore. That suitor was Andrew “Drew” Pearson. Felicia had no interest in marriage and family life, but eventually Drew was able to convince her. He did so by telling her they could try marriage for three years and if she didn’t like it, they could divorce after the three-year mark. It worked, and the couple was wed in 1925 in Long Beach, California, before they returned east.

Felicia Gizycka, 1925. Image from Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Felicia_Gizycka_1925.jpg.

The couple lived in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., where Felicia worked as a film reviewer for the Washington Post, and her husband continued to build his own journalism career. In 1926 the couple welcomed their daughter Ellen Pearson. Felicia, at exactly three years, told Pearson that she wanted a divorce, and in 1928 they divorced. The Patterson family curse of tension between mother and daughter struck again – Felicia and her daughter had a tension-filled relationship, like her own with her mother.

After her divorce, Felicia lived life as an “international flapper.” She roamed the globe, drinking and writing – both fiction and journalism. Like her mother, Felicia was a writer by trade but not necessarily by training or education. And, like her mother, she published two novels in her life. The first in 1932 –The House of Violence, and the second in 1939 – Flower of Smoke. Her first piece of fiction had been published in the Liberty magazine run by her uncle, and she would continue to publish short stories. She also worked in the journalism trade, like many other family members, writing film reviews and for a time Paris restaurant reviews.

Cissy often helped her daughter gain writing opportunities, or they came from other members of the family, but she also bemoaned her daughter’s romantic tendencies. Felicia’s mother often had to bail her out of romantic entanglements as Felicia seemed to fall in and out of love easily and often. Like her mother before her, she was even briefly courted by a Polish count of her own, but his suit was rejected by the family when he asked for a $1 million dollar dowry.

Instead, Felicia’s second husband was an Englishman. Dudley de Lavigne was an English insurance broker (who was broke) and a part of the Prince of Wales’s social circle. They were married and divorced in 1934. Felicia had not even notified her mother about the marriage prior to Cissy receiving the announcement. But she still sent her lawyer to help her daughter with the divorce suit later that same year.

However, relations between mother and daughter eroded further after Felicia’s 1939 novel was published. It was autobiographical, and the descriptions of a “heartless socialite mother” in the story were unflattering and infuriated her mother.2 By 1945, relations between mother and daughter were so bad that Felicia publicly “divorced” her mother. Cissy offered Felicia a floor of the Washington House, but Felicia denied the offer, instead choosing to live off on inheritance from a grandmother and her writing.

By the time her mother died in 1948, Cissy’s will had been reworked dozens of times. She was a bit obsessed with her own demise and spoke of it often at dinner parties and other social gatherings. In those varied iterations, Felicia’s inheritance had changed drastically. Cissy’s estate was estimated at around $16 million in 1948, and there were varied interested parties to see who would end up with what of that vast sum.

In the 1924 version of her mother’s will, Cissy called her a “beloved daughter” and Felicia was her sole heir. By 1948, Cissy had drastically “reduced” her daughter’s inheritance. Felicia was not left her mother’s newspapers, or even a stake in them; rather she was left household goods, artwork, clothing and jewelry, properties in North Dakota, and the Long Island estate.

Felicia decided to challenge her mother’s will, as she had been all but disinherited. Her ensuing legal battle was carried out with the help of her ex-husband, Drew Pearson. He became involved himself because of the chance his daughter would inherit nothing if he didn’t intervene. He and Cissy Patterson had their own contentious relationship and had often made pointed barbs in their newspaper writings against one another. And for Felicia, she was once again featured in numerous newspapers with the legal battle, all of whom covered the drama readily. By the end of the suit, Felicia walked away with a lump sum of $400,000 tax-free (more than $5 million in today’s dollars). At 44 years old Felicia had become wealthy in her own right and was free of her mother.

Drew Pearson speaking to a crowd gathered at City Hall Plaza in New York City to greet the Friendship Train, 1947. This was a relief effort initiated by Pearson after World War II to send food, clothing, and other supplies to the people of France and Italy. Image from Encyclopædia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Drew-Pearson

Her mother’s newspapers went to seven stakeholders, as had been slated to in the original 1948 version of her will. In less than a year, Cissy’s empire began to crumble. Within the same year, the stakeholders sold the paper to her cousin, Colonel McCormick. Her cousin would sell off the paper in five years to the competing Washington Post, who promptly closed it.

After her mother’s death, Felicia continued writing, moving mostly between New Canaan, Connecticut, and Wyoming. In 1958, Felicia married for the third time. Her new husband, John Kennedy Magruder, was a landscape architect who also ran the Alcoholics Anonymous Men’s Home in Alexandria, Virginia. This marriage, like the two before it, ended in divorce. However, Felica kept her husband’s name, writing under both, for the rest of her life.

In 1995, Felicia moved for the final time from New Canaan to Laramie, Wyoming, where her daughter Ellen had married local attorney George Arnold. She moved into a retirement community and lived the rest of her life there. She died on February 26, 1999, at ninety-three years old. Most of her life had been defined by her relationship with her mother, or with her romances. Her relationships were all built on the same foundation as the one with her mother. Felicia once said, “I spent so much time hating my mother. How could I ever really love anyone else?”3

Photo of Felicia Gizycka from the article “My Ride up to the Ranch” in the Jackson Hole News. Box 2, Felicia Gizycka papers, Coll. No. 12924, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

The Felicia Gizycka papers were donated to the American Heritage Center in 2024, and though the collection is small, it drew interest from members of the staff, including myself. I was drawn to this story, both for its reflections of 20th century hallmarks, as well as for the seemingly dramatic narrative that made up Felicia’s life. Discovering her ties to many important members of the press in the 20th century, as well as her family connections to the state of Wyoming has been a fun challenge. It has re-inspired a love of research and 20th century American history.

Post contributed by AHC Processing Archivist Brittany Heye.

  1. “Felicia Magruder.” 1999. SFGATE. April 6, 1999. https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Felicia-Magruder-2937990.php.
  2. Dannatt, Adrian. 1999. “Obituary: Countess Felicia Gizycka | the Independent.” The Independent. May 17, 1999. https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/obituary-countess-felicia-gizycka-1094303.html.
  3. ‌Ibid.

Sources also include Newspaper Titan: The Infamous Life and Monumental Times of Cissy Patterson by Amanda Smith published by Knopf in 2011.

Posted in American History, Biographies and Profiles, Journalism, Women's History, Wyoming | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Decoding Stan Lee’s Spider-Man Movie Notes from 1984

Posted on May 12, 2025 by ahcadmin

The American Heritage Center houses a vast number of Stan Lee’s personal papers, including handwritten notecards from 1984 that reveal his first ideas for a Spider-Man movie.  Last fall, I had the amazing opportunity to view copies of these notecards and transcribe them.  Through the process of deciphering Stan Lee’s unique handwriting, I experienced, firsthand, the ups and downs of transcribing handwritten documents.  I also gained a deeper appreciation for handwriting in general, as it gives us a window into understanding the humans behind our history.

What is Transcription?

Transcription is the process of converting something into written form.  Spoken words, for instance, can be transcribed so that there’s a written document of what was said.  When it comes to already-written documents that are found in an archive, someone might transcribe an individual’s distinctive handwriting style into a typed format in order to make it easier and quicker to read.  Reading handwriting can be difficult and time-consuming, even more so with styles like cursive which we may not be as familiar with.  In outlining my process of transcribing Stan Lee’s Spider-Man movie notes, my hope is to assure people that anyone can take part in the important and rewarding experience of transcribing handwritten documents at the archive.

My First Look at the Notecards

Going into this project, I assumed the task of transcribing Stan Lee’s handwriting would be fairly straightforward.  I mistakenly believed that only centuries-old handwriting is difficult to read.  These notecards were quite challenging for me to get through even though Stan Lee wrote them not all that long ago.  Below is one of the first notecards I reviewed.  I quickly realized this was going to be a lot harder than I had initially thought!

This notecard reads: “Peter sees Dr. Octavius lecturing, demonstrating use of waldoes. Ock’s waldoes work better than anyone else’s because he applies secret anti-grav discs which no one else knows about. Ock humorously mentions he wishes he had these years ago to stop his infant child from getting into everything.” Box 10, Folder 12, Envelope 1 of 11, Stan Lee papers, Coll. No. 8302, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming..

It’s all about a person’s individual handwriting style—if you aren’t familiar with it, then it’s going to take some time to get used to, no matter how old it is.  These notecards may not have been written in eighteenth-century cursive, but Stan Lee’s handwriting style is unique all the same.  He primarily wrote in uppercase on these notecards, and several of his letters look alike, particularly his vowels.

All of this is to say that I was immediately overwhelmed the first time I looked at the notecards.  I needed to reevaluate my approach and start looking at this like a puzzle that needed to be solved.

Getting Started

After I started to approach this project with more of an open mind, I was able to recognize a huge advantage that I had that won’t always be the case with every transcription project.  That is, I was already familiar with some important details about Spider-Man’s story.  I already knew about Peter Parker, Aunt May, Uncle Ben, Doc Ock, Flash Thompson, and J. Jonah Jameson before I even started reading.  If I found these characters’ names on the notecards, then I could use them to establish what Stan Lee’s individual letters look like.  This was crucial in helping me decipher trickier words that happened to contain these letters.  Below is the very first notecard.  It immediately taught me a lot about Stan Lee’s handwriting, including the distinctive way he wrote the letter A.  Finding “Aunt May” on this notecard provided me with two examples of the letter A that I could then apply to other words that weren’t immediately obvious to me.

This notecard reads: “Spider weaves web over credits. At end, Aunt May brushes it away with a broom. She hates spiders.” Box 10, Folder 12, Envelope 1 of 11, Stan Lee papers, Coll. No. 8302, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

Knowing details about the general plot of Spider-Man also helped quite a bit.  For example, we all know that Spider-Man’s origin story includes him being bitten by a radioactive spider and gaining superpowers.  I knew that these details were sure to show up somewhere in the notecards.  Below is a notecard that discusses the radioactive spider bite and Peter Parker learning about his new powers.  “Muggers” was a tricky word for me to figure out on this card, but it helped that I knew the context and that it was written twice.  After I discovered this was a word that Stan Lee used in this context, it was easier to recognize on subsequent notecards.

This notecard reads: “Peter attacked by some muggers after lecture (after radioactive spider bite). Peter beats up 3 muggers easily. Leaps onto wall to save himself from car. Tests his new abilities. Can crawl on walls & ceilings like a spider!” Box 10, Box 10, Folder 12, Envelope 2 of 11, Stan Lee papers, Coll. No. 8302, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

Solving the Puzzle

The transcription process went from overwhelming to fun as I became more familiar with Stan Lee’s handwriting.  I got better at recognizing the way he wrote different letters, and I learned which letters I frequently got mixed up.  For example, the way Stan Lee wrote the letter U often looked like the letter V to me.  In addition, his letter H sometimes looked like the letter W.  As stated earlier, I also confused Stan Lee’s vowels, mostly A, E, and O.  The notecard below includes examples of these letters and hopefully illustrates why I struggled with them.

This notecard reads: “Peter sees Doc Ock taken away on a stretcher. Peter thinks nothing much of it. But – he will!” Box 10, Folder 12, Envelope 2 of 11, Stan Lee papers, Coll. No. 8302, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

After I had quite a bit of practice reading Stan Lee’s handwriting and was starting to feel more confident in my ability to transcribe it, I stumbled upon some notecards that feature cursive.  I had to adjust to this new style, and this also took time.  A notecard featuring a mix of Stan Lee’s uppercase and his cursive is shown below.

This notecard reads: “JJ buys Spidey pix (protestingly). Peter suspects that Robbie is suspicious re his real identity. Both men like each other.” Box 10, Folder 12, Envelope 6 of 11, Stan Lee papers, Coll. No. 8302, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

As the transcription process became easier, I found myself in a better position to appreciate Stan Lee’s voice and humor.  Even though I know Spider-Man’s story, I still found myself invested in what was going to happen next.  There were some details that were new to me because they aren’t found in the Spider-Man adaptations that I’m familiar with.  It’s amazing to be able to see Stan Lee’s ideas in his own handwriting.  I was only able to really appreciate what was in front of me after I worked through my initial feelings of fear and frustration.  Stan Lee’s voice and humor shine through in the notecard shown below which details a scene that takes place during the climax of the story.

This notecard reads: “Ock, via radio, demands a billion dollars – amnesty – one state to rule as his own – can be a small one, even Rhode Island will do – laughs, doesn’t wanna be thought of as unreasonable. Demands must be meet [sic] in 3 hours – after that, ray will dissipate!” Box 10, Folder 12, Envelope 10 of 11, Stan Lee papers, Coll. No. 8302, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

Reading Handwriting Matters

The most important thing I learned from this experience is that being patient pays off in a big way.  Transcription will be overwhelming and frustrating at points, but you will learn as you go and what you discover along the way is worth it.  I took the time to understand what Stan Lee was saying in these notecards, and in addition to accessing a special version of Spider-Man’s story, I also got an intimate view of Stan Lee’s creative process and who he was as a person.  I would have never experienced this if I hadn’t worked to decipher his handwriting.  Reading historical handwriting lets us interact with people’s stories in such a unique way, and there is something valuable to be learned from any transcription project.  Just remember to take your time, take lots of breaks, ask for help when you need it, and recognize the significance of the individuals who wrote down their stories!

Interested in Transcription?

Information is for everybody, and nobody should be deterred from discovering information just because they can’t read a certain handwriting.  Going to an archive to interact with historical documents is an incredibly rewarding experience, but not everybody has the time or resources to transcribe a document’s contents from start to finish in order to understand the importance of what is being said.  Viewing a typed transcript alongside the original document is the best of both worlds—it helps people more easily access the information while also allowing them to see the personality of the individual who wrote it.  If you enjoy working through puzzles, consider volunteering to help transcribe handwritten documents at the American Heritage Center.  You can also come view the Stan Lee Papers at the AHC to learn more about his legendary career and discover how his early Spider-Man movie ideas compare to the story we know and love!

Post contributed by AHC Graduate Assistant Harper Pachel, a student in the University of Wyoming’s American Studies Program.

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