Author Brendan Gill describes the love triangle behind Stanford White's murder and explores money, sex, entertainment, and public morals in early 20th century New York City. Stanford White In New York at the turn of the century, the city -- the physical appearance of the city -- was changing so radically, and it was being changed largely in part by one extraordinary firm: McKim, Mead and White.
So that perhaps that the character of McKim and Mead would not have had any effect on the public, but Stanford White was at every party, he was at all the openings at the theater, at the opera, at everything else. He was well over six feet tall, he had reddish hair, he was extraordinarily handsome and vivid, he moved at top speed so that even in the street, even watching this person, he was like a kind of apparition, passing through the city at all times. And of course, he was also in what amounted to the gossip columns in those days, we tend to think that they didn't have gossip columns, but they had very powerful gossip columns, which were more scandalous than anything we print nowadays.
But he was one of the major figures known to exist in New York, and about whom a great mass of people revolved She was not only perfect features, but soft, voluptuous smiling, and everybody wanted to take her picture. She was photographed by everybody in kimonos, which were all the rage in those days, Japanese settings with parasols, and everything. And also naked, and also looking into the camera saying "I dare you, I dare you to think the thoughts that you are thinking.
He was a classic evil man, if there is such a thing, in the evil of the world, but Evelyn was determined to marry him, determined to get a lot of money, and to make good through him Breaking the Rules At the turn of the century, the letter of law, and the morality of the society which was setting itself up as the standard for New York City was entirely hypocritical. And the richer you were, the freer you were to break the rules.
I can't think of a single exception where somebody or other wasn't having fun on the side. And the wives had no alternative, they were not going to have a career outside of the home. There was nothing to be done about it. Women as Chattell At the turn of the century, like at the turn of any century, say for 15, years, the source of entertainment, for men, at night, in a big city, have been nightclubs and houses of prostitution. And the use of women without regard to their being anything more than purchasable chattel.
