Harry Kendall Thaw
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Harry Kendall Thaw | |
---|---|
Born | Allegheny City,[1] Pennsylvania, U.S. | February 12, 1871
Died | February 22, 1947 | (aged 76)
Resting place | Allegheny Cemetery |
Education | University of Pittsburgh Harvard University |
Known for | The killing of Stanford White |
Spouse | |
Children | Russell William Thaw |
Parent(s) | William Thaw Mary Sibbet Copley |
Relatives | Alice Cornelia Thaw (sister) Benjamin Thaw Sr. (brother) |
Harry Kendall Thaw (February 12, 1871 – February 22, 1947)[2][3] was the son of American coal and railroad baron, William Thaw Sr. Heir to a multimillion-dollar fortune, the younger Thaw is most notable for murdering the renowned architect Stanford White in front of hundreds of witnesses at the rooftop theatre of New York City's Madison Square Garden on June 25, 1906.
Thaw had harbored an obsessive hatred of White, believing he had blocked Thaw's access to the social elite of New York. White had also had a previous relationship with Thaw's wife, the model and chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit, when she was age 16 or 17. This affair allegedly began with White plying Nesbit with alcohol (and possibly drugs) and then raping her while she was unconscious. In Thaw's mind, this relationship had "ruined" her.
Thaw's trial for murder was heavily publicized and called the "trial of the century". After one hung jury, he later was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Plagued by
Early life
Harry Thaw was born on February 12, 1871, to Pittsburgh coal and railroad baron William Thaw Sr.,[2][3] and his second wife, Mary Sibbet (Copley) Thaw. The elder Thaw fathered eleven children from his two marriages.[2] Thaw had five siblings: Edward (born 1873), Josiah (born 1874), Margaret (born 1877), and Alice Cornelia (born 1880).[4] A brother, born a year before Harry, died an accidental death in infancy, smothered by his mother's breast while he lay in her bed.[5] Thaw's mother herself was known for her abuse of the family's servants, as well as episodes of ungovernable temper.[6]
In childhood, Thaw was subject to bouts of insomnia, temper tantrums, incoherent babbling and, notably, baby talk, a form of expression which he retained in adulthood. His chosen form of amusement was hurling heavy household objects at the heads of servants. The misfortune of others triggered fits of giggling. Thaw spent his childhood bouncing among private schools in Pittsburgh, never doing well and described by teachers as unintelligent and a troublemaker. A teacher at the Wooster Prep School described the 16-year-old Thaw as having an "erratic kind of zig-zag" walk, "which seemed to involuntarily mimic his brain patterns." As the son of William Thaw, he was granted admission to the University of Pittsburgh, where he was to study law, though he apparently did little studying. After a few years, he used his name and social status to transfer to Harvard College.[7]
Thaw later bragged that he had studied
Thaw's father, in an attempt to curb his son's
Early on and for years into the future, Thaw's mother and a cadre of lawyers dedicated themselves to shielding him from any public scandal that would dishonor the family name. Monetary pay-offs became the customary method of assuring silence. One notorious example occurred in Thaw's hotel room in
With an enormous amount of cash at his disposal, and reserves of energy to match, Thaw repeatedly tore through Europe at a frenetic pace, frequenting
Exhibiting the classic characteristics of a skilled, manipulative
Obsession with Stanford White
After his expulsion from Harvard, Thaw's sphere of activity alternated between
All these snubs, Thaw was convinced, were directly or indirectly due to the intervention of the city's social lion, lauded architect Stanford White, who would not countenance Thaw's entry into these exclusive clubs. Thaw's narcissism rebelled at such a state of affairs and ignited a virulent animosity towards White. This was the first identifiable incident in a long line of perceived indignities heaped on Thaw, who maintained the unshakable certainty that his victimization was all orchestrated by White.[12]
A second incident furthered Thaw's paranoid obsession with White. A disgruntled showgirl whom Thaw had publicly insulted reaped revenge when she sabotaged a lavish party he had planned by hijacking all the female invitees and transplanting the festivities to White's infamous Tower Room at Madison Square Garden. Thaw, stubbornly ignorant of the real cause of the chain of events, once again blamed White for single-handedly destroying his revelries. His social humiliation was completed when the episode was reported in the gossip columns. Thaw was left with a stag group of guests, and a glaring absence of "doe-eyed girlies".[12]
The reality was that Thaw both admired and resented White's social stature. More significantly, he recognized that he and White shared a passion for similar lifestyles. White, unlike Thaw, could carry on without censure, and seemingly with impunity.[13]
Drug use
Various sources document Thaw's
Evelyn Nesbit
Relationship
Thaw had been in the audience of The Wild Rose, a show in which Nesbit, a popular artist's model and chorus girl, was a featured player. The smitten Thaw attended some forty performances over the better part of a year. Through an intermediary, he ultimately arranged a meeting with Nesbit, introducing himself as "Mr. Munroe". Thaw maintained this subterfuge, with the help of confederates, while showering Nesbit with gifts and money before he felt the time was right to reveal his true identity. The day came when he confronted Nesbit and announced with self-important brio, "I am not Munroe...I am Henry Kendall Thaw, of Pittsburgh!"[16]
Candid about his dislike of Thaw, White warned Nesbit to stay away from him. However, his cautions were generalizations, lacking the sordid specifics that would have alerted Nesbit to Thaw's aberrant proclivities. A bout of presumed appendicitis put Nesbit in the hospital and provided Thaw with an opportunity to insert himself emphatically into her life. He came in bearing gifts and praise, managing to impress both Nesbit's mother and the headmistress at the boarding school she attended. Later, under White's orders, Nesbit was moved to a sanatorium in upstate New York, where both White and Thaw visited often, but never at the same time.
Nesbit had undergone an emergency appendectomy, at which time the kind-hearted side of Thaw came into play. He solicitously promoted a European trip, convincing mother and daughter that such a pleasure excursion would hasten Nesbit's recovery from surgery. However, the trip proved to be anything but recuperative. Thaw's usual hectic mode of travel escalated into a non-stop itinerary, calculated to weaken Nesbit's emotional resilience, compound her physical frailty, and unnerve and exhaust her mother. As tensions mounted, mother and daughter began to bicker and quarrel, leading to Mrs. Nesbit's insistence on returning to the U.S. Having effectively alienated Nesbit from her mother, Thaw then took her to Paris, leaving Mrs. Nesbit in London.[17]
In Paris, Thaw continued to press Nesbit to become his wife; she again refused. Aware of Thaw's obsession with female chastity, she could not in good conscience accept his marriage proposal without revealing to him the truth of her relationship with White. What transpired next, according to Nesbit, was a marathon session of inquisition, during which time Thaw managed to extract every detail of that night: how—when plied with champagne—Nesbit lay intoxicated and unconscious, and White rape her. Throughout the grueling ordeal, Nesbit was tearful and hysterical; Thaw by turns was agitated and gratified by her responses. He further drove the wedge between mother and daughter, condemning Mrs. Nesbit as an unfit parent. Nesbit blamed the outcome of events on her own willful defiance of her mother's cautionary advice and defended her mother as naïve and unwitting.[18]
Thaw and Nesbit traveled through Europe. Thaw, as guide, chose a bizarre agenda, a tour of sites devoted to the cult of virgin martyrdom. In
Thaw took Nesbit to Katzenstein Castle in Austria-Hungary (now Italy), a forbidding, gothic structure sitting near a high mountaintop. He segregated the three servants in residence—butler, cook and maid—in one end of the castle; himself and Nesbit in the opposite end.[20] This was where Nesbit claimed to have been locked in her room by Thaw, whose persona took on a dimension she had never before seen. Manic and violent, he beat her with a whip and sexually assaulted her over a two-week period. After his reign of terror had been expended, he was apologetic, and incongruously, after what had just transpired, was in an upbeat mood.[21]
Marriage
Thaw had pursued Nesbit obsessively for nearly four years, continuously pressing her for marriage. Craving financial stability in her life, and in doing so denying Thaw's tenuous grasp on reality, Nesbit finally consented to become his wife. They were wed on April 4, 1905. Thaw himself chose the wedding dress. Eschewing the traditional white gown, he dressed her in a black traveling suit decorated with brown trim.[22]
The couple took up residence in the Thaw family mansion in Pittsburgh. In later years Nesbit took measure of life in the Thaw household; the Thaws were anything but intellectuals, and their value system was shallow and self-serving, "the plane of materialism which finds joy in the little things that do not matter—the appearance of ...[things]".[23]
Envisioning a life of travel and entertainment, Nesbit was rudely awakened to a reality markedly different; a household ruled over by the sanctimonious propriety of "Mother Thaw". Thaw himself entered into his mother's sphere of influence, seemingly without protest, taking on the pose of pious son and husband. It was at this time that Thaw instituted a zealous campaign to expose White, corresponding with the reformer
The killing of Stanford White
It is conjectured that White was unaware of Thaw's long-standing vendetta against him. White considered Thaw a poseur of little consequence, categorized him as a clown, and most tellingly, called him the "Pennsylvania pug"—a reference to Thaw's baby-faced features.[25]
On June 25, 1906, Thaw and Nesbit were stopping in New York briefly before boarding a luxury liner bound for a European holiday.[26] Thaw had purchased tickets for himself, his wife and two of his male friends for the show Mam'zelle Champagne, playing on the rooftop theatre of Madison Square Garden. Despite suffocating heat, which did not abate as night fell, Thaw inappropriately wore over his tuxedo a long black overcoat, which he refused to take off throughout the entire evening.[27]
At 11:00 p.m., as the show was coming to a close, White appeared, taking his place at the table that was customarily reserved for him.[28] Thaw had been agitated all evening, and abruptly bounced back and forth from his own table throughout the performance. Spotting White's arrival, he tentatively approached him several times, each time withdrawing in hesitation. During the finale, "I Could Love a Million Girls", Thaw produced a pistol and, standing some two feet from his target, fired three shots at White, killing him instantly. Part of White's blood-covered face was torn away and the rest of his features were unrecognizable, blackened by gunpowder.[3][29] Thaw remained standing over White's body, displaying the gun aloft in the air, resoundingly proclaiming, according to witness reports, "I did it because he ruined my wife! He had it coming to him! He took advantage of the girl and then abandoned her!"[29] (The key witness allowed that he wasn't completely sure he heard Thaw correctly – that he might have said "he ruined my life" rather than "he ruined my wife".)[29]
The crowd initially suspected the shooting might be part of the show, as elaborate practical jokes were popular in high society at the time. Soon, however, it became apparent that White was dead. Thaw, still brandishing the gun high above his head, walked through the crowd and met Nesbit at the elevator. When she asked what he had done, Thaw purportedly replied, "It's all right, I probably saved your life."[30]
Trial
Thaw was charged with
The "Trial of the Century"
As early as the morning following the shooting, news coverage became both chaotic and single-minded, and ground forward with unrelenting momentum. Any person, place or event, no matter how peripheral to the incident, was seized on by reporters and hyped as newsworthy copy. Facts were thin but sensationalist reportage was plentiful in this, the heyday of yellow journalism.[33] The hard-boiled news reporters were bolstered by a contingent of counterparts, christened "Sob Sisters", whose stock-in-trade was the human interest piece, heavy on sentimental tropes and melodrama, crafted to pull on the emotions and punch them up to fever pitch.
The rampant interest in the White murder and its key players were used by both the
Defense strategy
The main issue in the case was the question of
Thaw's mother, however, was adamant that her son not be stigmatized by clinical insanity. She pressed for the defense to follow a compromise strategy; one of
Possibly concocted by the yellow press in concert with Thaw's attorneys, the temporary insanity defense, in Thaw's case, was dramatized as a uniquely American phenomenon. Branded "dementia Americana", this catch phrase encompassed the male prerogative to revenge any woman whose sacred chastity had been violated. In essence, murder motivated by such a circumstance was the act of a man justifiably unbalanced.[38]
The two trials
Thaw was tried twice for the murder of White. Due to the unusual amount of publicity the case had received, it was ordered that the
At the second trial, Thaw pleaded temporary insanity.
Nesbit had testified at both trials. It is conjectured that the Thaws promised her a comfortable financial future if she provided testimony favorable to Thaw's case. It was a conditional agreement; if the outcome proved negative, she would receive nothing. The rumored amount of money the Thaws pledged for her cooperation ranged from $25,000 to $1 million.[45] Throughout the prolonged court proceedings, Nesbit had received inconsistent financial support from the Thaws, made to her through their attorneys. After the close of the second trial, the Thaws virtually abandoned Nesbit, cutting off all funds.[46] However, in an interview Nesbit's grandson, Russell Thaw, gave to the Los Angeles Times in 2005, it was his belief that Nesbit received $25,000 from the family after the end of the second trial.[47] Nesbit and Thaw divorced in 1915.[48]
Legal maneuvers: Push for freedom
Immediately after his commitment to Matteawan, Thaw marshaled the forces of a legal team charged with the mission of having him declared sane.[49] The legal process was protracted.
In July 1909, Thaw's lawyers attempted to have their client released on a writ of
Determined to escape confinement, in 1913 Thaw walked out of Matteawan and was driven over the Canadian border to
Throughout the two murder trials, as well as after Thaw's escape from Matteawan, a contingent of the public, seduced by the resulting exaggeration of the press, had become defenders of what they deemed Thaw's justifiable murder of White. Letters were written in support of Thaw, lauding him as a defender of "American womanhood". Sheet music was published for a musical piece titled: "For My Wife and Home".[47] Soon after Thaw's release, The Sun, in July 1915, weighed in with its own estimation of the justice system in the Thaw matter: "In all this nauseous business, we don't know which makes the gorge rise more, the pervert buying his way out, or the perverted idiots that hail him with huzzas."[53]
After Thaw's escape from Matteawan, Nesbit had expressed her own feelings about her husband's most recent imbroglio: "He hid behind my skirts through two trials and I won't stand for it again. I won't let lawyers throw any more mud at me."[54]
Arrest for assault
In 1916, Thaw was charged with the
Initially, Thaw tried to bribe the Gump family, offering to pay them a half million dollars if they would drop all criminal charges against him. Ultimately, he was arrested, jailed and tried. Found insane, he was confined to Kirkbride Asylum in Philadelphia, where he was held under tight security.[2][52][55] He was ultimately judged sane and regained his freedom in April 1924. Thaw's obituary, printed in the Times the day after his death in 1947, implies that Thaw's mother and the Gump family arrived at a monetary settlement.[2]
Children
Evelyn Nesbit gave birth to a son,
Later life
In 1924, Thaw purchased a historic home, known as Kenilworth, in
During the late 1920s, Thaw went into the film production business, based on Long Island in New York. His initial plan was to make short comedies and stories about bogus spiritualists. In 1927, he contracted with John S. Lopez and detective-story author Arthur B. Reeve for a batch of scenarios focused on the theme of fraudulent spiritualism. This association generated a lawsuit against Thaw, who refused to pay his collaborators for the script work they had done. Thaw, rejecting the original concept, now conceived of a project to film the story of his own life. He asserted, therefore, the original agreement was no longer valid and he had no financial obligation to his partners. Ultimately, in 1935, a legal judgment ruled in Lopez's favor in the amount of $35,000.[57]
Death
Thaw died of a
See also
References
Notes
- ^ Lucas, Doug. "Harry Thaw – The Notorious Playboy of Old Allegheny" Allegheny City Society Reporter Dispatch (Summer 2007)
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Harry K. Thaw is Dead in Florida. Coronary Thrombosis Fatal to Former 'Playboy' Who Shot Stanford White in 1906". The New York Times. February 22, 1947. Retrieved July 23, 2008.
- ^ a b c "Benjamin Thaw Too Ill to be Told of His Brother's Crime". The New York Times. June 26, 1906. Retrieved October 9, 2010.
Social and financial circles in Pittsburg were greatly shocked to-night by the news from New York that Harry K. Thaw had shot and killed Stanford White. The Thaws have for years been social leaders here. Harry Kendall Thaw, the husband of Florence Evelyn Nesbit, over whom Thaw and White are said to have quarreled, has for some years been the black sheep of the Thaw family.
- BlogSpotwebsite (February 26, 2007). Retrieved: July 20, 2012
- ^ a b Uruburu, p. 193
- ^ Uruburu, pp. 296, 309
- ^ Uruburu, pp. 191–192
- ^ a b Uruburu, p. 189
- ^ Uruburu, p. 258
- ^ Uruburu, pp. 209–210
- ^ Uruburu, pp. 190–191
- ^ a b Uruburu, pp. 180–181
- ^ Uruburu, p. 274
- ^ "Murder of the Century". PBS. Retrieved July 15, 2012.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "Affidavit: Evelyn Nesbit v.s. Harry K. Thaw". University of Missouri–Kansas City. October 27, 1903. Retrieved November 28, 2018. Deposition dated October 27, 1903, presented as State's evidence at murder trial of Harry Kendall Thaw, 1906.
- ^ Uruburu, pp. 182–188
- ^ Uruburu, pp. 212–213
- ^ Uruburu, pp. 216–218
- ^ Uruburu, p. 221
- ^ "Evelyn's Story". UMKC.edu. October 27, 1903. Retrieved July 29, 2012. (Affidavit: Evelyn Nesbit vs. Harry K. Thaw) [permanent dead link] The affidavit was introduced at the close of the state's case in the Harry Thaw murder trial.
- ^ Uruburu, p. 225
- ^ Uruburu, p. 255
- ^ Uruburu, p. 256
- ^ Uruburu, pp. 260–261
- ^ Uruburu, p. 181
- ^ Uruburu, p. 270
- ^ Uruburu, pp. 272, 280
- ^ Uruburu, p. 279
- ^ a b c Uruburu, p. 282
- ^ a b Duke, Thomas Samuel, Celebrated Criminal Cases of the America, James H. Barry Co., 1910. pp. 647–851. Retrieved: July 28. 2012
- ^ Uruburu, pp. 298, 300
- ^ Uruburu, p. 292
- ^ "Mrs. Thaw Urged Her Husband On" The Washington Post (July 9, 1906); pg. 1. From a statement allegedly made to police by Nesbit's former friend, actress Edna McClure
- ^ Uruburu, p. 319
- ^ Uruburu, p. 311
- ^ Uruburu, p. 305
- ^ Uruburu, pp. 323–324
- S2CID 161273687.
- ^ Uruburu, p. 322
- ^ Uruburu, pp. 312, 354
- ^ Uruburu, p. 358
- ^ "Thaw lays killing to a "brainstorm" The New York Times (July 30, 1909)
- ^ "New Counsel for Thaw: Said Martin W. Littleton Will Receive Fee of $25,000". The Washington Post. Washington, D.C. August 2, 1907. p. 2 – via ProQuest.
- ^ "Insanity Thaw's Plea: Martin W. Littleton Decides Upon Client's Defense at Second Trial". The Washington Post. Washington, D.C. October 31, 1907. p. 3 – via ProQuest.
- ^ Uruburu, p. 324
- ^ Uruburu, pp. 358–361
- ^ a b Rasmussen, Cecilia. "Girl in Red Velvet Swing Longed to Flee Her Past" Los Angeles Times (December 11, 2005). Retrieved: August 18, 2012
- ^ Uruburu, p. 368
- ^ Uruburu, p. 359
- ^ "Dupus blocks release of Thaw". The Buffalo Commercial. August 28, 1913. p. 1. Retrieved May 29, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Immigration Officials Seek Writ from New Judge and Hope to Rush Him Across Border". The New York Times. August 30, 1913. Retrieved November 1, 2009.
Sensational developments are expected to-day in the fight to get Harry Kendall Thaw out of Canada and back to the Matteawan Asylum. ... Thaw was represented by Mr. Shurtleff and the prosecution by Hector.
- ^ BlogSpotwebsite. Retrieved: July 13, 2012
- ^ Uruburu, p. 357
- ^ "Murder of the Century"[permanent dead link] American Experience, Retrieved: July 27, 2012
- ^ "Old Print Articles: Harry K. Thaw And Evelyn Nesbit, After Stanford White's Murder, New York Times (1917, 1926)" Afflictor.com website. Retrieved: July 13, 2012
- ^ Uruburu, pp. 360, 363
- ^ "Harry K. Thaw Sued by Two Scenarists; Ask $5,000 for Eleven Screen Stories They Say He Was to Produce". The New York Times. February 26, 1928. Retrieved December 30, 2010.
- ^ "Harry K. Thaw, Ex-Millionaire Playboy, Is Dead". Chicago Tribune. February 22, 1947. Retrieved October 9, 2010.
- ^ "Died". Time magazine. March 3, 1947. Archived from the original on December 19, 2009. Retrieved July 23, 2008.
- ^ a b DollarTimes.com, Accessed June 1, 2018
- ^ "Harry Thaw Will Leaves $10,000 to Evelyn Nesbit". Associated Press. March 30, 1947. Retrieved July 23, 2008.
Bibliography
- Baatz, Simon, The Girl on the Velvet Swing: Sex, Murder, and Madness at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century (New York: Little, Brown, 2018) {{ISBN|978-0316396653}}
- Uruburu, Paula, American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White: The Birth of the "It" Girl and the Crime of the Century. New York: Riverhead Books, 2008 ISBN 978-1594489938
Further reading
- Collins, Frederick L. Glamorous Sinners (1932).
- Geary, Rick. Madison Square Tragedy: The Murder of Stanford White (2011).
- Langford, Gerald. The Murder of Stanford White (2011).
- Lessard, Suzannah. The Architect of Desire: Beauty and Danger in the Stanford White Family (1997).
- Mooney, Michael Macdonald. Evelyn Nesbit and Stanford White: Love and Death in the Gilded Age (1976).
- Samuels, Charles. The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1953).
- Thaw, Evelyn Nesbit. The Story of My Life (1914).
- Thaw, Evelyn Nesbit. Prodigal Days (1934).
- Thaw, Harry K. The Traitor (1926).
External links
- Works by or about Harry Kendall Thaw at Internet Archive
- Harry Kendall Thaw and trial at Flickr Commons
- "Harry Thaw's trial" Scans of a dinner program with Jurists autographs
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article on family
- Harry Kendall Thaw at Find a Grave