35 Stillman Street, Suite 121 San Francisco, CA 94107 www.zestbooks.net CONNECT WITH ZEST! zestbooks.net/blog zestbooks.net/contests twitter.com/zestbooks facebook.com/zestbook facebook.com/BooksWithATwist pinterest.com/zestbooks Copyright © 2014 by Alexis Coe Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Sally Klann All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means — graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval systems — without the written permission of the publisher. History / True Crime / Gender Studies Library of Congress data available ISBN: 978-1-936976-60-7 Jacket design by Adam Grano Interior design by Adam Grano and Dagmar Trojanek Manufactured in the U.S.A. DOC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 4500485180 FOR ALICE MITCHELL (1872–1898) AND FREDA WARD (1874–1892) ALICE MITCHELL Allie, Alvin J. Ward, NICKNAMES: AJW, Freda Myra Ward FREDERICA WARD Freda, Fred, Freddie, NICKNAMES: Patty Sing, Pitty Sing, Sing, Serg. Jueq ALICE MITCHELL’S FAMILY George Mitchell, father Isabella Mitchell, mother Robert Mitchell, older brother Frank Mitchell, older brother Mattie Mitchell, eldest sister Addie Mitchell, older sister FREDA WARD’S FAMILY Thomas Ward, father Ada Volkmar, eldest sister/surrogate mother Jo Ward, older sister, Joe NICKNAME: William Volkmar, brother-in-law/Ada’s husband JUDGE, DEFENSE, AND PROSECUTION Julius DuBose, Judge Colonel George Gantt, defense General Luke Wright, defense Malcolm Rice Patterson, defense George Peters, prosecution MISCELLANEOUS Lillie Johnson, Alice’s best friend, Jessie Rita James NICKNAME: Ashley Roselle, suitor/romantic rival Lucy Franklin, Mitchell family cook W HEN I FIRST LEARNED about the 1892 murder of seventeen-year-old Freda Ward by her ex-fiancé, nineteen-year-old Alice Mitchell, I was riding a New York City subway on my long commute home from graduate school. I remember it well because I was so engrossed in the act of imagining their lives, I missed my stop—and then three more. I’d been reading a scholarly article about the case, but I kept losing Alice and Freda in the academic talk of identity politics and American modernity.1 And so I’d closed my eyes and tried to hear their voices through the dense text, to visualize their story. But I had little more than a train ride for such reveries. I was already a year into research on citizenship, and I was determined to be the kind of historian who focused on law, not love. Nevertheless, I slowly started collecting newspaper articles about the Mitchell-Ward case, struck by their sensational headlines and front page placement, and intrigued by the physical evidence they mentioned— love letters, a bottle of poison, a father’s razor. After I graduated, I worked as a research curator in the Exhibitions Department at the New York Public Library. With my personal collection of Alice and Freda materials growing, and my experience in public engagement deepening, I began to picture different ways of sharing their story. I longed to tell it on the page—as a nonfiction narrative, not a study—accompanied by the kind of stirring visuals an exhibition case offered. I imagined a book that was both written and curated. I wanted readers to see my research, to explore the archival mix, connect with the material, and draw their own conclusions. Six years after I missed my subway stop, I found myself walking through Elmwood Cemetery, led by Vincent Astor, a local historian in Memphis, Tennessee. I was, at this point, thoroughly consumed by the sad tale of Alice and Freda. The closer we got to their graves, the heavier my body felt. I reminded myself, as I always do when approaching that very last folder in an archive: you already know how the story ends. But the truth is, you never really know. Just then, as I was gingerly sidestepping graves, Vincent paused for a moment and turned to me. “If you’re remembering their names and telling their stories,” he said in a gliding, Southern drawl, “they won’t mind if you’re stepping on their toes.” In this book, I hope to have done just that. Alice and Freda’s names—once well known across America—are now recognized by only a small group of people, and yet, their tragic story will feel familiar. They were teenagers in love, and they planned to spend the rest of their lives together. Their relationship—plagued by issues of jealousy and infidelity from the very beginning—was fraught, in no small part, because it was illicit. In 1892 Memphis, few people had heard of same-sex love, and even fewer believed it was anything less than perverse. And from the moment the romantic nature of Alice and Freda’s relationship was discovered, that was all they heard: It was wrong. It was unnatural. It was impossible. It was forbidden. There is a good deal of fault to be found in both Alice and Freda—most clearly, of course, in Alice’s unconscionable act of violence—but two women loving each other, and wanting to make a home and a life together, is not one of them. And yet, when Freda was six feet underground and Alice behind bars, it was Alice’s motivation—love, and not the bloody murder—that was said to be insane. Alice was driven mad by a perverse passion, medical experts would testify. Their observations were recycled time and time again; more than 120 years later, today’s readers will find much of that world is sadly familiar to us. While I offer historical context in the pages that follow, this is very much about Alice and Freda’s short-lived romance. To tell that story—with so few primary sources, and even fewer trustworthy ones among them—I have strained to hear their voices in the archives, newspapers, medical journals, school catalogs, courtroom proceedings, and of course, their love letters. When there was agreement among sources, I made note of it, and gave those quotations priority. From the very beginning, I noticed obvious fabrications driven by various agendas, and I wrote that in, too. In order to bring the reader closer to historical actors, to hear their voices, I pulled dialogue from courtroom testimony and newspaper articles. In this same vein, the book presents the reader with over a hundred visual elements. Artist Sally Klann illustrated many of the documents and artifacts I found in the archives in Memphis, and also outside of it; the design motif in the chapter headings was inspired by the gates seen throughout Memphis, and in particular, the entrance to Elmwood Cemetery, where Alice, Freda, and many other people who appear in this book are buried. Sally artistically interpreted the domestic scenes and courtroom proceedings I describe in the text, illuminating intimate moments and, in darkly funny turns, imagining how the faulty reasoning of some of our historical actors leads to absurd conclusions.