Edward Schoch (p. 85): “Another Labor Camp Refugee,” New York Sun, July 31, 1906, 5.
Bishop Broderick (p. 85): “Southern Peonage Stories,” New York Sun, August 2, 1906, 4.
“atrocious, bloodthirsty system” (p. 85): Richard Barry, “Slavery in the South Today,” Cosmopolitan, March 1907, 481–91.
$300 from McClure (p. 85): Robert B. Outland III, Tapping the Pines, Baton Rouge: Louisiana UP, 2004, 237.
Jessie Day (p. 86): This information is from a personal interview with her grandson, conducted by the author.
Martha Bensley Bruere (p. 86): dialogue from “The Housewife and the Law,” Buffalo Courier Sunday Magazine, June 11, 1911, 8. Bruere would write about Prohibition and the Triangle fire. In this account, she urges Grace to take a young journalist she nicknames “The Light” along with her to the South. This person might be Hannah Frank.
“talk about it” (p. 88): “Peonage Inquiry Started by Moody,” New York Times, October 18, 1906, 5. Another version has her first going to Moody, then Russell.
Henry Stimson (p. 88): “News Briefs,” Washington Evening Star, November 3, 1906, 6.
Florida pushback (p. 88): “Big Suit Against Mrs. Quackenbos,” Pensacola Journal, January 23, 1907, 7; “Asks for Information,” Ocala Evening Star, February 26, 1907, 1; Jerrell H. Shofner, “Mary Grace Quackenbos, a Visitor,” Florida Historical Quarterly, January, 1980, 273.
“an entire community” (p. 88): “Clark Is Angered,” Washington Herald, March 5, 1907, 4.
“was entirely untrustworthy” (p. 88): Pete Daniel, The Shadow of Slavery, Urbana, IL: U of Illinois P, 1991, 104.
Florida indictments (p. 90): “Peonage Cases in the South,” Atlanta Constitution, March 18, 1907, 6.
“being rendered gratuitously” (p. 90): “Peonage Cases in the South,” Atlanta Constitution, March 18, 1907, 6.
Schwartz and other agents (p. 90): “Two Peonage Arrests Here,” New-York Tribune, March 17, 1907, 7.
Julius J. Kron (p. 90): “Tale of Attempted Bribery,” New York Sun, April 6, 1907, 10. The restaurant was on 616 Fifth Street. “The Drawing of Jurors,” Indianapolis News, April 28, 1908, 6. Mr. Bagg later tried to buy the jury; “City Brevities,” New York Times, June 15, 1907, 2. The trial stalled because the jury couldn’t reach a decision.
6: ARMY OF THE VANISHED
Lee’s dialogue is taken from “New Ruth Cruger Clue,” New York Times, February 24, 1917, 16; “Sure Ruth Cruger,” New York Times, March 2, 1917, 8; “Police Graft Bared,” New York Sun, June 24, 1917, 6; “Gives New Clue,” New-York Tribune, February 24, 1917, 6; Dick Halvorsen, “The Hidden Grave,” Master Detective, April, 1954. Lee had a photographer partner named Edward Beach, who only appears in a few accounts.
“told me everything” (p. 93): “Search Widened in Cruger Case,” New-York Tribune, February 18, 1917, 13; “Chum of Miss Cruger,” New York Evening World, March 3, 1917, 3.
“here with Seymour” (p. 94): Ibid.
“Richard Butler” (p. 95): Seymour Many’s dialogue reconstructed from “Sure Ruth Cruger,” New York Times, March 3, 1917, 5; “Chum of Missing Ruth Cruger,” New York Evening World, March 3, 1917, 3; “Student Quizzed,” New York Evening World, March 2, 1917, 6.
“Alibi Schedule” (p. 95): “Examines College Students,” New-York Tribune, March 3, 1917, 8.
“a pretty girl” (p. 90): Ibid.
“very favorable impression” (p. 97): “Cruger Case Still,” New York Sun, March 3, 1917, 3.
Ruth liked riding (p. 97): “Baffled Police,” New-York Tribune, March 5, 1917, 9.
“a college student” (p. 98): “Sure Ruth Cruger,” New York Times, March 3, 1917, 5.
ciphers (p. 98): “Demand for $5,000,” New York Evening World, March 15, 1917, 3.
Traffic in Souls (p. 99): The film was directed by George Loane Tucker and released by the Independent Moving Pictures Company of America on November 13, 1913. Details of its premiere and reception taken from “At the Sign of the Flaming Arcs,” Moving Picture World, vol. 18, nos. 8–13, 1964. The film was made at a cost of $5,700 and made $430,000 at the box office.
multiple showings per day (p. 99): Larry Goldsmith, “Gender, Politics, and ‘White Slavery’ in New York City: Grace Humiston and the Ruth Cruger Mystery of 1917,” unpublished article, 5.
“five white slavers” (p. 100): “New York Sees Fight,” Day Book, February 28, 1917, 14.
“Disappear Yearly in New York” (p. 100): “Ruth Cruger Case,” New York Times, February 27, 1917, 20. For more background on white slavery, see H. W. Lytle and John Dillon, From Dance Hall to White Slavery, Chicago: Charles C. Thompson, 1912; Ruth Rosen, The Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America, 1900–1918, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1982; Clifford Griffith Roe and B. S. Steadwell, Horrors of the White Slave Trade, 226; “White Slaves Wage,” New York Times, January 31, 1913, 6. The Times claimed that white slaves earned a wage of “$57,000,000 a year.”
“other place” (p. 101): Ibid.; Larry Goldsmith, “Gender, Politics, and ‘White Slavery’ in New York City: Grace Humiston and the Ruth Cruger Mystery of 1917,” unpublished article, 7, notes the similarities between news accounts of white slavery and American captivity narratives.
“Should be silenced” (p. 101): “Rockefeller Jr. Heads White Slave Inquiry,” San Francisco Call, January 5, 1910, 2; “Rockefeller Heads Vice Grand Jury,” New York Times, January 4, 1910, 5.
across state lines (p. 101): The Mann Act, passed on June 25, 1910, was also known as the White-Slave Traffic Act because it made it a felony to traffic “any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose” across state lines (ch. 395, 36 Stat. 825; as amended at 18 U.S.C. 2421–24).
“For immoral purposes” (p. 101): “White Slave Trade Is Not Organized,” New York Times, June 29, 1910, 16.
“less informally associated” (p. 102): Ibid.
“greater the value” (p. 102): “Ruth Cruger Recruit in Army,” February 23, 1917, Evening Public Ledger Night Extra, 8.
“white slave agent” (p. 103): “Movies to Present,” New York Times, February 21, 1917, 20.
“to her discovery” (p. 103): “Ruth Cruger Hunt,” New York Evening World, March 22, 1917, 5; “Sure Ruth Cruger,” New York Times, March 3, 1917, 5.
“Mrs. Sherlock Holmes” (p. 103): “She’s Sherlock of Cruger Case,” Muskogee Times-Democrat, June 20, 1917, 1. “She is New York’s Sherlock Holmes.” This was the first printed usage of the comparison I could find, though the New York press was quick to call any newsworthy detective a “Sherlock Holmes.”
breaking up the ice (p. 104): “Will Dynamite Ice,” Washington Herald, March 7, 1917, 3.
Cocchi’s black sled (p. 104): “What Happened to Ruth Cruger?” Milwaukee Journal, July 2, 1938, 10.
through her own tears (p. 105): “New Cruger Clue,” New York Evening World, March 16, 1917, 6.
7: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND OF SUNNY SIDE