Fact or Fiction: Meet Evelyn Nesbit, America's First Supermodel
Evelyn Nesbit’s lovely face launched, if not a thousand ships, at least hundreds of illustrations, advertising campaigns and photographs. She was America’s “It Girl,” the iconic Gibson Girl and at the center of a scandalous murder. But who was Evelyn behind her beauty?
In Fact or Fiction I recommend a nonfiction and fiction book on the same topic. This month you can choose an intriguing true crime narrative involving Evelyn and the men who victimized her; an imaginative retelling of Evelyn’s life by a bestselling author known for bringing historical women to life, or both!
The Girl on the Velvet Swing by Simon Baatz
Stanford White had an appetite for pretty, young girls. Never mind that the renowned architect was 47 and married, the nubile chorus girls of the Gilded Age musical comedy hit Floradora were tempting treats to his lascivious eye. And the loveliest of all was 16-year-old Evelyn Nesbit. She was hazel-eyed with red gold hair, a perfect complexion and best of all, trusting and naïve. White was smitten.
White quickly befriended both Evelyn Nesbit and her mother. Playing the role of avuncular benefactor, he moved the impoverished family to a nicer apartment and sent Evelyn’s brother to a private school Standford even cheerfully funded a trip so Evelyn’s mother could visit family. Now that her protectors were so handily dispatched, White could reveal his true role: villain. He lured Nesbit to his apartment with the promise of a non-existent party, drugged her champagne and raped her.
It is fitting that White met his demise five years later at another musical comedy called Mamzelle Champagne. After what was by all accounts a yawn-inducing performance Evelyn’s husband Harry Thaw provided the most excitement of the evening. He calmly shot White point blank and killed him with three bullets. “I did it because he ruined my wife,” Thaw said and willingly went with his captors to jail.
Ah, but was Thaw the avenging angel he purported to be? As the long and torturous legal battle revealed, Thaw was a nefarious character (dog whips, teenagers) who manipulated Evelyn just as much as White. If you aren’t familiar with the salacious, twisted triangle of White, Nesbit and Thaw, you must read Simon Baatz’s lively account The Girl on the Velvet Swing.
The It Girl by Allison Pataki
What’s a poor widow to do when her only assets are a scheming mind and a beautiful young daughter? If you were Florence Evelyn Talbot’s mama, you would orchestrate, manipulate and even sell your daughter to achieve your dreams of fine living.
Forced by her mama to leave school and lie about her age, the lovely Evelyn becomes a shopgirl. After catching the eye of an artist, she begins work as a model. With her extraordinary beauty and innate talent, Evelyn soon became a sought-after artists’ model and, after moving to New York City with her mother, a celebrated showgirl.
Still only a young teenager, or because she IS a young teenager, the wealthy, predatory Stanley Pierce pursues her. Plying Evelyn and her mama with lavish gifts and lush living arrangements, he calls himself Evelyn’s protector all the while grooming her for his own evil purposes.
In this historical novel by Allison Pataki, Evelyn tells her own coming-of-age story from honest rags to tainted Gilded Age riches.
