Journal Notes

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On a summer day in the early 1880s an article called “What Girls Are Good For” appeared in the Pittsburg Dispatch. It took a firm stand against the new fad of hiring women to work in offices and shops. “A respectable woman,” the article noted with authority, “remained at home until she married.” If a husband eluded her, she had two choices left. She might go into teaching or into nursing, provided money for her training could be wangled from a reluctant father. Otherwise, she stayed under his roof or that of a relative and for the remainder of her life accepted the status of house worker or child’s nurse, without pay.

The article expressed the customary male sentiments of the day, more emphatically than usual because the editors were stirred up over the inroads being made by suffragettes. Radical females like Susan B. Anthony, openly militant in regard to votes for females, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, champion of women’s rights, went striding up and down the country with a following of “bloomer girls.” Nobody knew better than the Dispatch’s managing editor, George A. Madden, that since the Civil War the manpower shortage had increasingly drawn women into mills and factories, but he felt a barricade must be erected against such an alarming trend. Women in politics were unthinkable, as obviously out of place there as they would be in such a masculine stronghold as his own, a newspaper office.

The article received the expected male commendation from Mr. Madden’s business associates. He was happily married and his wife, busy with children, made no comment. Other matters had taken its place in his active editorial mind when a few days later his memory was refreshed. Going through the morning mail, he read a letter and winced. Then he read it again, and a third time, even though it bore no signature, and for a reason. It was a reply to the “What Girls Are Good For” story, and it sizzled. It was a rebuke to the newspaper’s old fashioned attitude, a declaration of independence for women, a war cry to them to take their proper place in a man’s world to lead interesting, useful, and profitable lives.

The anonymous communication was well written, blazing with conviction. But there was more than that to challenge Mr. Madden’s interest. It made sense.

The busy editor finally tossed it into the pile, finished the remainder of the mail, and went back to reading the tissue-paper slips bearing the telegraphic news. But when he had them impaled neatly on the nearby spindle, he took up the letter again. It intrigued him. He studied the handwriting. It appeared feminine, as feminine as the attitude it expressed. But surely no woman could write so logically and so eloquently.

He could not publish the thing, even with a signature. It was against his principles, against popular opinion. But he did want to know who had sent it. An idea came to him. He would advertise in the columns of the Dispatch for the writer’s name and address, and, if he obtained them, he might assign a story to be written on the other side of the question. The author would turn out to be a man, of course, perhaps taking this way to attract attention and get a job. Madden would certainly give him one if he wrote like this consistently.

The advertisement appeared the next day. A reply came almost at once.

The letter was written by a woman. Her name was Elizabeth Cochrane, and she lived in Pittsburgh.

George Madden was a newspaperman by both training and instinct; he always followed a hunch. He wrote to Miss Cochrane and asked for an article on “Girls and Their Spheres in Life.”

Again she was prompt; the article arrived within a few days. The editor read it and found it good. He paid for it. Then he abandoned caution. Fortifying himself, for he was positive he was opening the door to a battle-ax suffragette, he suggested that Elizabeth Cochrane might like to discuss further work for his paper. The two men and Elizabeth accepted a position as reporter for the paper.

Elizabeth Cochran, or Nellie Bly as she was also known, was born on May 5, 1867, in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania. According to friends and family, Nellie aspired to be more than what the stereotypical young girl was supposed to be. She liked traveling, adventure, and writing in depth stories. She moved to Pittsburgh at the age of seventeen to pursue her dream of being an investigative reporter. Her first assignment for the Dispatch was to tackle the subject of divorce. She penned numerous articles for the paper ranging from conditions for workers in factories to the treatment of the mentally ill in asylums.

To learn more about Nellie Bly and others like her who left their mark on the American West read Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen and More Tales Behind the Tombstones: More Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen.

Enter Now! It’s a double giveaway. Enter now to win two books! Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen and the new book More Tales Behind the Tombstones: More Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen.

Legendary lawman and sportswriter Bat Masterson once referred to his well-known colleague Bill Tilghman as “the finest among us all.” Marshall Tilghman and Sheriff Bat Masterson were two members of the “most intrepid posse” of the Old West, a group of policemen who in 1878, tracked down the killer of a popular songstress named Dora Hand.

William Matthew Tilghman, Jr.’s drive to legitimately right a wrong began at an early. He was born on the 4^th of July 1854 in Fort Dodge, Iowa. His father was a soldier turned farmer and his mother was a homemaker. Bill spent his early childhood in the heart of the Sioux Indian territory in Minnesota. Grazed by and arrow when he was a baby, he was raised to respect Native American and protect his family from tribes that felt they had been unfairly treated by the government. Bill was one of six children. He mother insisted he had been “born to a life of danger.”

In 1859 his family moved to a homestead near Atkinson, Kansas. While Bill’s father and oldest brother were fighting in the Civil War, he worked the farm and hunted game. One of the most significant events occurred when he was twelve years old while returning home from a blackberry hunt. His hero Bill Hickok rode up beside him and asked if he had seen a man ride through with a team of mules and a wagon.

To learn more about Bill Tilghman and others like him who left their mark on the American West read Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen and More Tales Behind the Tombstones: More Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen.

It’s a double Giveaway! Enter now to win two books!

Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen and the new book More Tales Behind the Tombstones: More Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen.

With the passing of Judge Roy Bean, who referred to himself as the “Law West of the Pecos,” the rowdy frontier lost one of its most unique and picturesque characters. It was Judge Bean that was said to have held an inquest on the body of an unknown man found in his precinct, and, finding on the corpse a pistol and $40 in cash, proclaimed the dead man guilty of carrying a concealed weapon and fined him $40, which was forthwith collected from the pocket of the offender.

There were no customers from Judge Roy Bean’s opera house and saloon by his side when he died on March 16, 1903; no friends from the Langtry, Texas, community where he had resided; no lawbreakers to be tried and sentenced. Judge Bean’s son, Sam, was the only one with him when he passed.

The stout, seventy-eight year old man with a gray beard spent his last hours on earth in a near comatose state unaware of where he was or whom he was. He died of heart and lung complications exasperated by alcohol.

To learn more about Judge Roy Bean and others like him who left their mark on the American West read Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen and More Tales Behind the Tombstones: More Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen.

The Most Intrepid Author’s Posse at the James Farm in Missouri

The Most Intrepid Author’s Posse completed their ride through the Midwest Saturday night. We began our trek in Kansas City, Missouri and ended the venture three days later in Dodge City, Kansas. The highlight of the journey was when we were all named honorary marshals of Ford County, Kansas. The swearing in ceremony was moving and I am deeply honored to have received such a gift. The posse was given badges to wear and will receive another along with a certificate to have framed to remember the event.

Some of the posse members arrived home yesterday without a hitch and others spent hours at the airport waiting for a plane to get us there. Flying in this country has turned into an amazing arduous process, especially boarding the plane, which has now become this tedious Bataan death march with American Tourister overnight bags. I get stuck behind this one guy, who takes forever to get situated. He’s clogging the aisle like a human piece of cholesterol jammed into the passenger artery. You just want to get that soft drink cart and flush him out the back door. He’s folding that sport jacket like he’s in the color guard at Arlington National Cemetery.

An exactly when did the flight attendants in this country get to be so cranky? I know it’s a tough job. There’s got to be a thousand different ways to tie that neckerchief but why be annoyed with me? You know the worst thing about it is they don’t even come clean with you and tell you how much they hate you. They treat you with that highly contrived air of mock civility, that tight, pursed-lip grin where they nod agreement with everything you say. You know right behind that face plate they barely tolerate your very existence.

What about when you leave the plane and they’ve got them propped by the front door in that complete android catatonic stupor where they look like the Yul Brynner robot from Westworld when he blew a head pipe and iced Marcus Welby’s assistant. “Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.”

You know who I feel sorry for in the whole air-travel scenario? It’s that poor schumck who has to drive the jet way. You know that little accordion tentacle that weaves it’s way out to meet the plane? Everybody else is Waldo Pepperin’ around in their leather bomber jackets, the right stuff coursing through their veins as they push the outside of the envelope. Your job is driving the building.

In spite of the setbacks, the posse will ride again next year. Wednesday I’ll return with a new book giveaway contest. Until then, Bye. Bye-Bye. Bye. Bye.

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Sacagawea was the young Shoshone Indian woman who served as Lewis and Clark’s translator on their 1803 expedition to explore the uncharted western regions of America. She made the entire journey to the Pacific, and the return trip, with a newborn baby on her back; many believe that without her aid, the journey, commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson, would have ended in failure.

Some accounts say she died in 1812 at age twenty-five of putrid fever, while others believe she died in 1884 on an Indian Reservation in Wyoming. The child she carried in a papoose was Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, nicknamed Pompy, meaning first-born, who eventually attended St. Louis Academy with tuition paid by Clark.

Pompy later met Prince Wilhelm of Germany while on a natural history expedition and traveled back to Europe with him, where Pompy learned to speak four different languages. But by the time he was twenty-four Pompy was back in North America living as a mountain man.

When the Gold Rush of 1849 started, he got caught up in the fever and died from too much time wading through cold rivers panning for gold. His cause of death was bronchitis at age sixty-one, and his portrait is the only one of a child on any U. S. coin.

To learn more about Sacagawea and others like her who left their mark on the American West read More Tales Behind the Tombstones: More Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen.

I’ll traveling through the Midwest from July 23^rd to August 2^nd on a book tour to promote More Tales Behind the Tombstones. Check the events section of this website to find out dates and times of the lectures and signings.

Giveaway! Enter now to win a copy of the new book More Tales Behind the Tombstones: More Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen.

Brigham Young became an explorer and hero to many when he embarked on the best-organized westward migration in U.S. history in 1847. Motivated by a vision to find a safe haven for his religious ideas, he brought the Mormon Church to Utah and, in so doing, helped shaped the American West.

When he came upon the Great Salt Lake Valley, he said, “It is enough, this is the right place.” For thirty years he supervised Mormon settlements in Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, Arizona, and California. Before Young died at the age of seventy-six in 1877 of acute appendicitis, he had more than fifty wives.

To learn more about Brigham Young and others like him who left their mark on the American West read More Tales Behind the Tombstones: More Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen.

Enter now to win a copy of the new book More Tales Behind the Tombstones: More Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen.

Pocahontas, a nickname meaning “little spoiled one,” was born Amonute, daughter of Chief Powhatan in 1595. She was an extrovert from a young age, inquisitive and naturally good-natured. At eleven years old she played a minor role in securing John Smith’s survival. Later she was the go-between for trade among the settlers and Indians bartering at Jamestown.

The fictionalized version of her love affair with Smith may, in fact, bear some truth, but in a much more disturbing way for our modern sensibility. Today, a thirty-year-old having sex with a preteen is pedophilia and a crime. But, in the era, intercourse with non-Christian pagans of any age was not considered wrong. Pocahontas was known to have “long, private conversations” with Smith during her frequent visits to the Jamestown complex, yet the true dimensions of these encounters are a matter of conjecture.

A few years later she was betrothed to the older Englishman John Rolfe, only after she agreed to be baptized in 1614. Two years later Rolfe took her to London, where she was received as a celebrity, billed as a real live Indian princess by high society, and held an audience with King James. In 1617, she believed the smoky air of London was the cause of her coughs and bouts of weakness and wished to return to Virginia, but the vessel only made it to the end of the Thames River before it turned back. Pocahontas died in London at age twenty-two of a disease called the king’s evil, a form of tuberculosis characterized by swelling of the lymph glands.

To learn more about Pocahontas and others like her who left their mark on the American West read More Tales Behind the Tombstones: More Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen.

Sir Tony Robinson and the giant.

I’m deviating from my usual giveaway today to review my life as a giant. Recently I have had my picture taken alongside several fine people and I look like Andre the Giant’s sister in all of them. I did a documentary for the BBC with actor and knight Sir Tony Robinson a few weeks ago, and in the photos taken after the shoot of the two of us and I look like Ruth Buzzi if she were stung by a thousand bees.

I’ve always been big. My father used to try and console be about my height and general size by assuring me that I wasn’t fat just big boned. The last I looked there were no bones in the area that I’m most concerned about. But the effort, Pop was most appreciated.

Now physical exercise is not the answer. Years ago I remember watching a beefy President Bill Clinton exercising. He was living proof that physical exercise could be a complete waste of time. The more he jogged, the bigger he got. I recall thinking, if this guy is reelected, the leader of the free world will be Bib the Michelin Man.

I do notice I’m suffering from a chin crisis as I get older. If I don’t keep my head above sea level when pictures are taken I resemble the dinosaur that got into the jeep with the lost traveler in the first Jurassic Park movie.

When I think about I, the only exercise program that has ever worked for me is occasionally getting up in the morning and jogging my memory to remind myself exactly how much I hate to exercise. Well-meaning friends have suggest I start walking. Walking? If it’s so good for you, how come my mailman looks like Jabba the Hut with a quirky thyroid?

The treadmill? You take your eyes off the thing for one second and you end up like Gary Busey on…well, let’s say, any weekend.

I’ve thought about joining a gym, but honestly I think they’re too complicated. You know, there’s nothing quite as humiliating as finishing a thirty-minute workout on a piece of gym equipment only to have the instructor tell you you’ve been sitting on it backward.

I guess I only really have one fitness goal. I’d like to be able to run a few down and outs with the kids in my Bible study without having to take a two hour nap afterwards.

Enjoy the photos of the giant that accompany this diatribe. I guess we are what we are. Now, where’s that pizza?

Members of the WWA Players. I’m the giant on the far right.

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In 1839 Samuel Colt patented the revolving-chamber pistol. As a teen he had worked as a sailor and had spent long hours staring at the ship’s wheel. He used this principle to invent a gun that could shoot multiple bullets without reloading. He excelled at both invention and marketing and today would be considered a compulsive workaholic.

He struggled with a way to produce his guns cheaply but was forced to find a method of mass production after he received an order from the U.S. government in 1847 for 1,000 revolvers. By the time he died of exhaustion at age forty-seven, Samuel Colt had produced more than 400,000 Colt .45 revolvers. At his funeral in 1862 it was said of the Colt .45 he invented: “God created man, but Sam Colt [the Colt .45] made them all equal.”

To learn more about Samuel Colt and others like him who left their mark on the American West read More Tales Behind the Tombstones: More Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen.

It’s just a dead Giveaway! Enter now to win a copy of the new book More Tales Behind the Tombstones: More Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen.

Stephen Foster was the first full-fledged American composers, born, no less, on the Fourth of July, 1826, near Pittsburgh. Anyone who ever sat for a piano lesson has played his favorites including “Oh! Susanna”, “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair“, and “Beautiful Dreamer.” By the age of twenty-five Foster had published twelve original songs and had engaged in earnest as a professional composer.

He labored to make his songs appeal to the sentiments of his contemporary America, and he is considered the country’s first pop artist. However, the struggle to get paid for his work was the things that did him in. Foster attempted to keep an exact accounting and even wrote out the first semblance of a royalty contract with the publisher, but he couldn’t prevent another sheet music company from printing and selling his songs royalty-free. Nor did he receive anything for performance rights.

For a lifetime of labor he earned $15, 091.08, all the while composing, bickering to get paid, and drinking. Drinking he did with equal passion so that by the age of thirty-seven he was holed up in a cheap hotel room in New York City’s theatre district suffering from fever induced by alcoholism and liver failure. The exact cause of his death was lacerations to his head. When he tried to get out of bed, he fell and shattered a porcelain washbasin, suffering a deep gouge. It took three hours before he was taken to the hospital, where he died three days later in 1864. He had thirty-eight cents in his pockets.

To learn more about Stephen Foster and others like him who left their mark on the American West read More Tales Behind the Tombstones: More Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen.