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Ripped straight from the headlines of the Jazz Age, The Bobbed Haired Bandit is a tale of flappers and fast cars, of sex and morality. In the spring of 1924, a poor, 19-year-old laundress from Brooklyn robbed a string of New York grocery stores with a “baby automatic,” a fur coat, and a fashionable bobbed hairdo. Celia Cooney’s crimes made national news, with the likes of Ring Lardner and Walter Lippman writing about her exploits for enthralled readers.The Bobbed Haired Bandit brings to life a world of great wealth and poverty, of Prohibition and class conflict. With her husband Ed at her side, Celia raised herself from a life of drudgery to become a celebrity in her own pulp-fiction novel, a role she consciously cultivated. She also launched the largest manhunt in New York City's history, humiliating the police with daring crimes and taunting notes.Sifting through conflicting accounts, Stephen Duncombe and Andrew Mattson show how Celia's story was used to explain the world, to wage cultural battles, to further political interest, and above all, to sell newspapers. To progressives, she was an example of what happens when a community doesn't protect its children. To conservatives, she symbolized a permissive society that gave too much freedom to the young, poor, and female. These competing stories distill the tensions of the time.In a gripping account that reads like a detective serial, Duncombe and Mattson have culled newspaper reports, court records, interviews with Celia's sons, and even popular songs and jokes to capture what William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper called “the strangest, weirdest, most dramatic, most tragic, human interest story ever told.”
E-Book Content
The Bobbed Haired Bandit
Stephen Duncombe & Andrew Mattson
The Bobbed Haired Bandit A True Story of Crime and Celebrity in 1920s New York
a New York University Press New York & London
new york university press New York and London www.nyupress.org © 2006 by New York University All rights reserved Book designed and typeset by Charles B. Hames Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Duncombe, Stephen. The bobbed haired bandit : a true story of crime and celebrity in 1920s New York / Stephen Duncombe and Andrew Mattson. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN–13: 978–0–8147–1980–0 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN–10: 0–8147–1980–5 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Clooney, Celia, 1904–1992. 2. Clooney, Edward, 1899–1936. 3. Brigands and robbers—New York (State)—New York—Biography. 4. Robbery—New York (State)—New York. I. Mattson, Andrew. II. Title. HV6653.C66D86 2005 364.15'52'09227471—dc22 2005020720 New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents Acknowledgments vii Cast of Characters ix part i Woman with Gun
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part ii Get Girl Bandit Dead or Alive
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part iii Mystery of the Bobbed-Haired Bandit part iv Gunmiss, Roused, Shoots Man part v Child of Misfortune part vi End of a Thriller
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Epilogue 319 Notes 325 Index 367 About the Authors 383
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Acknowledgments This book, like all histories, would not have been possible without the assistance of many librarians and archivists. We acknowledge the generous help we received at the New York State Library, where we “discovered” Celia Cooney. We also found valuable sources with the help of the staff at the New-York Historical Society, the Brooklyn Historical Society, the New York State Archives, and the Museum of the City of New York. In particular we thank the staff in the microfilm room of the New York Public Library for retrieving all those reels, Joy Holland and Susan Aprill of the Brookl