Esther Crain's Blog, page 147

The mystery of a Tammany Hall “good fellow”

By all accounts, Murray Hall (at left) was a typical Gilded Age politico affiliated with Tammany Hall, the city’s corrupt Democratic political machine.

Hall, who worked as a bail bondsman for Jefferson Market Police Court and lived at 453 Sixth Avenue (below) with his second wife and daughter, was captain of his election district.

He voted the party line, worked the polls on election nights, and wasn’t above securing political gigs for friends who had proven their Tammany loyalty.

Hall was was considered a “man about town,” a bon vivant who drank whiskey, smoked cigars, and played poker with the city’s bigwigs.

And during his entire 25-year Tammany career, no one had any idea that Murray Hall was actually female.

“Murray Hall Fooled Many Shrewd Men,” blared the New York Times on January 19, 1901. This was shortly after Hall’s death, when his secret had finally gotten out.

“The discovery of ‘Murray Hall’s’ true sex was not made until she was cold in death and beyond the chance of suffering humiliation from exposure,” wrote the Times.

“She had been suffering a cancer in the left breast for several years, as Dr. William C. Gallagher of 302 West 12th Street, who attended her in her final illness, discovered; but she abjured medical advice for fear of disclosing her sex, and treated herself.”

Hall passed well, according to a friend, State Senator Bernard F. Martin. “Suspect he was a woman? Never,” stated Martin. “He dressed like a man and talked like a very sensible one.”

“The only thing I ever thought eccentric about him was his clothing . . . he [wore] a coat a size or two too large, but of good material. That was to conceal his form.”

Other friends told reporters that Hall had a falsetto voice, was always smooth-shaven, and was very small in stature.

Still, his clothing, his short black bushy hair, plus his fondness for drinking in neighborhood saloons and fighting must have come off as convincingly masculine.

Most surprised of all was Hall’s 22-year-old adopted daughter, Minnie, who said she had no idea and that her mother never mentioned anything about her “foster father” being female.

So who was Hall? “Murray Hall was Mary Anderson, born circa 1840 in Govan, Scotland, an orphan who fled to Edinburgh and eventually to America, wearing her dead brother’s clothes,” wrote Smithsonianmag.com.

[First image: smithsonianmag.com; second image: Google; third image: smithsonianmag.com; fourth image: New York Times; fifth image: Brooklyn Daily Eagle]

Ephemeral New York has a new book!

Readers of Ephemeral New York have probably figured out that the Gilded Age is one of my favorite periods in the city’s history.

In the decades after the Civil War, Gotham was on the rise, transforming from a small-scale city lit by gas and powered by horses into a mighty metropolis of skyscrapers, subways, blazing electric light, and rapid social change.

I’m so thrilled to announce that on September 27, 2016, a second Ephemeral New York–authored book on the Gilded Age will hit store shelves.

The Gilded Age in New York, 1870-1910 (published by Black Dog & Leventhal/Hachette) takes a deeper dive into this fascinating era, exploring what day-to-day life was like in an age of posh Fifth Avenue mansions and crowded tenements; of deep political corruption and a widening gap between rich and poor.

In the coming weeks I’ll be featuring some of the text and incredible images from the book on the blog and on social media. The book itself is now available for preorder on various book sites.

Thank you to everyone who enjoys reading Ephemeral New York as much as I love researching and writing every post. It’s been a complete pleasure to produce the site for all these years, and I’m so grateful to have so many gracious and insightful readers.