University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Theses and Dissertations 5-2016 A Band of Sisters: Female Detectives, Authority, and Fiction from 1864 to the 1930s Amanda Renee Schafer University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Schafer, Amanda Renee, "A Band of Sisters: Female Detectives, Authority, and Fiction from 1864 to the 1930s" (2016). Theses and Dissertations. 1586. http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/1586 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. A Band of Sisters: Female Detectives, Authority, and Fiction from 1864 to the 1930s A dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English by Amanda Renee Schafer University of Arkansas Fort Smith Bachelor of Arts in English, 2005 University of Arkansas Master of Arts in English, 2008 May 2016 University of Arkansas This dissertation is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council. _______________________________________ Dr. Charles H. Adams Dissertation Director ______________________________________ Dr. Karen Lentz Madison Committee Member ______________________________________ Dr. Susan Marren Committee Member Abstract: Because mystery and detective fiction have been classified as “popular” genres, the complex ideas and ideologies that the authors work with and within reach a wide and varied audience through formulaic and familiar ways. The perceived conservatism of the genre allows authors to present and pursue distinctly anti-conservative views in disguise. For fictional detectives and, especially female detectives, disguise is an effective tool for solving their cases. Often, these detectives will disguise themselves as someone infinitely more conservative than they are in order to gain access to their quarry. Similarly, mystery and detective fiction wear a cloak of conservatism to gain closer access to their audience in order to effect change. While several stories and characters re-establish order and the status quo, several others allow for the possibility for the world to remain transgressive, allowing for women to pursue careers, to control their own destinies, to have authority that they would not normally have in an everyday domestic life. Many of these types of authorities appear at the same time in single works, often creating differing and competing attitudes within and about these stories and characters. ©2016 by Amanda Schafer All Rights Reserved Acknowledgements Special thanks are extended to my instructors throughout my undergraduate and graduate career, some of whom I began with in Freshman Composition and now work with as colleagues. I particularly wish to thank those who have pushed me to be the best writer I can be and to recognize that there is always more to say and those who have made me into the teacher I am today, especially you, Dr. Rosario Nolasco Schultheiss, or if you prefer, Dr. Etc. Etc., for your kind words of encouragement, even as I doubted that teaching was the right place for me. I also wish to thank JM West, who repeatedly allows me to sit in her office and complain about life and talk about books and television, listen to good and bad music, and make awful literary puns while distracting her from her own work. And Carly Darling, who shares so many of the same interests as I do, thank you for being you, and brightening up so many of my darker days with your own energy. Thank you to anyone who has read any form of this dissertation and made comments and suggestions. And though I can’t name each of you individually, please know that I have appreciated and continue to appreciate your help and encouragement. Thank you to my committee, who has stuck with me through this really long process, and who has sent me down some interesting paths with this topic. I really appreciate your patience, your help, and your willingness to wait for chapters during illnesses and my teaching schedule. Special thanks go out to the University of Arkansas Libraries, and in particular, the Interlibrary Loan Department, for their tireless work in tracking and negotiating the loan of some very difficult to locate materials. You are the best. And finally, to my family, who has waited so long for this day, thank you so much for the teasing, and the nagging, and the especially the support you have given me while I pursued this crazy, infuriating, expensive, and fun dream. All I’ve ever wanted was a job where I would get paid to read books and talk about them, and now I have that (and a degree that says I’m an expert in talking about books). Thank you. Dedication To Nannaw, for putting up with me. I love you. To my mom and dad, who may not understand why I chose this path, or what I write, but support it anyway. To all the women and girls, both real and fictional, who forged new paths in all aspects of life not only for themselves, but for the many people their efforts and struggles impacted then and continue to impact. And finally, to Kate Warne, who had the boldness to know her own worth and to use it to her advantage. Table of Contents: Introduction: “It’s like I always say Penny. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. Then lick ’em.” ………………. Page 1 Chapter 1: “Liberty or Death! Englishmen! Britons! and honest men!”: The Police and Authority in England and the United States….… Page 10 Chapter 2: “I have not hesitated to violate some of the conventionalities”: Authority and the Creation of the Detective Genre………....….. Page 39 Chapter 3: Justice, Equality, Authority: Women’s Rights Changes in the Nineteenth Century ……………………………….......... Page 58 Chapter 4: Romance and Reason: The Multifarious Origins of the Detective Narrative ………………………….................. Page 99 Chapter 5: The Much Dreaded “Petticoated Police”: Anomalous Authority in Andrew Forrester’s The Female Detective and W.S. Hayward’s Revelations of a Lady Detective …………. Page 124 Chapter 6: “I know a woman who did…and this is her story”: Female Detectives, Odd Women, and Authority, 1880-1900 ….. Page 149 Chapter 7: “There is a woman in the case”: Female Detectives 1900-1920 …. Page 206 Epilogue: “We need not be held in forms molded for us” ….…………………. Page 247 Works Cited………………………………............................................................Page 256 1 Introduction: “It’s like I always say, Penny. If you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em. Then lick ‘em.” It seems a bit odd to begin a study on the nineteenth century female detective with a line from the children’s cartoon Inspector Gadget. However, I have fond memories of this Saturday morning staple that not only featured a detective who could call upon useful gadgets to assist him in his quest for justice, but also featured a young female behind the scenes who does most of the actual work and even apprehension of the criminal. However, because the Inspector is the official representation of the law, he receives the credit, and usually provides his niece Penny with some sort of wisdom about police work. However, as the story reveals, the work of detection is actually conducted by the Inspector’s niece Penny and her intelligent, semi-speaking dog, Brain. The line quoted above also directly relates to how female detectives first joined the ranks of both real and fictional private and police forces. First women had to make their mark within the ranks of male dominated society and careers in order to establish their own authority on the basis of hard work, intelligence, and determination. Once women’s authority had been established, sometimes through public activism and at times through fiction, authors began to deviate from the established traditions and conventions, allowing women more and more freedom to challenge authorities that prevent women from economic, social, and personal advancement. While the first real recorded female detective appears already working in the pages of Allan Pinkerton’s journals, and possibly in one surviving photograph, the fictional female detective was making her first appearance in print in England in 1864. Kate Warne’s position within the Pinkerton Agency quickly grew from her initial pitch to Pinkerton to the head of an all-female division of the agency. Warne’s personality and ability for quick and thorough 2 thinking solidified her as one of Pinkerton’s top agents; from playing the southern belle to catch spies against the Union, to protecting President Lincoln from assassination attempts, to even dressing as a young man in Union uniform, Warne lived up to her promise of accessing and doing things that Pinkerton’s male agents could not. Yet, it is unclear how aware the press was of Warne’s, or of any other female agent’s, existence; the only information we have today about Warne comes from Pinkerton’s notebooks that survived the fires in his Chicago offices, and the newspaper advertisements for female agents that survive are scarce and most come from the 1880s. However, with the popularity of Edgar Allan Poe’s tales of ratiocination and his detective C. Auguste Dupin, at least two British authors chose to create fictional female detectives at roughly the same time Warne was operating in the United States. As these authors created their detectives, whether based on real accounts or not, the idea that these stories were nothing more than cheap entertainment took hold, and as a result many of these stories disappeared. Some were renamed and republished as the authors attempted to milk all of the monetary value out of publishers that they could.