Illuminates the life and image of one of New York City's most
fashionable criminals-Celia Cooney 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."
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
