Crime: When the suspect is rich and famous

He “told reporters that the police should seek the help of a psychic to uncover the truth in the case, adding that it would be an ‘ideal Sherlock mystery,'” Polchin writes. “And the New York press agreed, turning the murder into a sensational detective story.”

NYU News spoke with Polchin about how significant the Ward-Peters case was for its time and why the story is still relevant today.

The Jazz Age, reminiscent of Josephine Baker (above), Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway, is often romanticized in literature and film. What parts of this period are often overlooked by popular culture?

It’s true that we have this glorified image of the 1920s – the Great Gatsby speakeasies and parties. And of course, a lot of that is true. But it was also a very repressive time. There was a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and some of the worst labor violence in factories and mines and an anarchist bombing on Wall Street in 1920 that killed more than 30 people and injured over 140. That led the federal government to a pretty comprehensive crackdown on civil rights and on various organizations – socialist and communist organizations – in this country, including some women’s rights organizations. There was a crackdown on queer meeting places and a more targeted effort to police queer people in public. One of the first gay rights organizations in the United States, the Society for Human Rights, was founded in Chicago in 1924 by a man named Henry Gerber and lasted only a year before police raided the organization and arrested Gerber under the Comstock Act.

That’s when the ACLU was founded. Different organizations came together to form a single organization to fight for civil rights in this country. There was also a strong movement of nativism in the country, which culminated in 1924 with the Immigration Act, which severely restricted immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe and virtually stopped immigration from Asia. And of course there was Prohibition itself, a well-coordinated effort by the states and federal government to regulate alcohol consumption, especially in New York State.

How did the changes that took place during the Progressive Era – immediately before the period you are writing about – shape the 1920s and, in particular, the Ward-Peters case?

I think we sometimes forget the Progressive Era, which is when the role of government in regulating business was really established. That era saw labor laws and workplace safety laws. That era saw the Food and Drug Administration and the federal government began to investigate the purity of the food that Americans consumed.