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Throughout history, men and women have often been stereotyped into specific roles. Men have frequently been characterized as being more forceful and violent than their female counterparts. Men have also often been portrayed as adventurous pioneers while women were considered to be more frail and delicate. Nowhere has this stereotype been more prevalent than in Arizona history. In the years before statehood, Arizona's reputation as part of the "Wild West" was legendary. From stagecoach robberies and saloon fights to the shootout at Tombstone, the early days of the Arizona territory are filled with stories of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Of course, most of these stories involve the men of Arizona history. Men were typically cast both as the mysterious bad guys who robbed the stage, and as the noble sheriffs who struggled to uphold the law. Women, when they were remembered at all, were most frequently cast as virtuous pioneer women, struggling to retain femininity in the rough Arizona frontier, or as wanton saloon women with few redeeming characteristics.
As can be expected, however, most of these stereotypes of women in Arizona history are sorely misguided. It is true that women in the nineteenth century were expected to abide by certain standards of 'womanhood'. According to Paul Knepper in his article, "The Women of Yuma: Gender, Ethnicity, and Imprisonment in Frontier Arizona, 1876-1909", these standards were "...the cardinal virtues of submissiveness, piety, purity, and domesticity". Women in the Arizona territory had the doubly difficult duty of being expected to abide by these standards of womanhood while simultaneously fighting an undeveloped territory where any signs of weakness were shunned.
There was a group of women in nineteenth century Arizona who did not fit this stereotype of female passivity and decorum. These were women who, for one reason or another, broke the law and were branded as criminals. Some of these women broke the law deliberately with shocking disregard to personal life or property. Others broke the law reluctantly, only trying to feed themselves or their families. Yet others were victims of an unfair morality bias against women. When they were punished for their crimes, some of them received leniency from the court based on their gender, while others were made to suffer horrible indignities because the system had no place for women criminals. Despite these differences, however, all of these women had one thing in common. Even though women criminals in Arizona history broke stereotypical feminine molds, they could not escape biased gender treatment by the courts, the press, the public, and their jailers.
One of Arizona's most notorious female criminals was the stagecoach robber, Pearl Hart. Strapped for cash after her husband left her in 1898, Hart collaborated with local miner Joe Boot to rob the Globe stagecoach. After collecting almost $500 in the robbery, Hart and Boot were captured a few days later while they were sleeping. Hart was placed in the Globe jail, and became a minor celebrity while awaiting her trial. She managed to escape from the jail with another prisoner, Ed Hogan, on October 12, 1899. She and Hogan were
recaptured a few days later while working their way east. [Left, photograph of Pearl Hart taken from Traywick, Ben T. Frail Prisoners in Yuma Territorial Prison. (Tombstone: Red Maries,1997)] Hart's trial took place in Florence during the month of November, 1899. "...Pearl insisted that no court had the right to place her on trial, saying ' I shall not consent to be tried under a law in which my sex had no voice in making.'" Despite the fact that Pearl claimed the court had no right to try her and that she admitted her guilt, she was still acquitted by the jury, 11-1. The judge for the trial, Judge Fletcher Doan, was furious at the verdict, and claimed that Pearl "...flirted with the jury, bending them to her will". He replaced the jury, and had Pearl re-tried on different charges. This time the jury was not swayed by her charms, and Pearl was convicted and sentenced to 5 years in the Yuma Territorial Prison. Her accomplice, Joe Boot, received 30 years for the same crime, though he escaped from the prison after only serving two of those years. While incarcerated in the Territorial Prison, Pearl grew more and more eccentric, and the stories of her antics grew to legendary proportions. While in prison, Pearl wrote poetry, and when she was pardoned and released from prison in 1902 she moved to Kansas City to try her hand at an acting career.
During the entire time of Pearls escapades, no one ever quite seemed to know how to deal with the fact that she was a female bandit. In the book Prisoners In Petticoats, The Yuma Territorial Prison and Its Women the sheriff who arrested Pearl is quoted as saying, One wouldnt think that she is a very tiger cat for nerve and for endurance. She looks feminine enough now, in the womens clothes I got for her, and one can see the touch of a tasteful womans hand in the way she has brightened up her cell. Yet, only a couple of days ago, I had a struggle with her for my life. She would have killed me in my tracks could she have got to her pistol. Sure women are curious creatures. This sheriff was not the last person to underestimate Pearl due to her gender and petite physical appearance. As already stated, her first jury acquitted her, and the second only gave her a five year sentence compared to her partners thirty-year sentence. Fans came and visited her in prison, and several even left money with her so she would have money when she got out of prison.
Members of the press seemed divided on the issue of Pearl. Some newspapers were sympathetic to her plight, and claimed the only reason she robbed the stage was to get money for her sick mother. Other newspapers took a stern point of view against the jury who acquitted Pearl, and claimed that the verdict would do the reputation of Arizona considerable amount of injury, as it will confirm many Eastern people in the idea that the people of Arizona have a sneaking sympathy for crime when it assumes new and picturesque phases. While in prison, Pearl was a celebrity, and continued to do interviews with newspapers all over the country, including Cosmopolitan Magazine in October 1899. In the interview, Pearl extended her own notoriety by claiming that while running from the law, she and Joe Boot chased a mountain lion, and earlier killed a big musk-hog in a cave where they sought to hide. It is hard to find a male criminal of the day who held the public and certain members of the press in as much thrall as did Pearl Hart during her brief reign as Arizonas woman bandit.
While Pearl Hart seemed to be able to obtain sympathy, despite her crimes, by simply being a woman, there were other women criminals in Arizona history who were not so fortunate. One such woman was Alfrida Mercer. In 1901, Alfrida was sentenced to six months in the Yuma Territorial prison for unlawfully, willfully and feloniously hav(ing) carnal knowledge of the body of one Frederick Crosley, a man, he the said Frederick Crosley then and there not being the husband of her the said Alfrida Mercer. In other words, Alfrida Mercer was sent to prison for adultery. According to Knepper, five of the twenty eight women incarcerated at the Territorial prison, or 17.9 percent, were imprisoned for breaches of morality, compared to 1.9 percent of the men. These statistics fall in line with much of the thinking of the people in the Arizona territory during this time. Feminine virtue was believed to be vitally linked to the morals of society as a whole, and therefore women were imprisoned much more often than men for crimes against morality. Stereotypes and prejudices against women, and especially women of color, abounded. Mexican women were often considered immodest because they didnt wear petticoats, and black women were imprisoned more often because they were thought to be more immoral than white women. Unfortunately, it was almost impossible for a woman of color during that period to escape prejudice and stereotyping in the new territory.
Many times age seemed to make no difference for the fates of the women, either. Many of the inmates at the Yuma Territorial Prison were in their teens during the time they served their sentences. During one period during 1896, three inmates were incarcerated at the prison within a few weeks of each other. Maria Moreno, who was sentenced to a year in the prison for killing her brother with a shotgun, was considered weak-minded, and was called a she-devil by the press. Theresa Garcia was sentenced for receiving stolen property, though the charges against her partner, Roberto Gudino, were dismissed for lack of evidence. Trinidad Montano was sentenced for burglary. All three girls were Hispanic, and all three were under the age of 18 years old.
Though some women were imprisoned unfairly because of their gender, other women were most definitely justly incarcerated based on the crimes they committed. One such woman was Bertha Trimble. Bertha and her husband Walter were charged with assaulting Berthas daughter, Lydia Sparks. Apparently Walter raped the twelve year old girl while Bertha held her down. In 1902, Bertha became the first women in the Arizona Territory to be charged with rape. Convicted mainly on the testimony of Lydia, both Bertha and Walter were sentenced to life in the Yuma Territorial Prison. In a bizarre twist, Berthas sister, Mrs. Hayes, planned to have Lydia sign documents saying her testimony at the trial was false, and then to have Lydia suddenly disappear. Though this plan, luckily, fell through, Mrs. Hayes did manage to get a new trial for Bertha. Due to lack of funds in the court system to support a new trial, the charges against Bertha were dismissed, and she was released from prison after serving only a little less than two years of her sentence. As part of the agreement in her pardon, she left the territory of Arizona, never to return.
Whether the women there were imprisoned fairly or not, the conditions at the Yuma Territorial prison, where most women prisoners were sent, were often described as brutal. Prison planners had not considered the need for building separate areas for female prisoners. According to Knepper, one of the first female prisoners incarcerated in the prison, Manuela Fimbres, was not confined to a separate
cell, nor was she isolated from the other prisoners. [Left, photograph of Yuma Territorial Prison taken from Klungness, Elizabeth J. Prisoners in Petticoats: The Yuma Territorial Prison and Its Women. Prison officials left her to roam among the male guards and prisoners; consequently, she gave birth to two children. Later, she was enclosed in a wire cage which no one was allowed to come near. Though conditions for the women at the prison gradually improved, things were still rough. Men continued to have access to the womens quarters, and the cramped quarters and unsanitary conditions led to sickness and disease.
In some ways, however, women at the prison were better off than the men. For example, women did not have to wear prison uniforms like the men did. They were allowed to wear their own clothes, and material was furnished for dresses when they needed new clothes. Also, the women were not required to do hard labor. They made items to sell to visitors while the men toiled in the fields wearing balls and chains. Finally, women were punished less often. While men were frequently placed in solitary confinement, only three women were ever placed there. Though the favors in these areas of course could not make up for the poor living conditions the women had to suffer, it goes to show that women criminals were not always treated more poorly than the men because of their gender, just differently.
One woman who was not a criminal, but achieved notoriety through her actions and was, perhaps, treated differently because of her gender, was Louise Foucar Marshall. Louise committed her crime in 1931, a little over twenty years after the Yuma Territorial Prison shut its doors for good. A little after midnight on Monday, April 28, 1931, Louise Foucar Marshall shot her husband Thomas K. Marshall in their home as he lay sleeping. According to reports from the newspaper The Arizona Daily Star from April to September, 1931, Louise Marshall believed her husband was having an affair with their housekeeper. In addition, Louise also believed that Thomas was slowly poisoning her food with arsenic. In fact, a blood test at the time of her arrest revealed dangerous levels of arsenic in her body (Daily Star, April 28, 1931).
Before the shooting, Louise Foucar Marshall was something of a celebrity in Tucson. She was a professor at the University of Arizona, teaching French, Latin, and botany there. Also, she was a well known philanthropist in the community, and donated large amounts of her money to charity. During her trial, Louise professed to not remember the events leading up to, and directly after the shooting of her husband, but she did not deny having shot him. Her lawyers entered her not guilty by reason of temporary insanity, a novel plea at that time. After listening to many witnesses, including the housekeeper with whom Thomas Marshall was supposedly having the affair, and several doctors who declared Mrs. Marshall legally insane at the time of the shooting, the jury deliberated only 30 minutes before returning with a not guilty verdict. According to the front page of the Arizona Daily Star on September 24, 1931, Cheers burst forth from the throats of more than 100 spectators who had waited outside the jury room for the verdict. Louise Marshall was a semi-invalid at the time of the shooting, and it can be speculated that her frail appearance, along with her gender and good previous standing in the community helped to rally sympathy for her in the community.
Not all were as sympathetic for her plight, however. As was also reported in the September 24, 1931 issue of the Arizona Daily Star, the prosecutor of the case, William G. Hall, did not believe in the insanity defense, but instead believed Louise Foucar Marshall was literally getting away with murder. In speaking of Louise, he said, You cant take the law in your own hands because you think you have been poisoned or because your husband has had an affair with Mrs. Seymour (the housekeeper). This was nothing but cold-blooded murder. Though Mr. Halls points were valid, the defense played up her apparent frailty and femininity. One of her attorneys, George Darnell, played on the sympathies of the jury when he observed, There she is, a little woman sitting there in the corner hounded by an eloquent doctor; hounded by a newspaper that puts itself above the supreme court And as a finishing touch, the defense had Louise spend the entire trial in a rocking chair behind the defense table. It is no wonder that the jury deliberated so short a time before finding her not guilty. Like Pearl Hart more than thirty years before, Louise Foucar Marshall benefited from a stereotypical view of what women were capable of, and of what they should be found guilty.
Overall, the history of Arizona women criminals is at times fascinating and bizarre. As shown, every woman who committed a crime and was sentenced broke the stereotypical mold of female passivity. Some of these women were like Pearl Hart who simultaneously tried to make herself seem more masculine by wearing mens clothes and by her outrageously violent behavior, and yet also tried to use her feminine wiles to get her out of trouble. Others, like Alfrida Mercer, simply found themselves victims of the societal need of the day to try and regulate morality. Still others, like Bertha Trimble, committed truly monstrous crimes and deserved to be punished. Yet whether through unfair incarceration, lenient sentences, poorer jail conditions, or sympathetic media, all of the fates of these criminals in the early days of Arizona history were affected by one simple fact: that they were women.
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