Evelyn Nesbit became a household vision and icon for the early 1900's during the Gilded Age in New York. Growing up in an unhealthy and unstable home, her mom turned a blind eye as many older men inappropriately wooed her daughter into high society and its hidden menaces. Taken by Stanford White to be his mistress and paid concubine, Mamma Nesbit allowed the dark behavior of the family's benefactor without question. Stanford paid for the family to live as it had never done so before.
Along comes Harry Thaw, another wanting millionaire, ready to pay the price to keep Evelyn in the style she was used to. A monster with many hidden obsessions, Harry convinced Evelyn that it was in her best interests to marry him. Let the games begin!!! Harry's arch enemy in his own mind was none other than Stanford White and the fact that he had deflowered his wife, only served to fuel the fire even more fiercely. In his obsessive compulsive mind, Harry would be the hero of all times if he could rid the world of Stanford and his degradation of young innocent girls.
With absolutely no remorse and in full view of everyone at Madison Square Garden Roof, a place designed by Stanford, Harry shot Stanford. Leaving Evelyn minus the two men who had protected her financially, the journey began to rebuild her life. In the end Evelyn seemed to go full circle through life and the calamities of being a misguided beauty.
Paula Uruburu's AMERICAN EVE -- EVELYN NESBIT, STANFORD WHITE -- THE BIRTH OF THE "IT"GIRL AND THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY depicts life in the early 1900's as seedy as it is today. The rich were afforded a life of moral deprivation as long as everyone looked the other way, and it is the story of Evelyn Nesbit that portrays the times in such a light as to bring the reader the realities of its injustices. Ms. Uruburu has a wonderful way of writing facts of an bygone era for a modern reader. A must read for history buffs who enjoy true crimes.
The scandalous story of America's first supermodel, sex goddess, and modern celebrity, Evelyn Nesbit, the temptress at the center of Stanford White's famous murder, whose iconic life story reflected all the paradoxes of America's Gilded Age. Known to millions before her sixteenth birthday in 1900, Evelyn Nesbit was the most photographed woman of her era, an iconic figure who set the standard for female beauty. Women wanted to be her. Men just wanted her. When her life of fantasy became all too real, and her jealous millionaire husband, Harry K. Thaw, killed her loverβcelebrity architect Stanford White, builder of the Washington Square Arch and much of New York Cityβshe found herself at the center of the "Crime of the Century" and the popular courtroom drama that followedβa scandal that signaled the beginning of a national obsession with youth, beauty, celebrity, and sex. The story of Evelyn Nesbit is one of glamour, money, romance, sex, madness, and murder, and Paula Uruburu weaves all of these elements into an elegant narrative that reads like the best fictionβ only it's all true. American Eve goes far beyond just literary biography; it paints a picture of America as it crossed from the Victorian era into the modern, foreshadowing so much of our contemporary culture today.
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