"American Eve" Lecture at Ventfort Hall
LENOX, Mass. - One hundred years ago, the trial of millionaire Harry K. Thaw for
the murder of his wife’s former lover, renowned New York City architect Stanford White, who among other buildings designed Naumkeag in Stockbridge, engendered an unprecedented media frenzy in America.The facts behind this engaging scandal will be told by scholar Dr. Paula Uruburu, author of a new book, American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, the Birth of the ‘It’ Girl, and the Crime of the Century. Uruburu will give her visual presentation at Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum on Wednesday, July 8 at 4:00pm as part of its 2009 Summer Lecture Series. The speaker will autograph copies of her book and answer questions at the Victorian Tea that follows her lecture.
Known to the public as “The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing,” Nesbit is the story of a meteoric rise to fame and a catastrophic fall from grace, as well as the birth of America’s fascination with celebrity. Born in 1884 in Tarentum, PA, Evelyn as a teenager was recognized for her exceptional beauty. She moved to New York with her widowed mother and brother and by the age of 17 she had a thriving modeling and acting career.
But Evelyn was unprepared for the world of sex, manipulation and jealousy that awaited her. She was brutally raped by two of the pivotal men in her life: Stanford White, a man she looked upon as a father figure, and Harry Thaw, who was to become her husband. Thaw, however, was obsessed with bringing down White, and along with an army of detectives and lawyers, was building a case against White for his abuse of Evelyn and other young actresses. On June 25, 1906, Thaw broke down and shot White in the crowded restaurant atop the tower of the original Madison Square Garden, a masterpiece that the architect had designed a few years before.
Uruburu recreates Thaw’s two dramatic court trials and the aftermath during which he is placed in a sanitarium. Evelyn goes on to become a silent film actress and sculptress, to remarry and divorce, reach near poverty and finally die at the age of 82 in 1967.
The speaker is an associate professor of English at Hofstra University on Long Island where she also teaches film courses. Acknowledged as the expert on Evelyn Nesbit, she has been a consultant to A&E, PBS, The History Channel, and the Smithsonian Channel. She is a specialist in American literature, women’s studies, and 19th and 20th century American popular culture. She is of Basque-Irish descent, which explains her palindromic last name.
Admission for lecture and Victorian Tea is $15 per person, members are $12. For more information or reservations, call 413-637-3206. Ventfort Hall is located at 104 Walker Street in Lenox.
An Official Project of Save America’s Treasures, Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum offers tours of the historic mansion, as well as lectures, concerts, teas, theater and other programs. This elegant Elizabethan-revival Berkshire “cottage,” listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is open to the public year-round and is available for private rental. Built in 1893 for George and Sarah Morgan (sister of the financier J. P. Morgan), Ventfort Hall has undergone substantial restoration, which continues.
