cover image The Bobbed Hair Bandit: A True Story of Crime and Celebrity in 1920s New York

The Bobbed Hair Bandit: A True Story of Crime and Celebrity in 1920s New York

Stephen Duncombe, Andrew Mattson, . . New York Univ., $27.95 (383pp) ISBN 978-0-8147-1980-0

In 1924, Celia Cooney, a newly married laundress in Brooklyn, found herself unexpectedly pregnant. The Cooneys' $30-a-week income couldn't support a baby. So Celia and her husband, Ed, began holding up neighborhood drugstores. In this riveting book, the authors, scholars in history and media studies (Duncombe at NYU, Mattson at SUNY–Old Westbury) reconstruct and analyze not only the crime spree but also the ensuing media frenzy. Savvy newspaper editors knew the story of a girl with a gun would sell; they christened Celia the Bobbed Hair Bandit and made her a star. According to the authors, she stood in for the era's anxieties about changing gender roles, her bob a symbol of liberated women. Suddenly, any gal with a bob was seen as a potential threat—even Zelda Fitzgerald was reportedly pulled over by cops and questioned. Once Celia was finally arrested, the public learned about her grueling childhood and negligent mother. Editorialists, including progressive pundit Walter Lippmann, then held Celia up as an example of what happened to poor and abused children when society failed to intervene. Duncombe and Mattson's fast-paced account of Cooney's story is an absolute winner. 40 b&w illus. (Feb.)