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Wednesday, May 14, 2008

American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, the Birth of the "It Girl" and the Crime of the Century


American Eve: 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 lover—celebrity architect Stanford White, builder of the Washington Square Arch and much of New York City—she found herself at the center of the “Crime of the Century” and the popular courtroom drama that followed—a 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 narrativethat reads like the best fiction — 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. {description from Amazon.com}

Update: Dr. Paula Uruburu (the author of American Eve) stopped by and commented - she has a website dedicated to American Eve with lots of great info which can be found here.

5 comments:

Tammy B said...

I am going to have to read that book. There is a small town in Northeast Alabama that has an entire section of houses designed by Stanford White. If you can ever find one for sale, it's not cheap.

a. said...

Wonderful houses.

DrPaula said...

Hi. thanks for noticing. You can see a great video gallery of images on YouTube for the book -- just put in Evelyn Nesbit.

Paula U.

a. said...

Dr. Paula! Thanks for stopping by I can't wait to read this book!! I heard this story many years ago and have always been facinated with it. As soon as I finish it I will post my thoughts on the blog.

I will post the YouTube clips here as well if anyone is interested.

Pigtown*Design said...

I worked in a Stanford White building for a couple of years. This book will be so interesting to read.