Three gunshots rang out over the rooftop theater of Madison Square Garden on the warm evening of June 25, 1906. The victim was Stanford White, America’s most celebrated architect, the man who had designed the very building where he fell. The killer did not flee. Standing over the body, Harry Kendall Thaw, a Pittsburgh millionaire heir, calmly told police that the dead man had ruined his wife.
The woman at the center of the tragedy was Evelyn Nesbit. She had been one of the most famous faces in America, a model who embodied the ideal known as the Gibson Girl. Her beauty had drawn the attention of both White, a 52-year-old architectural genius, and Thaw, a deeply unstable young man whose family fortune shielded him from the consequences of his erratic behavior. The killing set off what became known as the first trial of the century, exposing the hidden excesses of Gilded Age high society.
Evelyn Nesbit was born in 1884 in Tarentum, Pennsylvania, a small coal town near Pittsburgh. Her father, an attorney, died when she was about ten years old, leaving the family with substantial debts. Her mother found work as a store clerk in Philadelphia, and Evelyn, still a teenager, took a job at the same department store to help the family survive. Her life changed when an artist noticed her and offered a dollar per session to pose.
Word spread quickly, and soon many of the city’s painters and photographers sought her out. In 1900, she and her mother moved to New York City, where publishing and advertising were creating a national market for beautiful faces. Evelyn found work almost immediately, posing for respected artists and appearing on magazine covers and advertisements across the country. Her breakthrough came when illustrator Charles Dana Gibson used her as the model for one of his most famous drawings, Woman: The Eternal Question.
The image made her the living embodiment of the Gibson Girl ideal. Seeking greater fame and income, she joined the chorus of a Broadway musical in 1901, eventually moving into featured roles. By the age of 17, she was supporting her entire family and was known as one of the most beautiful women in New York. Stanford White was born in 1853 into a family with strong artistic connections but no great wealth.
Lacking formal architectural training, he learned his craft in the office of the leading architect Henry Hobson Richardson. After traveling through Europe, he co-founded the celebrated firm McKim, Mead and White. The firm became the architect of the Gilded Age, designing mansions for families like the Astors and Vanderbilts and creating landmarks such as the Washington Square Arch and the original Madison Square Garden, topped by a nude golden statue of Diana that scandalized and captivated the city. White was a towering figure in society, but by 1901, he had developed a troubling private appetite for very young actresses and chorus girls.
That year, he met sixteen-year-old Evelyn Nesbit backstage at the Casino Theater. White presented himself to her mother as a generous patron, helping the family financially and paying for her brother’s schooling. He took Evelyn to his private residence on West 24th Street, a discreetly renovated building that contained a room with a red velvet swing hanging from the ceiling. According to testimony Evelyn gave years later in court, White brought her to the apartment when her mother was away.
She said he gave her champagne, which she had never drunk before, and that she lost consciousness. When she woke, she found herself in a bedroom with White beside her. She was sixteen; he was forty-seven. The relationship continued for more than a year.
Evelyn later said she stayed because she had no resources of her own and had developed genuine feelings for him. In later life, she would say that Stanford White was the only man she ever truly loved. Harry Kendall Thaw was born in 1871 into immense wealth, the son of a Pittsburgh railroad and coal magnate who left millions to his family. From childhood, Thaw showed signs of severe instability.
He threw violent tantrums, suffered from insomnia, and was reported to have thrown objects at servants’ heads. He was expelled from Harvard for behavior that included intimidating fellow students, and his family paid to keep the details quiet. Another reported incident, in which he chased a cab driver with a shotgun over a dime, also disappeared from public record when money changed hands. Thaw’s attempts to enter New York high society were repeatedly rejected, and he became convinced that Stanford White was sabotaging him.
There is no evidence White gave Thaw any thought, but Thaw’s fixation grew. In 1902, Thaw saw Evelyn Nesbit perform in a Broadway show and became obsessed. He attended roughly forty performances and cultivated a relationship with her under the false name Mr. Monroe before dramatically revealing his true identity.
When Evelyn fell ill in mid-1903, Thaw appeared daily at her bedside with gifts and attention. After she recovered, he proposed. She refused and confessed her history with White, expecting him to leave. Instead, the confession intensified his hatred of the architect.
Thaw then offered to take her to Europe, and she accepted. During the trip, Thaw pressed her for constant details about White and, according to testimony she gave later, subjected her to physical abuse when they were alone. Thaw denied these allegations. After nearly two years of pursuit, Thaw persuaded his reluctant mother to consent to the marriage.
The wedding took place on April 4, 1905, in Pittsburgh. Thaw’s mother did not attend. Evelyn soon found life in the Thaw mansion suffocating, and her new husband seemed to lose interest in her almost immediately. Thaw instead devoted his energy to a campaign against White, feeding information to the anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock in an attempt to destroy the architect.
The effort failed. On the night of June 25, 1906, Harry and Evelyn Thaw had dinner at a Manhattan restaurant before attending the opening of a musical comedy at the rooftop theater of Madison Square Garden. Stanford White arrived late and sat about fifty feet from the Thaws. Witnesses said Thaw became agitated when he noticed the architect.
After eleven o’clock, Thaw rose, approached White’s table, drew a pistol, and fired three shots into the architect’s face at point-blank range. White was killed instantly. Thaw raised the gun above his head and made no attempt to escape, reportedly saying something to the effect that White had ruined his wife. The first trial began in January 1907.
Thaw’s defense, led by flamboyant California attorney Delphin Delmas, argued that Thaw was temporarily insane due to a uniquely American affliction Delmas called dementia Americana, an uncontrollable impulse said to overtake American men who learned their wives had been violated. Evelyn testified for days about her relationship with White, describing the apartment, the champagne, and the loss of consciousness. The jury could not agree, and the judge declared a mistrial. The second trial began in January 1908 with a new defense team that argued Thaw suffered from a permanent mental disease that made him incapable of understanding that his actions were wrong.
Evelyn testified again with a consistent story. On February 1, 1908, the jury found Thaw not guilty by reason of insanity. He was committed to the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Fishkill, New York, where he would remain for five years. At Matteawan, Thaw enjoyed privileges bought by his family’s wealth.
He immediately began petitioning for release, but courts repeatedly denied his requests. In 1910, Evelyn gave birth to a son, Russell William Thaw, and claimed Harry was the father during a conjugal visit. Thaw denied paternity. By 1912, their marriage had collapsed, and Evelyn testified against her husband at a sanity hearing, telling the court he had threatened to kill her if released.
On August 17, 1913, Thaw escaped from Matteawan when a milk cart entered the front gate. He ran to a waiting black Packard and fled north into Canada. He was arrested, but his lawyers fought extradition. Canadian authorities eventually dumped him back across the border, and the legal battle continued.
In July 1915, a jury declared Harry Thaw sane, and he walked out of custody a free man, nine years after murdering Stanford White. His freedom lasted eighteen months. In late 1916, Thaw was accused of savagely beating a nineteen-year-old he had befriended and lured to a hotel room in Manhattan. When police issued a warrant, Thaw attempted suicide by slashing his throat.
He offered the young man’s family half a million dollars to drop the charges; they refused. His mother intervened one last time, having him declared insane by a Pennsylvania commission, and Thaw was committed to an asylum in Philadelphia for another seven years. Thaw was released in 1924 at the age of fifty-three. He published a self-justifying memoir titled The Traitor, which blamed his own defense lawyer for the insanity verdict.
He never expressed remorse for killing White. He retired to Florida and died of cardiac arrest in Miami on February 22, 1947, at age seventy-six. His will left Evelyn Nesbit $10,000, about one percent of his remaining estate. Evelyn Nesbit’s life after the trials was marked by struggle.
The Thaw family cut off financial support, and she returned to performing in vaudeville, trading on her infamy. She married her dance partner in 1916, but he left her two years later. She opened a tearoom that failed, battled alcoholism and morphine addiction, and survived a suicide attempt in 1926. She raised her son Russell largely alone; he became a decorated pilot during World War II.
She published two memoirs, neither of which brought her wealth. In 1955, she served as a technical adviser on a Hollywood film about her early life, The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, and received $10,000 for her participation. Her health declined after a stroke the following year. Evelyn Nesbit died on January 17, 1967, in a Santa Monica nursing home at the age of eighty-two.
Only a handful of people attended her funeral. Near the end of her life, she was asked about Stanford White. She replied that White was killed, but that her own fate was worse.