The Southwest Chronicle Edu©Educational.Dual Language.Unconventional. 8th Anniversary Limited Edition | Page 12



PART
2

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TheSouthwestChronicleEdu

OUR C I T

Y

BACKYARD
BULL I ES

I’M
IN
IT
TO
WIN
IT!
GET OUT OF MY WAY
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giant, Babe Ruth, play baseball became more important than playing baseball yourself.
■ The SWChronicle EDU© The Collegian • 1920s The Truth • Our Past Has A Future And It Is Our Present©

■ SWChronicle EDU© The Collegian ■ Our City Bullies

EL PASO MADAM IS A

BIG BROTHEL BULLY!
ORIGINAL STORY APRIL 1886 EL PASO

Mada m Big Alice Is A Brothel Bully In El Paso

Busty Bessie Colvin was a very popular girl. Arriving in El Paso from Louisville, Kentucky in 1884,
she quickly found employment at Alice Abbott’s
brothel, where she soon became the main attraction.
Alice often took her on shopping sprees where she let
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the madam’s account. Alice recorded all such transactions in her ledger and allowed Bessie to “work-

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off” her debts, a
common practice
in all brothels. But
as often happens,
the share-hopping
agreement eventually soured. Bessie
accused her employer of cheating
on the accounting
and Alice counter
charged Miss Colvin with performing extracurricular activities with certain customers
and withholding as much as $125 received for such
services.
On Sunday evening, April 18, 1886, Bessie made
up her mind to leave Alice and seek better working conditions else where. Bessie reeled onto Utah
Street and headed for Etta Clark’s brothel. Bessie
explained the situation and asked the madam for
work. Etta readily agreed to comply with Bessie’s
request. Bessie returned to Alice’s parlor house to
pick up her working clothes and personal effects.
Alice tried to slap her rebelling employee, but the
petite girl ducked the heavy-handed blow and ran
out of the building, once more heading for Etta’s.
Alice stormed up Etta’s steps and savagely jabbed
the doorbell. Receiving no immediate response, the
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the wooden barrier. Etta Clark opened the door,
“What do you want?” Etta asked. “I want to see
Bessie,” Alice demanded. Whereupon Etta calmly
looked at her adversary and stated: “She doesn’t
want to see you. Get out of my house.” Alice started
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Abbott brushed the weapon aside, shouting: “I owe
you this anyhow,” and hit Etta in the face. Seeing
her prey once again in range, Alice leaped on Etta,
grabbed her by the throat, slapped her a couple of
times and threw the lightweight madam back into
her bedroom. Stunned, Etta watched as Alice seized
Bessie’s wrist and began dragging the screaming
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to wrench free and ran back to Etta’s side.
Meanwhile, Etta had regained her senses and ran to
her dresser, opened a drawer and picked up her .44
caliber revolver. Returning once more to the hall,
she pointed the gun at Alice and commanded, “Miss
Alice, I want you to leave!” Alice then began advancing on her smaller opponent and Etta pulled the
trigger. Clutching her groin, Alice screamed: “My
God! I’m shot!” She staggered down the steps to
collapse in the street. Rushing to the porch, Etta
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target and plowed into the dust of Utah Street. Alice
looked up in fear at Etta, anticipating a third shot,
but the tiny madam, content with the damage she
had done, smiled contemptuously and returned to
her house. Etta Burke, Nina Farrell and Josie Conelly rushed to Alice and helped the stricken woman
to her brothel. The women put Alice in her bed and
summoned Dr. A.L. Justice to tend the ugly wound.
On examination, Dr. Justice discovered the bullet
had penetrated to the right of Alice’s pubic arch and
passed through her body.
The El Paso Herald reported the altercation the next
day, with the resulting article becoming a part of
southwestern folklore. The Herald the next morning described the affair and tried to say that Alice
was shot in the pubic arch, but the phrase came out
public arch -a more accurate statement of the case,
perhaps, than the one which was intended. -END

12

GIVE THE GIFT OF LEARNING. OUR HISTORY IS THE BEGINNING.©

1920s Sports & Sport Stars

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in the nineteen twenties due to
unprecedented publicity and promotion included baseball, tennis,
golf, swimming, football and boxing. Newspapers, magazines, radio and movies all played a role
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the sporting giants. The 1920’s
was a transition period for many
sports. Sports that had up until
that time been largely amateur
events caught the eye of promoters who could see an opportunity
to capitalize and make money. The
professional football league, golf
tours, and tennis circuit were organized. Media publicity ensured
large crowds and guaranteed the
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allowing new stadiums to be built
and providing steadily increasing
salaries for the sports stars. As
people spent more time watching
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engaged in less sport themselves,
a which has continued down to
the present day resulting in the socalled “couch-potato” syndrome.
Watching Babe Ruth play baseball became more important than
playing baseball yourself. However this was not true of all sports,
as tennis and golf in particular
boomed due to their higher proÀOH DQG ZHUH SRSXODU ZLWK ERWK
men and women. Money also
became a factor in college sport
where it was claimed that sports
had also become commercialized
to the point where the few were
exploited to make a spectacle for
the many and where the games be-

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nue rather than a school of sport
and exercise for the majority, and
no longer focused on sportsmanship or moral development. The
sports stars of this era remain well
known even today, such was their
fame and the publicity they received for their amazing careers,
endorsements or promotions. Very
few will not have heard of Babe
Ruth in baseball, Jack Dempsey
in boxing, Johnny Weissmuller
in swimming, Knute Rockne and
Red Grange in football, Bill Tilden and Helen Wills in tennis and
Bobby Jones and Glenna Collett in
golf. As the current sports champions were coming to the close of
their careers a younger generation
of sports stars were in the making.
The momentum thes e sports built
up in the 1920’s has ensured that
these sports have endured in popularity to the present day. Our old
heroes are not forgotten. -End

Á LA MOD. Á LA CHIC.
■ The SWChronicle EDU© The Collegian • Á La Mod Á La Chic • Our Past Has A Future And It Is Our Present©

Á La Mod Á La Chic

-Womens fashions in
the early 1920’s experienced dramatic
changes following
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world war, in a period often referred
to as the “roaring
20’s”, the era of the
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ing of bustles and
corsets gave clothing designers much
greater freedom of
expression resulting
in innovative styling. Women dressing
in the new and colorful fabrics echoed
the joy felt by a war
weary
population
following the end of
hostilities. The rate
of change in clothing styles for women
and children accelerated during the
1920’s along
with a decline
in
purchase
costs.
This increased
the demand
for dresses
in particular,
with silk and rayon hosiery not far behind. 1920’s Dresses were lighter (due to less material and new
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shorter than ever before. Fashion
designers played with fabric colors, textures and patterns to create
totally new styles of dress. Evening dresses, coats and jackets
were often trimmed with fur. Fur
coats dropped in popularity while
fur trimmed coats, especially
for women, followed an upward
trend. Hemlines rose for most of
the decade but dropped slightly
toward the end. The popular trend
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taste for luxury and as a result

cotton became less
fashionable. Women’s
underwear which had
been primarily cotton
before 1920 was predominantly
fashioned
from silk and rayon by
the end of the decade. Young
women in particular discarded
cotton underwear for the new materials while older women were
slower to change. Likewise city
people made the change to the
new materials and styles far sooner than country people. Shoes
and stockings assumed a greater
prominence now that they were
more visible. Silk stockings in all
the colors of the rainbow, often
with patterns, were designed to
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stylish women.
“Assembling” was part of the new
fashion trends and so purses and
handbags became fashion items in
a 1920s trendy fashion statement.

At the same
time there was
a marked decrease in the
use of hooks
and eyes,
and feathers
and plumes.
The use of
perfumes,
cosmetics and
toilet preparations
skyrocketed due
to a massive advertising
effort
in
periodicals,
newspapers, and
radio. Correspondence
schools
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inter-war period
as people sought
to educate themselves and create
a better future for
themselves and
their
families.
Dressmaking and
millinery courses in particular
were
embraced
by women who wanted the new
fashions but couldn’t afford retail
prices. Others were looking to create full or part-time jobs for themselves. Many women turned to
fashion as a vocation in order to
support their fatherless families in
the case of war widows, or to earn
extra income to spend on the new
luxuries. Working women also
embraced the relatively inexpensive ready-made clothes as mass
production
of
contemporary
clothing
became
c o m m o n .
And for
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time in
the U.S.
“the famous
bob” hair
style was rapidly reintroduced.
And a new woman evolved. -End