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.If women sought equality in other areas of their lives, the thinkingseemed to be that they had to accept equality in punishment aswell.17The increase in female executions began in the late 1920s.Fivewomen had been executed in the United States between 1903 andJanuary 1928 when New York electrocuted Ruth Snyder, convictedof killing her husband with the help of her lover, who was alsoexecuted.Four more women were executed between 1928 and 1931.83the ultimate penaltyIn June 1934, as Nellie Madison prepared to go to trial, Anna An-tonio, convicted of hiring two men to kill her husband, waited tohear whether New York governor Ernest Lehman would halt herexecution, scheduled for that August.18Altogether eleven women would be executed in the 1930s, onequarter of all those executed in the twentieth century.This numberdoes not include Bonnie Parker, whose May 1934 death turned herinto an instant cultural icon.Forty thousand people jammed thestreets of the East Texas town where her funeral was held, hopingto claim a piece of history.19Though it had not yet executed a woman, California s executiontotals kept pace with those of other states.From 1900 to 1928 thestate executed an average of five men a year.That number morethan doubled during the 1930s to eleven men per year.Not all ofthem were murderers.Some had been convicted of lesser offenses,such as robbery and kidnapping.20Entering the criminal justice system of Los Angeles County asa murder defendant, Nellie Madison never could have guessed thatshe, out of all the women in her circumstances, would be cast in therole of public example and scapegoat.After all, she was acquaintedwith many prominent individuals through her ex-husband Wil-liam Brown and his two brothers, Ralph and Charles.Ralph, theyoungest Brown brother, had even been featured in Who s Who inCalifornia.21Nellie also mingled with the rich and powerful at hotels shemanaged in Palm Springs and Lake Arrowhead.She may havespent time with them during weekend visits to Robert Cuddy sranch in Cuddy Valley.Cuddy entertained many prominent indi-viduals from Los Angeles, according to relatives who still live inthe area today.22But Nellie s acquaintance with powerful men did not matterwhen it came to prosecuting her.If she had remained below theradar screen of the media and civic leadership in Los Angeles, she84the ultimate penaltyundoubtedly could have maintained her autonomy, anonymity, andsomewhat unconventional lifestyle.Eric Madison s murder andher arrest catapulted her into a different category.Like C.C.Ju-lian and Aimee Semple McPherson, she became an object, usefulin the establishment s campaign to discourage behavior that mightbe deemed threatening to the status quo.It was not simply the act of murder, though that surely was sig-nificant.And it was not just that her husband was the victim andthat she had premeditated the killing.Rhoda Cobler had premedi-tated the murder of her husband and he was a policeman.NellieMadison was different.She, like Aimee Semple McPherson, wasa woman who did not play by the rules, at least according tostandards long established and still jealously guarded by powerfulmen.Nellie s transgressions were many and varied.She refused tostay married, despite her adherence to Catholicism.Instead shepicked up and cast off husbands with a nonchalance that suggestedshe had no use for traditional values.She obviously had led anactive sex life with numerous partners, beginning when she wasbarely into her teens.She was a confident, capable, and hard-work-ing professional who did not need men to support her financially.Under extreme stress she exhibited a lack of emotion that seemeddistinctly out of character for a woman.Most important perhaps,she was childless despite all of her marriages and religious and po-litical strictures against artificial means of birth control.In spite ofpopular culture s emphasis on youth and modernity, women werestill expected to embrace motherhood.Choosing not to have chil-dren, according to Elaine Tyler May, brought fierce criticism andsocial ostracism. 23Various forms of media reflected real life in this area.In the 1926play Chicago, for example, protagonist Roxie Hart had to feign apregnancy to persuade a jury that, instead of a gin- and jazz-lovingflapper who killed her unfaithful lover, she really was a traditional85the ultimate penaltywoman at heart.Speaking of popular culture in general during thistime, Thomas Pauly noted that: To be found innocent, these mur-deresses must.ally themselves with the traditional expectationthat women be attractive, loyal, and submissive
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