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for the O.B. Crittenden
Company to confess to questionable labor practices that implicated Percy himself in the bad conditions for workers at Sunnyside. While at Sunnyside Percy arranged for her notes to be stolen from her hotel room and then "recovered" by a close associate â sending the message to Quackenbos that she could not touch him. She responded by having his partner, O.B. Crittenden, arrested and also worked to have stories planted in the press nationwide deploring the conditions at the plantation. One headline blared "Millionaire Has Slaves".
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gather and disseminate facts which will impress the public with the dangers to women and girls throughout the United States...and to investigate and report to the authorities for prosecution complaints regarding immoral conditions which may exist throughout New York and the United States and urge the
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Mrs. Quackenbos is young and pretty, with jet black eyes and hair, a vivacious manner, and a glance of keen penetration. Her figure is tall, slender, and girlish. She always wears well-made black gowns, with touches of white at the neck and sleeves. Her hat is the most distinctive part of her attire,
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Quackenbos met fierce resistance to her work to expose peonage. Plantation owners such as LeRoy Percy deliberately worked to thwart her investigations, often using the fact that she was a woman to belittle her work. One southern newspaper, reporting on her investigations, referred to her as "busybody
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During the course of the investigation, Quackenbos spent nights in the shacks that the immigrants lived in, drank the "red, iron-laden" water, and dispatched an investigator undercover to sneak onto the plantation at night. She also, through threats of imprisonment, convinced one of the labor agents
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after a successful case that she started it to provide working people with "St. Regis law at Mills Hotel Prices, and such other assistance as they may need in the redressing of wrongs at a cost within their means." She went on to say, "My idea in establishing the firm was to demonstrate that a legal
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as woman for woman." On March 9, three days before Mrs. Tolla was to hang, Quackenbos, after a week's effort, induced the board of pardons of New Jersey to commute the death sentence to seven and one-half years imprisonment. She demonstrated that Tolla had killed Sonta in self-defense, and that the
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Others criticized her efforts as having a chilling effect on immigration that was at the time beneficial to parts of the South experiencing labor shortages. To these critics in one
Louisiana newspaper she responded, "One thing which I am compelled to fight against is the fact that few persons yet
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Cruger disappeared on
February 13, 1917. The police investigated, but the case went cold quickly. Press coverage of the case was intense, as Cruger was the daughter of a well-to-do family, her father being a public accountant. Her disappearance became wrapped up in national concerns about white
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to have
Quackenbos removed from the investigation at Sunnyside. Ultimately though, her report was released, and the investigation resulted in a slowing of Italian laborers to the Mississippi Delta, as the Italian government began to warn immigrants away from settlement there.
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realize my motive and purpose. With proper support I believe I can completely wipe out peonage in the south within the next year." Quackenbos believed that immigration would actually increase if the conditions for the workers in the South were improved.
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During the early years of the People's Law Firm, Quackenbos was approached by several clients that wanted assistance finding relatives or friends that had gone South and then disappeared completely. Upon investigation she discovered rampant
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scheme between Cocchi and the local police. Because of the case and the resulting public criticism, Humiston was named a special investigator to the New York City Police
Department, charged with tracing missing girls, in July 1917.
210:. Dean Ashley of the law school was impressed with her abilities and urged her to attend evening sessions, so that she completed the three-year course in two years and graduated ranked seventh in her class. She graduated with a
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slavery that were sweeping the country at the time. Suspecting the police had not fully investigated his daughter's disappearance, Henry Cruger posted a $ 1,000 reward and hired
Humiston to investigate. She took the case
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in New York and graduated in 1888. She also taught for a short time at the
Collegiate School on West 77th Street. With an independent fortune she entered the study of law at the Law School of
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Quackenbos
Humiston was born Mary Grace Winterton on September 17, 1869 in New York City. Her father was Adoniram Judson Winterton, a well-to-do merchant and prominent in the laywork of the
314:â investigating the systems by which immigrants were lured into peonism. She became one of the first to make public the organized attempts to entice foreigners to America and into peonism.
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Later in her career
Quackenbos, now better known by the name Mrs. Grace Humiston, was given the moniker "Mrs. Sherlock Holmes" after solving the disappearance of 18-year-old Ruth Cruger.
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for it is rather wide and flat, and from it, in the back, hang short folds of mourning veiling. Mrs. Quackenbos assumed this dress at the time of the death of her parents a few years ago.
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Honeyman, Abraham Van Doren; Keasbey, Edward
Quinton; Keasbey, George Macculloch; Borgmeyer, Charles Louis; Holmwood, William Ernest (July 1917). "A Woman Lawyer As Mystery Expert".
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Quackenbos Humiston was married twice, the first time to Maj. Henry Forrest Quackenbos in New York city on June 5, 1895. Her second marriage was to Howard Donald Humiston in
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residents and deciphering a blurred message on a blotter, Humiston determined to search the basement of suspect Alfredo Cocchi. There Humiston found the body of Ruth Cruger.
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287:. That appointment was then extended to cover peonage matters throughout the country. She was the first woman to attain a senior position in the Department of Justice.
683:"Woman's Fight Against Big Odds for Mrs. Tolla; Mrs. Mary Grace Quackenbos, Though Comparatively Unknown to the Legal Profession, Shows Remarkable Skill in her Work"
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produced an episode, "Brad Ricca: Mrs. Sherlock Holmes," about Ricca's book detailing the events of the Ruth Cruger case. The episode was released on June 13, 2022.
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to enter a camp; at another she slipped inside on wagons that carried supplies. She also posed as a magazine writer in order to gain access to the camps.
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Quackenbos traveled south at great personal risk to investigate the conditions in the camps. She once disguised herself as an old native woman selling
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bureau for the aid of the poor could be operated at a scale of prices within their reach and to their great benefit, and I think this has been done."
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Quackenbos founded the People's Law Firm in 1905. The firm focused primarily on the cases of the working poor and immigrants. Quackenbos explained in
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Quackenbos". Articles sometimes focused on the fact that she was a woman and her dress rather than on the results of her investigations. A
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Mrs. Sherlock Holmes: The True Story of New York City's Greatest Female Detective and the 1917 Missing Girl Case That Captivated a Nation
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Boehm, Randolph H. (Spring 1991). "Mary Grace Quackenbos and the Federal Campaign against Peonage: The Case of Sunnyside Plantation".
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in July 1907 to investigate the allegations. Sunnyside was owned by the O.B. Crittenden Company. Among the firm's senior partners was
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camps in the South, as well as a network of agents that operated in New York City to lure workers to the southern camps.
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As part of her investigations into peonism while at the Department of Justice she traveled extensively abroad, to the
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As a result of the case Humiston incorporated the Morality League of America, an organization that was founded to
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and a trip by Assistant Attorney General Charles Wells Russell through the South to investigate the charges.
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article on her appointment to the Department of Justice included the following description of Quackenbos:
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After her first trip to the South investigating the camps in 1906, she returned with a fever but also 46
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733:"Peonage Inquiry Started by Moody; Assistant Attorney General Russell Will Go Through the South".
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Due to these investigations the Department of Justice ultimately hired her as Special Assistant
191:. She was a great-niece of Admiral Hull, and her grandfather, Henry S. Hull, was the partner of
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produced an episode, "Mrs. Sherlock Holmes," about Grace and her work on the Ruth Cruger case.
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against actors in the peonage system. This prompted an investigation to be opened by the
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requesting that Quackenbos investigate the conditions of Italian laborers in the Delta.
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to investigate complaints of mistreatment of Italians who were laboring on cotton
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823:"Millionaire Has Slaves; Arkansas Man is Arraigned in Court on Charge of Peonage"
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passage of legislation necessary to promote the purposes of the organization.
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One of her best-known cases was that of Mrs. Antoinette Tolla, a woman from
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Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America
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in New York City. During the time leading up to her death she lived at the
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ambassador to the United States, Baron Edmondo Des Planches, visited the
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United States District Attorney for the Southern District of New York
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in 1903 and, after spending one year with the Legal Aid Society, was
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evidence she presented at trial had not been properly translated.
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Quackenbos arrived at Sunnyside Plantation across the river from
701:"Sentence Commuted; Mrs. Tolla to Serve Imprisonment for Murder"
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in 1904 and eventually made the decision to practice regularly.
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848:"Peonage Matter: Lady Assistant Attorney General Investigating"
159:(nÊe Winterton) (1869–1948) was the first female Special
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United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York
371:, a lawyer, cotton planter, and Delta political leader.
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Percy used his personal friendship with then-President
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there. On June 4, 1907, he wrote to Secretary of State
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Mary Grace Humiston died in 1948 at the age of 77, in
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of Ruth Cruger who disappeared in New York in 1917.
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Henry Forrest Quackenbos (m. 1895; div. before 1911)
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499:In the season 2 episode "Mrs. Sherlock Holmes" of
870:"Girl Kidnapped, Father Fears As Wide Hunt Fails"
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718:"Woman Lawyer Hears of Peonage in Florida".
643:"New York University Confers its Degrees".
107:Howard Donald Humiston (m. 1911; died 1943)
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933:"Mrs. Humiston, 77, Crime Lawyer, Dies".
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1067:Works by or about Mary Grace Quackenbos
1045:(First ed.). New York: Macmillan.
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460:, and sentenced to 27 years in prison.
561:. Kansas City, MO. November 22, 1906.
555:"High Federal Place For Woman Lawyer"
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328:In the spring of 1907, while at the
1121:20th-century American women lawyers
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1111:Assistant United States Attorneys
964:"COCCHI CONVICTED, GETS 27 YEARS"
909:Abbott, Karen (August 23, 2011).
753:The Arkansas Historical Quarterly
689:. New York, NY. January 13, 1906.
424:, and after interviewing several
165:New York University School of Law
707:. Washington, DC. March 9, 1906.
431:Cruger then accused the NYPD of
161:Assistant United States Attorney
833:. October 28, 1907. p. 1.
340:states. During this time, the
206:in order to better manage her
157:Mary Grace Quackenbos Humiston
25:Mary Grace Quackenbos Humiston
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1101:20th-century American lawyers
626:The New Jersey Journal of Law
167:and was a leader in exposing
163:. She was a graduate of the
1004:Bulletin of Yale University
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472:, Peru, on June 8, 1911.
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1096:New York (state) lawyers
387:Criticism and resistance
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183:Early life and education
797:Barry, John M. (2007).
452:Cocchi was arrested in
361:Greenville, Mississippi
1018:"Mrs. Sherlock Holmes"
801:. Simon and Schuster.
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410:"Mrs. Sherlock Holmes"
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365:Lake Village, Arkansas
195:of anti-slavery fame.
193:William Lloyd Garrison
16:United States Attorney
1106:Hunter College alumni
1026:. September 27, 2019.
876:. February 15, 1917.
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330:Department of Justice
278:Department of Justice
238:Kingsland, New Jersey
1041:Ricca, Brad (2017).
970:. October 30, 1920.
916:Smithsonian Magazine
858:. November 24, 1907.
592:. September 15, 1907
483:. She is buried in
324:Sunnyside Plantation
318:Sunnyside Plantation
198:She was educated at
68:Mary Grace Winterton
737:. October 18, 1906.
216:admitted to the bar
204:New York University
129:New York University
968:The New York Times
950:The New York Times
935:The New York Times
735:The New York Times
720:The New York Times
668:. October 3, 1905.
666:The New York Times
645:The New York Times
589:The New York Times
495:Depiction in media
380:Theodore Roosevelt
229:The New York Times
71:September 17, 1869
47:Special Assistant
952:. August 8, 1917.
874:The Evening World
687:The Evening World
491:, New York City.
485:Woodlawn Cemetery
346:Mississippi Delta
222:People's Law Firm
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1035:Works cited
369:LeRoy Percy
350:plantations
1080:Categories
529:References
433:negligence
354:Elihu Root
274:affidavits
260:turpentine
143:Profession
116:Alma mater
981:March 30,
976:0362-4331
887:March 30,
882:1941-0654
632:(7): 204.
534:Footnotes
292:Holy Land
177:cold case
1023:Criminal
773:40022328
515:Criminal
502:Timeless
437:kickback
421:pro bono
338:Southern
267:scissors
242:remunera
1069:at the
487:in The
454:Bologna
342:Italian
336:across
334:peonage
308:Germany
256:peonage
249:Peonage
171:in the
169:peonage
98:Spouses
37:in 1917
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974:
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596:May 1,
426:Harlem
304:Greece
300:Turkey
208:estate
146:Lawyer
1000:(PDF)
769:JSTOR
662:(PDF)
489:Bronx
458:Italy
312:Italy
296:Egypt
133:LL.B.
1047:ISBN
983:2022
972:ISSN
889:2022
878:ISSN
803:ISBN
598:2018
470:Lima
310:and
93:, US
81:Died
76:, US
64:Born
761:doi
258:in
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131:(
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