A small stack of books arrived at the shop this week, and these were not the sort I could simply put on a shelf without stopping to look through them first.
The title is Infamous Women of Florida: Pre-1900, and I have a few signed copies from the author.
The book gathers stories of women from Florida’s earlier years who lived outside the respectable edges of society. Pirates, swindlers, bandits, women accused of crimes, women who became notorious, and others whose names slipped quietly out of the history books even though their stories were anything but quiet.
Florida history has never been particularly tidy.
Long before beaches, theme parks and retirement communities became part of the state’s identity, Florida was a difficult place filled with ports, frontier settlements, isolated roads, gambling towns, smugglers, fugitives and people trying to reinvent themselves. It was a good place to disappear, and apparently a fairly good place to become infamous.
What I found interesting about this book is that it concentrates entirely on women before 1900.
Women are often present in old histories as wives, widows, daughters or unfortunate bystanders. The troublesome ones do not always receive quite as much attention. Yet there were women who stole, schemed, fought, deceived, escaped, challenged authorities and occasionally managed to create enough trouble that newspapers remembered their names.
At least for a while.
And that “for a while” may be the most interesting part.
History has a peculiar habit of deciding who gets remembered. A notorious man may become a legend. A notorious woman can become a footnote, if she appears at all.
That makes books like this particularly enjoyable for anyone who likes wandering down the less-traveled roads of history.
These are not stories about saints. Some of the women were clever. Some were desperate. Some were dangerous. Some may have been treated unfairly by the newspapers and courts of their time. Others seem to have earned their reputations quite thoroughly.
That uncertainty is part of what makes old history so interesting. We are often left with newspaper accounts, court records, recollections and stories repeated long after the people involved were gone. Somewhere among all of that is the truth.
Maybe.
The book also reminded me why I enjoy uncommon books in the first place. There is always another corner of history hiding somewhere. Another person you have never heard of. Another strange incident buried in an old newspaper. Another story waiting for somebody curious enough to go looking for it.
I have only a few signed copies of Infamous Women of Florida: Pre-1900 in the shop right now.
If you enjoy Florida history, forgotten women, criminals, pirates, swindlers, bandits and the occasional historical troublemaker, this one might be worth adding to your shelf.
I suspect these women would be pleased to know somebody is still talking about them.
Then again, considering some of their histories, perhaps we should not encourage them.