Lizzie Borden Society Forum

Does anyone know a source for later photographs of Lizzie. The latest photograph I have seen is the portrait of Lizzie wearing pince-nez. My guess is that it is no later than 1900. Are there later photos avaialble?

I'll jump in and say, unfortunately, no. Nothing that's been authenticated or agreed upon.

There's been talk that there might be some in personal photo albums in the Fall River area. And even speculation that Lizzie herself took Brownie pictures.
Wouldn't that be cool to see those!

Actually, we have so few pictures of Emma, compared to Lizzie, it seems likely that Lizzie liked her picture taken- so that makes more portraits even more possible, I would think.

Bob is right about what's been authenticated. Beware pictures on E-Bay!

Kat- Again, many thanks. I really would love to see a later photograph. All we have to go on so far is Victoria Lincoln's description of her in her later tears which, if memory serves me was something like "tall, stocky, jowly, dressy and unremarkable".

Bruce:
The oldest known photo of Lizzie is the one where she is wearing the pince-nez glasses. My information indicates the photo as circa 1905.

Thanks William. Lizzie was said to be very well dressed and fashion consious. I wonder if she bobbed her hair and wore the "flapper style" garments in fashion during her later years. There is a brief description of her in one of the later articles contained in the Lizzie Borden Sourcebook. Nurses at the hospital in which she was operated upon two years before her death described her as "mannish" in appearance. Hopefully, later photos supporting or discounting this will show up at some point. Thanks again

bruceaddison @ Wed Mar 08, 2006 2:14 pm wrote:Thanks William. Lizzie was said to be very well dressed and fashion consious. I wonder if she bobbed her hair and wore the "flapper style" garments in fashion during her later years. There is a brief description of her in one of the later articles contained in the Lizzie Borden Sourcebook. Nurses at the hospital in which she was operated upon two years before her death described her as "mannish" in appearance. Hopefully, later photos supporting or discounting this will show up at some point. Thanks again

Well, the flapper era hit right about in the twenties and by that time Lizzie was in her 60s. So, I rather doubt she took on much of the younger styles. Can you imagine how long Lizzie's hair was? In a biography I have on tennis coach Eleanor Tennant there's a picture of her mother, who was about Lizzie's age, with her back to the camera and her hair just hanging down. Her mother's hair fell past her hips.

As for the "mannish," well, Lizzie was described by several others as being a bit manly. I don't know for sure if she really was. It might be that some saw her that way because that's the only way they could see a woman who was charged with murder. In their minds no real woman could be a murderer. I've even seen a drawing of her during the trial where the artists made Lizzie look very manly.

Oh you know, that's a good point about *drawings*- there was that Post drawing of Emma in her latter years.
Tho Lizbeth was in the news often in later days, there's not a drawing of her that I know of. Hmmm...

There's that description of Lizbeth supposedly by Nance in the Sourcebook, pg. 345:
"Actress Sure Her Old Friend Was Guiltless," New Bedford Standard, June 4th [1927].

"It was not the unemotional, grim stocky and stalwart Lizzie Borden of popular conception that Miss O'Neil knew and remembered, but a quiet, reserved, frail little old-fashioned gentlewoman.
Distinctly Attrative.
...She found the reserved little gentlewoman, with her gray eyes and graying hair and her unmistakable air of refinement and intellect, distinctly attractive."

--However, when Nance knew Lizbeth, it was c. 1904-1905, and Lizbeth would only be 45. True she could be *graying* but I doubt she was so "frail" or "little" as depicted here. This makes her sound old.

Page 354:
"Took 35-Year Hope To Grave," by Ruth Bodwell, no date, no paper:
[described by a friend after her death that June, 1927]:
"Lisbeth [sic] A. Borden would have been 68 years old next July[sic]. She had been in poor health the last two years, having a heart affection, and in that time had lost considerable flesh and her hair had commenced to turn gray.

Up to two years ago, she had been vigorous and healthy..."

--It makes an interesting observation that Lizbeth would have lost weight while suffering from her gall bladder ailment, in her later years.

Kat:

I too was struck by the Nance O'Neil interview after Lizzie's death and her description of Lizzie as a frail little graying old lady. My read is that Nance was all too aware of the widely circulating rumors that she and Lizzie had been lovers, and she seized the opportunity of the interview to, obliquely at least, deny any romantic involvement. Nance did not seem too bound to the truth in that interview. If I recall, she denies ever having been at the French Street house, or having met Emma Borden. While the latter may be true (can't you see Emma seething in her room in silent fury while Lizzie entertained Nance and her troup below), contemporary newspapers seem to confirm that Nance visited the French Street house on several occasions.

Just to add a few things about Nance:

Nance was very tall for her era. She stood five feet eleven in her stocking feet so, in her mind Lizzie was "little."


The other thing is that Nance in parts of that interview is not quoted directly. Some of those words are picked by the writer. Nance may have said that Lizzie had a bit of gray that matched her gray eyes and from there the writer translated that into "graying." Maybe Lizzie just had a bit of gray about the temple. Pretty normal for a woman in her mid-forties.

I agree about Nance not being totally truthful during the interview. She couldn't be. In 1927, she couldn't very well say, "Yeah, Lizzie and I were a thing back then. She was one hot tamale." No, Nance knew she couldn't have rumors about her and Lizzie going around town and expect to make it in Hollywood. It was bad enough she had other rumors about her having a lesbian affair she didn't need to have one about her and America's most famous accused murderer. Of course in today's society it would have made Nance even bigger at the box office.

There's this. . .

Woooe, ahhhh!!!!!!!!!! fairhavenguy...... I won't be able to sleep tonight...at least with the lights out.

Now, that's just plain creepy!

Oooo that is too strange, Christopher!
Amazing!
You are getting good at that fake foto stuff!!
You should sign it.

Is that when Liz was potraying"The Beggar Woman" in SWEENEY TODD at The Fall River Summer Playhouse?

That is disturbing. To me I don't know about her portraying a beggar woman, she looks more like she would be great at portraying Ebenezer Scrooge. Bah humbug!

I thought the picture made her look a little like Yoda.

DWilly, we have a "life size" latex rubber Yoda in the living room. It might have influenced the portrait.

Bob, it would have been more appropriate of her to play Sweeney. Nance could play Mrs. Lovett.

LIZZIE BORDEN AN AXE TOOK SHE, YES, YES! CRUISES? OVERNIGHT TRIPS? HORSE-CAR TICKETS? A FALL RIVER MAIDEN CRAVES NOT THESE THINGS!

- Yoden

Thats a great pic, Chris, I love it! I have tried to picture Lizzie as older unsuccessfully, all the known pics of her always come to mind. Great job!


BruceAddison, I too have always wondered what Lizzie wore towards the end of her life. I personally can't see her bobbing her hair or wearing the really short flapper style of outfits. I looked through a few fashion sites and found that there was a style of dress in the early twenties that still had a hemline that came to midcalf. I see Lizzie more in something like this, heres an example of such an outfit from 1923:



And heres a couple of dresses from 1919, skirts seemed to change width, but, not length. All the dresses I could find from the early teens on seemed to end midcalf.

Thanks for the fashion Susan! That is pretty cool!
Remember my old black tea gown I found for Lizbeth?

I think I misused the word "flapper". I really meant to speculate whether Lizzie adopted the shorter skirts and shorter hair that her contemporaries did. It is often mentioned that Lizzie was very fashion conscious, so I guess we must assume that she did. I would also have to guess that if Lizzie had continued to dress in the long skirts and high collars of decades previously, it would have been strange enough to have been commented upon at the time.

What got me thinking along these lines was a photo that a relative sent me several months ago of my great grandmother who was just slightly younger than Lizzie, but roughly the same build (tall and blocky, by today's standards). The photo was taken at a wedding in 1927, and my Great grandmother is wearing a dropped waist dress and tall cloche type hat- the height of fashion, I'm sure, but utterly unbecomming. My mental picture of Lizzie is so set on those few 1890's photos that we have, It's interesting to speculate what she must have looked like later.

For a really good look at the styles when Lizzie was in her twenties, I suggest a look at Cassell's Family Magazine, 1887.

This is a collection of articles in book form (764 pages) showing the latest fashions, inventions and gadgets of the day. Profusely illustrated.

Check your library and the booksellers- over 500 Cassell books on eBay.

Is that a real photo of her? I think as much as she liked to run with the theater people she'd have had many pictures of herself. Seems she was always out there.

I think perhaps Lizzie was smaller than most people believe...I think people tend to see her as a huge strong woman; but actually there are no contemporary descriptions of her to that end (that I've found...)

It's hard to get an idea of someone's height from a photograph...especially with no other people in the picture to make a comparison...

At the B&B they have a few dresses that supposedly belonged to Lizzie, and they are small! I'm 5'4" and the shoulders come just below my own shoulder height. And they're petite - you know, slender as well as small height-wise. If Lizzie really did wear these, she was one small woman!

She gained a lot of weight in prison, because all she did there was eat - to pass the time, I assume; or perhaps to keep her mind off things? This is the image we get of her in that photo taken right after her acquittal, when she's standing holding a paper or something...Anyway, before and after the trial she was apparently slimmer than in that photo.

I also seem to recall reading a contemporary source that her hands were small...Anyone else seen this reference?...I think it might have been that interview with Mrs. McGuirk (I think that's the right name)?...

I'd like to trace the ownership of those dresses at the B&B which are supposed to have belonged to Lizzie. Where did the prior owners find them? How did they come to be in their possession? Does anyone know?

Kat @ Thu Mar 09, 2006 10:39 pm wrote:Thanks for the fashion Susan! That is pretty cool!
Remember my old black tea gown I found for Lizbeth?

You're welcome, Kat. Yes! I do remember it, the dress was gorgeous, I could totally picture our Lizzie in it. I was thinking of both my great grandmothers when I was thinking of how Lizzie may have styled herself later in life. Both were born in the 1890s, both kept their hair long and wore it in a bun or chignon for the rest of their lives. It was also interesting to me that both of them seemed to stop their fashion style with things that were popular in the 1940s. Those lace-up shoes with the chunky 2 inch heel, flowered housedresses that always were below the knee, no make-up except a bit of face powder. They both seemed to have kept some of those Victorian ideals they were probably brought up with but adapted enough so that they didn't seem outdated.

The only description I've read of Lizzie's hands comes from Lincoln (p 37): "Her hands were large, but nicely formed and elegantly white."
In the photo taken at Newport, Lizzie's fingers look long and straight.

my god, fairhaven!

thank you so much. that's a keeper.

Allen @ Fri Mar 10, 2006 5:01 pm wrote:I'd like to trace the ownership of those dresses at the B&B which are supposed to have belonged to Lizzie. Where did the prior owners find them? How did they come to be in their possession? Does anyone know?

Call Lee-ann at the B&B.
508-675-7333

I've been told several times from whence they came- but I don't want to give the wrong info due to my memory.
~~~~~~~~

Our greatgrandmother was born c. 1880 and in her later photos she has the white-haired bun and the mid-calf dresses which show no figure, c. 1940. All her sisters dressed the same way.
My opinion from that is that was an era - change of the century- where these women of a certain age did not change with it, by the mid-twenties when fashion was at it's most radical and they were in their 40's. They kept close to their old styles. Look at Alice Russell in her chair at the home for the aged.

http://www.victorianelegance.com/1800.html

Try this vintage clothing site, you guys.
See the lengths and the frumpy cut. Not much flapper here.
We have a member who is knowledgeable about the fashion of those days and she has agreed in the past that these mid-calf sort of *shapless* dresses were more probably suited to Lizzie's age and tastes by the 1920's.

Allen @ Fri Mar 10, 2006 5:01 pm wrote:I'd like to trace the ownership of those dresses at the B&B which are supposed to have belonged to Lizzie. Where did the prior owners find them? How did they come to be in their possession? Does anyone know?

I do believe one of them came from Lizzie's chauffeur, but I can't recall its progress from him to the B&B............

Kat @ Sat Mar 11, 2006 1:12 am wrote:Our greatgrandmother was born c. 1880 and in her later photos she has the white-haired bun and the mid-calf dresses which show no figure, c. 1940. All her sisters dressed the same way.
My opinion from that is that was an era - change of the century- where these women of a certain age did not change with it, by the mid-twenties when fashion was at it's most radical and they were in their 40's. They kept close to their old styles. Look at Alice Russell in her chair at the home for the aged.

Thanks, Kat, I find that so interesting. Can you imagine going from dresses that sweep the floor to ones that expose your legs? Yes, it was a gradual transition, but, I wonder what our greatgrandmothers made of it? Did it seem racy or naughty to expose your lower limbs that way? Was there a sense of freedom and of equality to not be hampered by long skirts and petticoats finally? Yes, good point about the Alice Russell photo, from what I recall it was taken in the 1940s?

As far as we know there are no moving pictures of Lizzie. By 1927, when Lizzie died, moving pictures were common, I have wondered if there is any newsreel footage covering her passing away, or perhaps from a few years earlier when Pearson wrote Studies in Murder and renewed interest in the case. Cameramen could have filmed Maplecroft and other places even if they didn't film Lizzie.

Fargo @ Thu Mar 23, 2006 4:46 am wrote:As far as we know there are no moving pictures of Lizzie. By 1927, when Lizzie died, moving pictures were common, I have wondered if there is any newsreel footage covering her passing away, or perhaps from a few years earlier when Pearson wrote Studies in Murder and renewed interest in the case. Cameramen could have filmed Maplecroft and other places even if they didn't film Lizzie.

I have often wondered the same thing. What an opportunity, to capture Lizzie on camera, that was missed!

-1bigsteve (o:

You know something that I would really like to see is a picture of Lizzie with someone else in the picture with her. In every picture I have ever seen of Lizzie she is by herself. I think if we could see her with other people she would seem more real to us.

Newspapers in 1892 were not able to print photographs. Drawings were made from the photos and they printed those.

However, there are several references in newspapers to still cameras being in and outside the courtroom. In one of Joe Howard's columns for the Boston Globe he says there was a photo of Lizzie leaving the court house during the trial accompanied by the Sheriff. Give an arm to see that one.

Motion pictures would tell us a lot especially with others in the scene. It would give us a truer idea of Lizzie's looks as well as her size and mannerisms.

KT72 @ Fri Mar 10, 2006 1:28 pm wrote:I think perhaps Lizzie was smaller than most people believe...I think people tend to see her as a huge strong woman; but actually there are no contemporary descriptions of her to that end (that I've found...)

The police description said she was 5'4" and 135 pounds.

Wordweaver @ Wed Mar 29, 2006 9:10 pm wrote:

KT72 @ Fri Mar 10, 2006 1:28 pm wrote:I think perhaps Lizzie was smaller than most people believe...I think people tend to see her as a huge strong woman; but actually there are no contemporary descriptions of her to that end (that I've found...)

The police description said she was 5'4" and 135 pounds.

That's the same height, and roughly the same weight, that I am.

without adding anything to this, it IS an interesting fact that she could be on film somewhere. the person in possession of it may not even realize who it is.

Wordweaver @ Wed Mar 29, 2006 9:10 pm wrote:

KT72 @ Fri Mar 10, 2006 1:28 pm wrote:I think perhaps Lizzie was smaller than most people believe...I think people tend to see her as a huge strong woman; but actually there are no contemporary descriptions of her to that end (that I've found...)

The police description said she was 5'4" and 135 pounds.

The police arrest book says she is 5'4" and has light hair and light complection and gray eyes. Where do we find the 135 pounds? It sounds familiar.
http://lizzieandrewborden.com/lizartifa ... estbk1.jpg

Harry:

There is a picture in Porter (p.88) of "Lizzie arriving at the Police Station."

The same photograph is repeated in Sullivan (p.50) but this one is captioned, "Lizzie's arrival for the Preliminary Hearing."

You'd be hard put to select Lizzie out of a dozen other grayish forms; the photograph is that bad.

I am unfamiliar with the photograph you mentioned.

Thanks William, I have a copy of the photo showing Lizzie's arrival at the Central Police station in FR. Have never been able to make her out though.

The Boston Globe's trial coverage was normally done by Joe Howard alone, but on this day (6-12-1893) they had 2 columns, the second by a Frank H. Stanyan. The item I referred to appears in the Stanyan column "Pen and Eye" not Howard's.

Here is the pertinent excerpt. The court had just adjourned for the noon recess:

"... Here she comes! The screen door is held back. The sheriff appears. The carriage is at hand. Out into the sunlight, out on the steps – there is Lizzie Borden. The photographer snapped his camera, and THE GLOBE this morning shows you just how she looks and acts amid the exciting scenes of this trial for life. ..."

Harry:
Does this mean the Globe ran the picture in their next issue after the trial? So why hasn't it surfaced?

Your mentioned, correctly, that newspapers didn't show photographs at that time.

I'm getting confused, which appears to be a normal condition for me lately.

Help!

As much as I think Lizzie seemed to enjoy being 'seen', I can't imagine her not jumping at the chance to get herself on moving film. I would think her involvement (at whatever level) with Nance O'Neill would have acquainted her with that medium.


Tracy...

If I remember correctly Nance O'Neil didn't make her first movie until 1915, were she and Lizzie still in touch with each other at that time? I'll have to check that out. I do agree that there have to be more pictures of Lizzie out there somewhere. In someone's trunk, or closet, or attic, or somewhere. I agree that whoever has the pictures may not even know who they are. But I think also that if the pictures were to come to light whoever found them would have a tough time proving they were Lizzie after all this time. There would be those who would be skeptical, including me, of pictures that came to light after all this time. How would they be authenticated?

Allen @ Thu Mar 30, 2006 4:17 pm wrote:If I remember correctly Nance O'Neil didn't make her first movie until 1915, were she and Lizzie still in touch with each other at that time? I'll have to check that out. I do agree that there have to be more pictures of Lizzie out there somewhere. In someone's trunk, or closet, or attic, or somewhere. I agree that whoever has the pictures may not even know who they are. But I think also that if the pictures were to come to light whoever found them would have a tough time proving they were Lizzie after all this time. There would be those who would be skeptical, including me, of pictures that came to light after all this time. How would they be authenticated?

I only meant that Lizzie's friendship with Nance may have given
her more more 'worldly' ideas about life...opened her up to new ideas...exposed her to things she otherwise may not have known as soon. I think maybe the friendship with Nance gave Lizzie some added courage about herself. I was not thinking along the lines of Lizzie making home movies with Nance, or that she put herself on film while she was/because she was currently in touch with Nance. Sorry, I should have been more clear.


Tracy...

I would imagine that some of the drawings of Lizzie emerging from court are done from the photographs. I recall seeing one once that had the caption "from a snap shot taken at Lizzie Borden." I think it was from the N.Y. Recorder's coverage of the case.

PS: I've never been able to make head nor tail out of that photo in the Porter book, either. It's a tantalizing abstract, isn't it?

I wonder if Lizzie ever gave a photo of herself to Nance O'Neil? I also, wonder if the family of Ernest Terry has anything?