June 30, 2020 • 34 mins
Kate Warne wasn't just the first female private investigator in the US -- she was also one of the best Pinkerton detectives in the history of the agency. In this special two-part series, the guys join forces with award-winning author and journalist, Jo Piazza, the host of Fierce, to learn more about the mysterious origins of the one and only Kate Warne.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye,
(00:27):
welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
so much for tuning in. Uh, the quarantine continues, but
so does this little show we call Ridiculous History. Hi.
I'm Ben. Hi, I'm no Ben. How's your core? Oh man,
my my my core at the core? Yes, my core
(00:47):
at the core is pretty great right now, I'm having
I'm having a cool time. I'm actually maybe taking it
off the grid road trip next week. Um, so I'll
update on that. How about you that core approved? Are
you doing it within your pod? Is that? Is that
just like you're kind of moving your core pod mobile
and then you're still gonna social distance from within your
your your mobile pod. Sorry, I'm using all these terms.
(01:10):
I don't know if I'll make it out of the car. Actually,
I just love road trips. You guys, know you and
super producer Casey pegram Uh know that I have that
US map with concentric circles around how long it takes
to drive somewhere and back. So this is weird, But
I might just drive to the ocean and then turn around.
(01:31):
Just admire the view from in the car as soon
as you hit the ocean. Don't keep going no, no,
don't look Okay, yeah that was so what about you?
What about you? Uh? It's good. I just as I
may have mentioned on the show before, I just moved
and I just got my first couch in the mail, which,
like it comes in two boxes. So when I get
done with this, I get to put together a couch,
(01:52):
and super producer Paul Decan Mission Control on our previous
recording session for Stuff that Don't Want you to Know,
told me I likely will only have to screw on
the legs. So I'm looking forward to a simple, uh
furniture assembly followed by lounging on my new couch, which
will make my home complete. The Life of Riley a
phrase I don't know the etymology of, but you should
(02:14):
do an episode about it. Etymology for the people. What's
the different we have? Idiomatic for the people, we should
do an offshoot called etymology for the people who are
not here to talk about etymology or idioms. We're here
to talk about badass women. That's right. That's right, Noel.
We are going to explore the life of one of
the coolest, most badass people that you and I have
(02:36):
learned about recently. Her name is Kate Warren. She is
a female Pinkerton detective. When our story takes place today. However,
Noel Casey, ridiculous historians. We are not delving into this
story alone. We have some help. We have someone classing
up our show today. We have with us one of
(02:59):
our friends and pure podcasters, Joe Piazza, best selling author,
award winning journalists, the host of Committed, as well as
the host of Fierce, a podcast that is all about
amazing badass women throughout history. Joe, thank you so much
for coming on the show today. Thank you for having me.
(03:19):
But I've got to say, I guess I have to
leave now because I thought I was coming for an
episode on idioms and etymology, So oh next time. No, No, Well,
these are ongoing series. You are always this is We
have an open door policy, kind of like comedy Bang
bang um, so you are always welcome to join us
talk about idioms and etymology. And that's not to say
that those things won't come up in today's conversation. But yeah,
I said badass women, not badass woman. We'll get to
(03:41):
the woman of today's episode, but tell us a little
bit about Fierce. There's the eight part series that you're
doing in connection with the Tribeca Film Festival, and I've
been hearing about it for a while now and it's
so excited to see it coming out in the world. Yeah,
it's great. We finally just released the eighth episode, and
like you said, it is in conjunction with the tribe
Eca Film Festival. It's actually the Tribeca Film Festival's first
(04:03):
big produced narrative podcast. And we spent more than a
year doing eight episodes about badass women that history has forgotten,
women that have not made it in your history books,
probably because a lot of men wrote a lot of history.
And they're all just they're they're really incredible, each one.
Working with Tribeca, you know, they made it a mini documentary,
(04:23):
so each one feels so rich and such such incredible
storytelling has gone into it that we just we love
all of these episodes so much and we want to
we want we want to take a page from your book, Joe,
and we've asked you on the show today with us
to help us explore the life of Kate Warren. Now,
(04:45):
you know our earlier conversations off air as we were
gearing up towards today's episode, we're kicking around a couple
of ideas of a person that we wanted to learn
more about, and you already knew. I think we were talking.
One of the first things you said is we were saying, so,
have you have you heard of Kate Warden? You were like, yes, yes,
(05:05):
I have, Yes. And there's also and we had such
good phone conversations when we're gearing up for this episode,
because there's just no there's no shortage of great women
that history has forgotten. But I'm I've been so obsessed
with Kate Warren. I think that her story ken and
should be a television series, a movie. I mean, it
is just it is ready made for the screen. And
(05:28):
so maybe you know, from our lips to Hollywood's ears,
someone will finally give her her cinematic do I really
hope so? And you're right. It does have all of
the kind of twists and turns of a really great film.
But it starts in uh, well it well, actually it starts,
you know, when Kate Warren was born, But really the
story begins in eighteen fifty six when um she walks
(05:50):
into the detective office of Alan Pinkerton. At the time,
it was just kind of like a one off, Like
we know, the Pinkerton Detective Agency became a thing worthy
episode odes and episodes unto itself and with some really
problematic history that we'll get into a little later as
it kind of evolved. But he immediately assumes kind of
a grizzled old dude, he was a Scottish immigrant who
(06:11):
founded this detective agency after being a policeman um in Chicago.
And he sees this plucky, young, attractive female walking into
his office and immediately assume she's there to apply for
secretarial work. And he's like, sorry, honey, we got no
openings in that department. She's like, excuse me, I'm actually
here to become a detective. It's so funny too. In
(06:34):
every account that we have, and we don't have that
many accounts about Kate Warren, but in every account we
do have, most of them written by Pinkerton or by
Pinkerton's other other p i s, they always make sure
to note how pretty she is. So I just want
to take note of that when we when we go
through her descriptions, it's it's always she was attractive, she
was a comely young woman, and I'm I'm curious what
(06:56):
would have happened if like kind of a you know,
homely born looking earl walks into that office and it's like,
I want to be one of your detectives. They've been like,
h not pretty enough. That's so funny that you say that, Ben,
I want to throw this. Do you remember we did
an episode on another badass woman, uh, Marm Mandelbaum, who
was like this crime boss in New York City and
she was an immigrants herself, and on the flip side
(07:19):
of that, all the accounts about her remarked on how
ugly she was. Yeah, that's that's that's an interesting case
because in Marm's case too, Uh, this is a little
bit of me just freestyle interpreting what those guys were writing.
In Marm's case, I read a lot of what they
were writing as uh, maybe fear disguised as mockery because
(07:43):
I'm pretty sure she could. I'm pretty sure she could
take all of them in a fight. But there's the
thing here, there's this constant thread, which unfortunately continues in
society today of underestimating women and having this weird dichotomy
that um, a lot of frankly, a lot of dudes
practice where they thought, Okay, this individual can not be
(08:06):
both attractive and intelligent, they can only choose one. And uh,
you know, and why aren't you married Kate Warren? Well,
I'm a widow, she said, which will explore I think
a little bit further. Um, I want to go back
to one point you made, Joe, which is uh fascinating
to me. There is enduring mystery of Kate Warren. So, Hollywood,
(08:28):
if you're listening, this might give you some latitude in
your adaptation. Use it wisely. Uh, like we know, you know, know,
you said. The story, I guess officially starts when she
was born, but we only really know the year that
she was born in eighteen thirty three, and even now
before she started working with Pinkerton, we don't know. We
still don't know very much about her. We know she
(08:49):
was very young when she came to this office. She
was only I believe twenty three years old, and she
had to kind of prove herself in a number of ways.
She had to she had to um go above and
beyond what a starting p I would normally do just
to get the respect that was probably accorded to dude
p I s From like day one, but first and
(09:11):
foremost her selling point was I can do things that
du p I s can't do. I can get places
that they can't get, and make deals and negotiate and
find out secrets that men just couldn't find out. And
that's totally fair. I mean she and that's what she
said to Pinkerton when she walked into his office. She's like,
your male p I s can't just walk up to
a woman and convince a woman to divulge her quote
(09:35):
unquote womanly secrets. It actually brings back I talked to
a lot of women police officers. I've been working on
another project about lady cops, and lady cops will tell you,
and even in this day and age, that they can
walk into a situation and immediately diffuse it just by
the fact that they have feminine energy as opposed to
male energy, which is, you know, just butting heads and
(09:55):
testosterone in a room. A woman can happens to be
able to calm someone own and can bring out things
in people that men can't. And so Kate, Kate, she
was so smart. She was not just smart as a
p I, but she had such people skills because she
knew what she had to tell Pinkerton to get that job,
and she knew she had to tell him, I have
a unique skill that you do not have, and you
(10:18):
can only have it if you hire me and bring
me on as an equal to some of these men. Absolutely, yes,
like a hundred hundred percents. Here, I would say that
her interpersonal brilliance, even as we'll see it, extends to
a bit of social engineering. Uh. We'll give you the
broad set of circumstances here in the narrative, then we'll
(10:39):
dive in. Because Kay Warren is not just famous for
being uh, the first female private detective in America. She's famous,
perhaps best known today for one case in particular, uh,
involving none other than Abraham Lincoln. Yes, that Abraham Lincoln,
the President. On the off chance you were thinking getting
(11:00):
about some other guy named Abraham Lincoln, I'm sure he's
out there, But the one we're talking about was president
of the United States. She helped prevent an assassination against him.
This this takes place with a lot of twist and turns, um,
But I think maybe we work towards there by. I
don't know, why should we start with what little we
(11:22):
do know about her early life. Yeah, I think that's
exactly the right way to handle this. We don't want
to spoil any of our big Hollywood moments here since
we were trying to set this up Hollywood, we want
you to be listening so that you you buy this
property or whatever do you have to buy. It is
public domain. They could probably do with it whatever they want,
but it's true they do have some leeway because we
don't know a whole heck of a lot about her
early life. What we do know is that she was
(11:45):
born in Aaron, New York in eighteen thirty or eighteen
thirty three, depends on where who you asked. It's a
pretty widespread there, uh. And she came from like a
I don't know, let's call it a lower in the
middle class family. Again where we're working in kind of
ranges here. Um, she was not educated to the fullest
extent um. She wanted to become an actress. She actually
(12:09):
kind of makes sense considering that later she became kind
of known for these disguises and from being able to
kind of ingratiate yourself, and as we know from cop
movies of working undercover, there's a lot of acting chops
that go into that to kind of, you know, maintain
that character so that that all checks out. Um. But
they didn't really support it. Uh, so she gave up
on pursuing acting. Um. And she always described herself as
(12:34):
a widow. And Joe, you had a really interesting point
about this. Uh, there's some reports that her husband died
in a car accident, but I kind of like your
theory better. Yeah, well, we don't know anything about her husband.
She just she pronounced herself a widow, describes herself as
a widow. There's no records of it. And I think
that at the time as a or twenty six year
(12:55):
old woman, and you know, it could be any of those. Uh.
It was a lot more respectable to be a widow
to have had a husband than just to be a
woman who didn't want to be in a marriage. She
didn't want to be married, who wanted to be free
to live her life the way she wanted to live it.
So by saying that you had a husband who was
out of the picture, I think it gave her a
lot more freedom of movement around the world. I think
(13:18):
that's such a brilliant point. I mean, both the point
about acting and then also the point about you know, Joe,
when when we think about it, it's kind of like
she's always undercover at that point, you know, she's got
this cover story, this deceased husband. As as you said,
no it does seem that her her story begins right
(13:43):
or enters. It's it's big ticket act when she goes
into the Pinkerton National Detective Agency there in Chicago and says,
I want to be a detective, like you said, Joe.
She she lays it out. She says, I can do
things your other detectives can't. Um, you'd be lucky to
have me, basically, and luckily Alan Pinkerton was smart enough
(14:07):
to agree. But maybe we can talk a little bit again.
You know, you could do an entire series on Pinkerton, Um,
but maybe we could talk a little bit about what
Pinkerton is. I think a lot of UM fans of
film and fiction have run into mensions of Pinkerton, and
sometimes they're surprised to learn it was a real thing.
(14:28):
As you said, Noel, in the eighteen fifties, Allan Pinkerton,
Scottish immigrant, opened this detective agency, and the reputation of
this spread pretty quickly because everybody began to understand that Pinkerton,
for one reason or another, could get some things done
that law enforcement could not write. Yeah, and whether you know,
(14:53):
and and honestly, it's it's kind of a by any
means necessary situation, especially when we start to see there
later evolution into like strike breaking and much more politically
motivated uh nastiness. Um, and that's not what today's episode
is about. This is about. And that also, to be fair,
was the post Alan Pinkerton period where his son's kind
(15:16):
of dismantled a lot of the early more reputable services
that they provided and became much more this kind of
like goon squad for like big business. But that's an
episode into itself. Uh. First of all, it's gotta point
out Pinkerton by far the superior Wheezer album. Um, fight me,
It's fine, It's way better than the Blue album. I
Will I Will Die on this Hill. What do you
(15:37):
think of research, Casey Pegram Pinkerton or Blue album? No,
definitely Pinkerton, although I'm not like a huge Weezer fan,
but um, of those two, I would go Pinkerton. Yeah,
got it, Casey on the case, I can't believe you're
not gonna ask Joe or me. You gotta ask everybody.
Casey is our cultural and lays on. Okay, I gotta
he's gotta have some things that are just for him.
I feel like I already chimed in. No, I'm I'm
fully team Pinkerton out. Think we're all teamed Pinkerton because
(16:02):
we're decent human beings, you know what I mean. Okay,
Rivers is listening. He's gonna be so mad. He loves
the Blue album. Rivers only listens to his demos anything else.
That's an odd guy. For a while, Rivers was following
me on Twitter, which was probably an accident. But but
(16:22):
maybe we maybe we can get this Pinkerton love to
him somehow can we get we need to get make
them make another Pinkerton. Rivers like, he's like, he's so
tired of hearing that. Look, guys, I'm an artist. I
follow my my bliss. That's what I'm gonna I'm gonna
do what I'm gonna do. Okay, whether it's pork and
Beans or Island in the Sun, not even the suns
of Fine Song, We're not here to talk about Rivers Cuomo, though,
(16:44):
we're here to talk about the original Pinkerton. I first
heard of Pinkerton as a detective agency in the show Deadwood,
and by that time they're already kind of the bad
guys because they're working for her. US two is like
this terrible oil magnate, kind of conglomo, you know, villain,
(17:06):
and they're you know, trying to rob people of their
claims to oil and gold rather not goil and all
that stuff. But before that they really were just good
old fashioned detectives. They would solve cases, things like crimes
that the people had stolen money. They would figure out who,
you know, where they had put it, and they would
use subterfuge and like you know, often deception, but they
(17:26):
would get the job done in ways that regular law enforcement,
to your point, Bend just couldn't quite do. Um and
it just really spread like wildfire. There were so good
at gathering intelligence they actually became sort of the template
for like the Secret Service and a lot of really
high level law enforcement like the FBI. So I'm gonna
try not to continually be pointing out what I think
(17:49):
you're very clearly awesome moments that should go in the
film or the series, you know, if we adapted for streaming,
uh to this point, to this point that you made, Joe,
is this amazing moment. This is one of the things
that we do know for sure about Kate Warren. When
she goes into the Pinkerton office. Uh, the guy does
assume that she's there for secretarial work, and she so
(18:11):
quickly corrects him and says, you have placed an ad
looking for new hires. I came to be hired as
a private detective. Uh. And then you know, as you
mentioned before, Joe, she's saying, I can do so many
things that you can't do. I think she also pointed
out that she can take advantage of the fact that
(18:32):
a lot of men tend to try to brag around her,
so she can kind of tease out secrets that they
otherwise shut down about. I love it. I mean she
walked in and she used the fact that Pinkerton underestimated
her from the second she walked in the door, right,
She's like, you just thought I was a secretary. You
underestimated me the second you looked at my pretty face
(18:52):
and used that and said, everyone's gonna underestimate me. Every
man that I talked to is going to underestimate me,
and so of course they're going to divulge their secrets.
Of course, I'm going to be able to infiltrate their
networks because people ignore women, people underestimate women, and that's
when a detective can can get the good stuff. It's
a really good pitch, I'll tell you. And he went
(19:13):
for it. He bought it. He's like, okay, yep, so
well reluctantly, because although he was a smart guy, he
was still, you know, he was still very much an
adherent to the misogyny of the time, right because he said, okay,
all right, okay, Warren, if that is your real name,
you got me on that one. Well played, but I'm
not wholly convinced. He specifically said it is not the
(19:36):
custom to employ women detectives. I'm that's not his real voice.
I just can't do a respectable Scottish accent, so just
picture the Scottish accent. But that's what he said. And
it actually took her several meetings with this guy before
he finally acceded and hired her. He would go on
(19:57):
to say that he was one of the best employee
he's he ever worked with. Yeah, I don't know. The
lower version of it is more fun to me that
he hired her on site. But yeah, I guess it
does make sense that she had to kind of convince
him a little further. But it's true. I mean, he
bragged about her, uh to the day he died, and
then in his book and he even I think wrote
(20:17):
her in to the thank you's in his book about
his kind of story career. But um, yeah, let's talk
about kind of her early days and how she sort
of started getting uh some attraction as, let's be honest,
the country's first female private investigator. What's so interesting to
me is just how taken with her Pinkerton seems and
(20:39):
the way it took him a while for him to
come over to team Kate. Oh. And I also want
to say, in terms of her being an actress and
having all these covers, isn't Kate Warren just like the
perfect stage name? Like I feel like it might not
be her real name. It's a little bit too perfect. Yeah,
and it's also pretty adapt boll. I heard she would
(21:00):
go by like Kitty Warren or Cat Warner. I'm picturing
it in her fake southern accent she later puts on
in some of her other in some of her capers,
and it's like, hello, I'm Catherine Warren right, like she can.
That name can be adapted to anything. But Pinkerton really
did gush over her. I mean one of one of
the things he said about her was quote she was
(21:22):
a brilliant conversationalist and when so disposed, could be quite vivacious. Okay,
what does he mean in this context? Is that just
mean like, I'm sorry, my mind is going to like
you know again, Like in his original description of her,
he referred to her as slender with fiery eyes and
(21:42):
a delicacy of movement. Vivacious, doesn't that just mean like
full of spirit? Kind of? It's just like he's always
so surprised, right, it's like, oh my god, look the
woman can walk and talk and she's brilliant. It's true. Yeah,
vivacious really just means very energetic, lively or animated. Um.
(22:03):
But in this case, and I think in the time
that this guy's writing, vivacious as a word is is
pretty much used to describe women that people think are attractive.
And it goes back to your point, Joe, about how
so many of the people writing who were men are
are like, Okay, she did these amazing things and also vivacious.
(22:28):
Am I right, and now they look kind of I
think the focus on that is kind of my opic. Uh,
and it makes it makes them uh, I don't know.
It makes it clear to me who the most intelligent
Pinkerton agent was, and it was it was probably Kate Warren,
probably Kate Warren. Um, do you guys want to I
(22:49):
kind of want to jump to some of our cases
because some of her early cases were really good, and
in these early cases, she proved that her skill set
was completely unique to the Pinkerton Agency at time, or
skill set as a woman, and also her skill set
as just a smart freaking human being, Like you know,
she's like, yeah, someone she she was also just clearly
incredibly intelligent and incredibly emotionally intelligent because she was able
(23:12):
to get these people to open up to her. So
the case that I really like is the one where
she made friends with the wife of a suspected murderer
to try to get the evidence against him. Yeah, that's so,
that's so weird and such a brilliant way to approach this,
because you know, you would think that standard operating procedure
(23:33):
for the Pinkerton folks would be just to go directly
to like the social network of the suspected murderer, right,
and then come down hard as nails. But sometimes the
carrot works better than the stick, exactly. And this strategy
of becoming someone's friends the honey over the vinegar, they
(23:54):
carry it over the stick. Uh. This is something that
she employs more than once. Let's maybe we could talk
a little bit about the case of the Adams Express
Company theft. That's right, this guy named Nathan Moroney was
the manager of the company's office in Montgomery, Alabama. And um,
(24:15):
he was very highly suspected of having made off with
some some serious cash from that office. And so they
hired Warren to kind of get to the bottom of us.
As she put on, you know, a little bit of
a disguise, uh, and then changed her name to Mrs
Potter and became friends with the guys, with the guy's wife.
(24:39):
Of course, she made friends with the guy's wife because
of course the guy's wife knows where the money is. Um.
And I and I love the student in Mrs Potter, right,
It's so innocuous, you know, It's like, oh, well, Mrs
Potter would never you know, I would never betray me.
It's Mrs Potter, I know her look at Mrs Potter
would never betray anyone except she does. And because Mrs
(25:00):
Moroney totally knew not only that her husband had taken
the cash. Of course he took the cash, but she
also knew where he had hidden it, and she led
the detectives all the way to Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. Nathan Maroney
was convicted and nearly all of the money was recovered.
That's right. And at this point even Pinkerton himself had to,
(25:20):
you know, give his detective her do you know real
recognized his real here and he he wrote later, the
victory was complete, but her faculties have been strained to
the utmost and accomplishing it, and she felt completely exhausted.
She had the proud satisfaction of knowing that to a
woman belonged to the honors of the day. So if
(25:41):
we unpack this, it feels like he's being a little
bit more reluctant than he should be in admitting that
his detective Kate Warren, had done things that other detectives,
even in Pinkerton, could not. This is just like one
of her many adventures. And look, maybe I've watched too
much surprise Annos, But there's a part of me that
(26:03):
finds these tactics like really cold blood where you're like,
you know, like when Adrianna she becomes friends with that uh,
that FBI agent who poses is like, you know, like
a big haired New Jersey kind of socialite, and that
moment when the rug gets pulled out from under or
she's like, you've been lying to me this whole time.
I really feel sorry for like the wife of this
(26:25):
dude that took all the money, because sure maybe she knew,
but I mean think about the time, and it's not
like she needed a friend. Probably like I was probably
a jerk. I don't know, I'm I'm editorializing here, but
I know it's it's a means to an end, and
I get that, and I respect the cunning and the tactics,
but there is part of me that's like, oh, you
made friends with the lonely wife of a bank teller
(26:48):
who stole some money, and now that you're all going
to prison, just stabbed in the gut. With that mention
of Adrianna, every still gets me, still gets me, still
feels a little soon brutal. Yeah, I have to say
my that one of these cases stands out and look,
I'm excited about getting to the time that she saves
(27:09):
Abraham Lincoln's life. Everybody loves a good Abraham Lincoln story,
as do I, But this one is so there's so
many aspects of this one. So on another case, Warren
actually thwarted a plot to poison a wealthy captain. This
this part is so brilliant. She poses as a fortune teller,
because who do people like to talk to? Who do
(27:31):
people like to divulge their secrets to a fortune teller?
So Pinkerton rents out this place where she can apply
her fortune telling trade, and she all she studied. She
studied up. Kate was a good student, and she studied
what she had to do to pretend to be a
good fortune teller. And she hosted Captain Sumner's sister, Annie Thayer.
(27:55):
Now Warren already knew a little bit about Annie Thayer
because she had already done her search. But the fact
that she knew about Annie Thayer meant that she seemed
like the best fortune teller of all time. And so
Thayre start really starts trusting her, and you know, develops
this connection with her, and then she eventually discloses that
(28:17):
she has been told by a lover named Mr Patmore
to assist Mr Donald Navy um a lover named Mr
Patmore to assist in the murder of Mr Patmore's wife
and her own brother, Dunn Captain Sumner. This this reads
(28:39):
like a clue the game play scenario. We've got Mrs
pat Moore with the poison in the drawing room and
Captain Sumner with the whatever candlestick. I don't know, but yeah,
this is wild. I love this in the intrigue so much.
It's like a good drawing room murder mystery. Don't forge
(29:00):
at Lucille. Where's tell? Oh, gosh, she could have done
better than that. That's I mean, that's a little but
I mean I think we can. I think I can
speak for all of us. You know, sometimes you have
to be you have to fake being a fortune teller
to get stuff done. It happens. Do you think she
did the voice? Oh, she definitely did the voice. Of
(29:22):
course she did the voice. You all know what the
voice is. We don't have to do we don't have
to hopefully crystal Ball and a classic you know, fortune
teller Turbine. These are all problematic tropes, by the way.
I'm just putting that out there, but that is the
quintessential kind of fortune teller um cliche that I guarantee
is what she pulled off. But it clearly worked because
she got her man or a woman again in this situation.
(29:45):
She did show although I have to say, and you
guys can edit this if you want, but since since
we brought up Weezer, every time I think about fortune teller,
I think of the fortune teller in the movie Mall
Rats with three nipples in the dirt, Mallya. You know
what I think of I think of the movie be
Big and the Arcade Machine with the Great Zultar or
whatever exactly. Again, all problematic tropes. But this was another age,
(30:08):
another time, and like and like you said, Kate cracked
this case wide open. Pat Moore was convicted of his
wife's murder, spent ten years in prison, and everything was
cleared up before poor Captain Sumner could be murdered. Good
old Captain Sumner. I hope he went on to live
a long and fruitful life on the high seas. I
hope he at least at least wrote to wrote to
(30:33):
Warren uh And and thanked her. Or maybe you know
what we don't know how Daniel day lewis or how
method she was with this. Maybe he is convinced that Lucille,
through her powers of divinations, saved his life. And if
that's the case, put it in the movie. I mean,
I'm just picturing this like we needed an amazing actor
(30:54):
for this, who can play all these different characters? Juries
out for me, I think it's anybody's game. But but
it's happened again, longtime listeners, we have run into another
two part series. We haven't even gotten to Lincoln yet.
Uh And and I agree Joe, honestly, just just from
(31:15):
an aesthetic storytelling perspective, I think the Fortune Teller is
a little bit of a stronger story, but the Abraham
Lincoln one is also historically important, so much so that
we are going to dedicate part two of our series
on the United States first female detective entirely to this
assassination attempt and her heroic actions on that day. Spoiler guys,
(31:41):
don't don't search for this before the episode two comes out.
You're gonna enjoy it. It's got a lot of weird twist. Um, Joe,
thank you so much for coming on the show today. Uh.
I you know, through the magic of podcast editing. Will
be back in what Noel Casey two days? Uh in
real time? Oh well no, and and podcast timely back
(32:02):
in two days in our time. We'll be back in
like one minute. You know, you're shattering the illusion here. Hey, look,
you know have to pretend that we're all gonna go away.
We're gonna come back two days later and then resumed,
we're gonna go about our lives and me. Okay, all right,
I wouldn't that be nice? I got a couch to
build you guys, and we have a story to tell.
(32:24):
While you're waiting for part two of Kate Warren, the
US first female detective, why not check out Fierce? Joe.
Where's the best place for people to learn more about Fierce? Well,
you can find episodes of Fierce on the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
(32:45):
I also post all of the episodes on my own Instagram,
which is at Joe Pianza Author. And you have a
pretty cracker jack website too with links tell your books,
of which there are many, um and your other podcast
projects and all the stuff that you've got going on.
I think you might even have one of those blogs
people used to write blog blog, blog blah blah. Blog
(33:05):
doesn't plug sound like a fake word. If you say
blog enough, it's a fun word to say. Oh oh,
this is so useless and unrelated to what we're talking about.
The phenomenon you're describing is semantic satiation, when you say
a word over and over and over uh, and you
trick your brain into completely losing whatever that that word
is supposed to represent, meaning guise. So there, there it is.
(33:26):
I came here for etymology and idioms and luck. I
feel good now that happens. Ask any shall receive h
So once again, huge thanks to Joe Piazza for joining
us today. Big thanks super producer Casey Pegram Alex Williams,
who composed our theme. Christopher Haciota is always here in spirit.
Oh sorry, I was drinking my ice coffee. I drink
so much of this nowadays. Big thanks to Eve's Jeff Coat.
(33:49):
Of course, thanks to our research associate, uh the Magnetic
North of Ridiculous History, Gabe Bluesia. Did you already say Gabe?
I did not say Gabe. Oh okay, Well we'll keep
this part in the great We'll see you next time.
Fix for more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the
(34:13):
i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye,
(00:27):
welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
so much for tuning in. Uh, the quarantine continues, but
so does this little show we call Ridiculous History. Hi.
I'm Ben. Hi, I'm no Ben. How's your core? Oh man,
my my my core at the core? Yes, my core
(00:47):
at the core is pretty great right now, I'm having
I'm having a cool time. I'm actually maybe taking it
off the grid road trip next week. Um, so I'll
update on that. How about you that core approved? Are
you doing it within your pod? Is that? Is that
just like you're kind of moving your core pod mobile
and then you're still gonna social distance from within your
your your mobile pod. Sorry, I'm using all these terms.
(01:10):
I don't know if I'll make it out of the car. Actually,
I just love road trips. You guys, know you and
super producer Casey pegram Uh know that I have that
US map with concentric circles around how long it takes
to drive somewhere and back. So this is weird, But
I might just drive to the ocean and then turn around.
(01:31):
Just admire the view from in the car as soon
as you hit the ocean. Don't keep going no, no,
don't look Okay, yeah that was so what about you?
What about you? Uh? It's good. I just as I
may have mentioned on the show before, I just moved
and I just got my first couch in the mail, which,
like it comes in two boxes. So when I get
done with this, I get to put together a couch,
(01:52):
and super producer Paul Decan Mission Control on our previous
recording session for Stuff that Don't Want you to Know,
told me I likely will only have to screw on
the legs. So I'm looking forward to a simple, uh
furniture assembly followed by lounging on my new couch, which
will make my home complete. The Life of Riley a
phrase I don't know the etymology of, but you should
(02:14):
do an episode about it. Etymology for the people. What's
the different we have? Idiomatic for the people, we should
do an offshoot called etymology for the people who are
not here to talk about etymology or idioms. We're here
to talk about badass women. That's right. That's right, Noel.
We are going to explore the life of one of
the coolest, most badass people that you and I have
(02:36):
learned about recently. Her name is Kate Warren. She is
a female Pinkerton detective. When our story takes place today. However,
Noel Casey, ridiculous historians. We are not delving into this
story alone. We have some help. We have someone classing
up our show today. We have with us one of
(02:59):
our friends and pure podcasters, Joe Piazza, best selling author,
award winning journalists, the host of Committed, as well as
the host of Fierce, a podcast that is all about
amazing badass women throughout history. Joe, thank you so much
for coming on the show today. Thank you for having me.
(03:19):
But I've got to say, I guess I have to
leave now because I thought I was coming for an
episode on idioms and etymology, So oh next time. No, No, Well,
these are ongoing series. You are always this is We
have an open door policy, kind of like comedy Bang
bang um, so you are always welcome to join us
talk about idioms and etymology. And that's not to say
that those things won't come up in today's conversation. But yeah,
I said badass women, not badass woman. We'll get to
(03:41):
the woman of today's episode, but tell us a little
bit about Fierce. There's the eight part series that you're
doing in connection with the Tribeca Film Festival, and I've
been hearing about it for a while now and it's
so excited to see it coming out in the world. Yeah,
it's great. We finally just released the eighth episode, and
like you said, it is in conjunction with the tribe
Eca Film Festival. It's actually the Tribeca Film Festival's first
(04:03):
big produced narrative podcast. And we spent more than a
year doing eight episodes about badass women that history has forgotten,
women that have not made it in your history books,
probably because a lot of men wrote a lot of history.
And they're all just they're they're really incredible, each one.
Working with Tribeca, you know, they made it a mini documentary,
(04:23):
so each one feels so rich and such such incredible
storytelling has gone into it that we just we love
all of these episodes so much and we want to
we want we want to take a page from your book, Joe,
and we've asked you on the show today with us
to help us explore the life of Kate Warren. Now,
(04:45):
you know our earlier conversations off air as we were
gearing up towards today's episode, we're kicking around a couple
of ideas of a person that we wanted to learn
more about, and you already knew. I think we were talking.
One of the first things you said is we were saying, so,
have you have you heard of Kate Warden? You were like, yes, yes,
(05:05):
I have, Yes. And there's also and we had such
good phone conversations when we're gearing up for this episode,
because there's just no there's no shortage of great women
that history has forgotten. But I'm I've been so obsessed
with Kate Warren. I think that her story ken and
should be a television series, a movie. I mean, it
is just it is ready made for the screen. And
(05:28):
so maybe you know, from our lips to Hollywood's ears,
someone will finally give her her cinematic do I really
hope so? And you're right. It does have all of
the kind of twists and turns of a really great film.
But it starts in uh, well it well, actually it starts,
you know, when Kate Warren was born, But really the
story begins in eighteen fifty six when um she walks
(05:50):
into the detective office of Alan Pinkerton. At the time,
it was just kind of like a one off, Like
we know, the Pinkerton Detective Agency became a thing worthy
episode odes and episodes unto itself and with some really
problematic history that we'll get into a little later as
it kind of evolved. But he immediately assumes kind of
a grizzled old dude, he was a Scottish immigrant who
(06:11):
founded this detective agency after being a policeman um in Chicago.
And he sees this plucky, young, attractive female walking into
his office and immediately assume she's there to apply for
secretarial work. And he's like, sorry, honey, we got no
openings in that department. She's like, excuse me, I'm actually
here to become a detective. It's so funny too. In
(06:34):
every account that we have, and we don't have that
many accounts about Kate Warren, but in every account we
do have, most of them written by Pinkerton or by
Pinkerton's other other p i s, they always make sure
to note how pretty she is. So I just want
to take note of that when we when we go
through her descriptions, it's it's always she was attractive, she
was a comely young woman, and I'm I'm curious what
(06:56):
would have happened if like kind of a you know,
homely born looking earl walks into that office and it's like,
I want to be one of your detectives. They've been like,
h not pretty enough. That's so funny that you say that, Ben,
I want to throw this. Do you remember we did
an episode on another badass woman, uh, Marm Mandelbaum, who
was like this crime boss in New York City and
she was an immigrants herself, and on the flip side
(07:19):
of that, all the accounts about her remarked on how
ugly she was. Yeah, that's that's that's an interesting case
because in Marm's case too, Uh, this is a little
bit of me just freestyle interpreting what those guys were writing.
In Marm's case, I read a lot of what they
were writing as uh, maybe fear disguised as mockery because
(07:43):
I'm pretty sure she could. I'm pretty sure she could
take all of them in a fight. But there's the
thing here, there's this constant thread, which unfortunately continues in
society today of underestimating women and having this weird dichotomy
that um, a lot of frankly, a lot of dudes
practice where they thought, Okay, this individual can not be
(08:06):
both attractive and intelligent, they can only choose one. And uh,
you know, and why aren't you married Kate Warren? Well,
I'm a widow, she said, which will explore I think
a little bit further. Um, I want to go back
to one point you made, Joe, which is uh fascinating
to me. There is enduring mystery of Kate Warren. So, Hollywood,
(08:28):
if you're listening, this might give you some latitude in
your adaptation. Use it wisely. Uh, like we know, you know, know,
you said. The story, I guess officially starts when she
was born, but we only really know the year that
she was born in eighteen thirty three, and even now
before she started working with Pinkerton, we don't know. We
still don't know very much about her. We know she
(08:49):
was very young when she came to this office. She
was only I believe twenty three years old, and she
had to kind of prove herself in a number of ways.
She had to she had to um go above and
beyond what a starting p I would normally do just
to get the respect that was probably accorded to dude
p I s From like day one, but first and
(09:11):
foremost her selling point was I can do things that
du p I s can't do. I can get places
that they can't get, and make deals and negotiate and
find out secrets that men just couldn't find out. And
that's totally fair. I mean she and that's what she
said to Pinkerton when she walked into his office. She's like,
your male p I s can't just walk up to
a woman and convince a woman to divulge her quote
(09:35):
unquote womanly secrets. It actually brings back I talked to
a lot of women police officers. I've been working on
another project about lady cops, and lady cops will tell you,
and even in this day and age, that they can
walk into a situation and immediately diffuse it just by
the fact that they have feminine energy as opposed to
male energy, which is, you know, just butting heads and
(09:55):
testosterone in a room. A woman can happens to be
able to calm someone own and can bring out things
in people that men can't. And so Kate, Kate, she
was so smart. She was not just smart as a
p I, but she had such people skills because she
knew what she had to tell Pinkerton to get that job,
and she knew she had to tell him, I have
a unique skill that you do not have, and you
(10:18):
can only have it if you hire me and bring
me on as an equal to some of these men. Absolutely, yes,
like a hundred hundred percents. Here, I would say that
her interpersonal brilliance, even as we'll see it, extends to
a bit of social engineering. Uh. We'll give you the
broad set of circumstances here in the narrative, then we'll
(10:39):
dive in. Because Kay Warren is not just famous for
being uh, the first female private detective in America. She's famous,
perhaps best known today for one case in particular, uh,
involving none other than Abraham Lincoln. Yes, that Abraham Lincoln,
the President. On the off chance you were thinking getting
(11:00):
about some other guy named Abraham Lincoln, I'm sure he's
out there, But the one we're talking about was president
of the United States. She helped prevent an assassination against him.
This this takes place with a lot of twist and turns, um,
But I think maybe we work towards there by. I
don't know, why should we start with what little we
(11:22):
do know about her early life. Yeah, I think that's
exactly the right way to handle this. We don't want
to spoil any of our big Hollywood moments here since
we were trying to set this up Hollywood, we want
you to be listening so that you you buy this
property or whatever do you have to buy. It is
public domain. They could probably do with it whatever they want,
but it's true they do have some leeway because we
don't know a whole heck of a lot about her
early life. What we do know is that she was
(11:45):
born in Aaron, New York in eighteen thirty or eighteen
thirty three, depends on where who you asked. It's a
pretty widespread there, uh. And she came from like a
I don't know, let's call it a lower in the
middle class family. Again where we're working in kind of
ranges here. Um, she was not educated to the fullest
extent um. She wanted to become an actress. She actually
(12:09):
kind of makes sense considering that later she became kind
of known for these disguises and from being able to
kind of ingratiate yourself, and as we know from cop
movies of working undercover, there's a lot of acting chops
that go into that to kind of, you know, maintain
that character so that that all checks out. Um. But
they didn't really support it. Uh, so she gave up
on pursuing acting. Um. And she always described herself as
(12:34):
a widow. And Joe, you had a really interesting point
about this. Uh, there's some reports that her husband died
in a car accident, but I kind of like your
theory better. Yeah, well, we don't know anything about her husband.
She just she pronounced herself a widow, describes herself as
a widow. There's no records of it. And I think
that at the time as a or twenty six year
(12:55):
old woman, and you know, it could be any of those. Uh.
It was a lot more respectable to be a widow
to have had a husband than just to be a
woman who didn't want to be in a marriage. She
didn't want to be married, who wanted to be free
to live her life the way she wanted to live it.
So by saying that you had a husband who was
out of the picture, I think it gave her a
lot more freedom of movement around the world. I think
(13:18):
that's such a brilliant point. I mean, both the point
about acting and then also the point about you know, Joe,
when when we think about it, it's kind of like
she's always undercover at that point, you know, she's got
this cover story, this deceased husband. As as you said,
no it does seem that her her story begins right
(13:43):
or enters. It's it's big ticket act when she goes
into the Pinkerton National Detective Agency there in Chicago and says,
I want to be a detective, like you said, Joe.
She she lays it out. She says, I can do
things your other detectives can't. Um, you'd be lucky to
have me, basically, and luckily Alan Pinkerton was smart enough
(14:07):
to agree. But maybe we can talk a little bit again.
You know, you could do an entire series on Pinkerton, Um,
but maybe we could talk a little bit about what
Pinkerton is. I think a lot of UM fans of
film and fiction have run into mensions of Pinkerton, and
sometimes they're surprised to learn it was a real thing.
(14:28):
As you said, Noel, in the eighteen fifties, Allan Pinkerton,
Scottish immigrant, opened this detective agency, and the reputation of
this spread pretty quickly because everybody began to understand that Pinkerton,
for one reason or another, could get some things done
that law enforcement could not write. Yeah, and whether you know,
(14:53):
and and honestly, it's it's kind of a by any
means necessary situation, especially when we start to see there
later evolution into like strike breaking and much more politically
motivated uh nastiness. Um, and that's not what today's episode
is about. This is about. And that also, to be fair,
was the post Alan Pinkerton period where his son's kind
(15:16):
of dismantled a lot of the early more reputable services
that they provided and became much more this kind of
like goon squad for like big business. But that's an
episode into itself. Uh. First of all, it's gotta point
out Pinkerton by far the superior Wheezer album. Um, fight me,
It's fine, It's way better than the Blue album. I
Will I Will Die on this Hill. What do you
(15:37):
think of research, Casey Pegram Pinkerton or Blue album? No,
definitely Pinkerton, although I'm not like a huge Weezer fan,
but um, of those two, I would go Pinkerton. Yeah,
got it, Casey on the case, I can't believe you're
not gonna ask Joe or me. You gotta ask everybody.
Casey is our cultural and lays on. Okay, I gotta
he's gotta have some things that are just for him.
I feel like I already chimed in. No, I'm I'm
fully team Pinkerton out. Think we're all teamed Pinkerton because
(16:02):
we're decent human beings, you know what I mean. Okay,
Rivers is listening. He's gonna be so mad. He loves
the Blue album. Rivers only listens to his demos anything else.
That's an odd guy. For a while, Rivers was following
me on Twitter, which was probably an accident. But but
(16:22):
maybe we maybe we can get this Pinkerton love to
him somehow can we get we need to get make
them make another Pinkerton. Rivers like, he's like, he's so
tired of hearing that. Look, guys, I'm an artist. I
follow my my bliss. That's what I'm gonna I'm gonna
do what I'm gonna do. Okay, whether it's pork and
Beans or Island in the Sun, not even the suns
of Fine Song, We're not here to talk about Rivers Cuomo, though,
(16:44):
we're here to talk about the original Pinkerton. I first
heard of Pinkerton as a detective agency in the show Deadwood,
and by that time they're already kind of the bad
guys because they're working for her. US two is like
this terrible oil magnate, kind of conglomo, you know, villain,
(17:06):
and they're you know, trying to rob people of their
claims to oil and gold rather not goil and all
that stuff. But before that they really were just good
old fashioned detectives. They would solve cases, things like crimes
that the people had stolen money. They would figure out who,
you know, where they had put it, and they would
use subterfuge and like you know, often deception, but they
(17:26):
would get the job done in ways that regular law enforcement,
to your point, Bend just couldn't quite do. Um and
it just really spread like wildfire. There were so good
at gathering intelligence they actually became sort of the template
for like the Secret Service and a lot of really
high level law enforcement like the FBI. So I'm gonna
try not to continually be pointing out what I think
(17:49):
you're very clearly awesome moments that should go in the
film or the series, you know, if we adapted for streaming,
uh to this point, to this point that you made, Joe,
is this amazing moment. This is one of the things
that we do know for sure about Kate Warren. When
she goes into the Pinkerton office. Uh, the guy does
assume that she's there for secretarial work, and she so
(18:11):
quickly corrects him and says, you have placed an ad
looking for new hires. I came to be hired as
a private detective. Uh. And then you know, as you
mentioned before, Joe, she's saying, I can do so many
things that you can't do. I think she also pointed
out that she can take advantage of the fact that
(18:32):
a lot of men tend to try to brag around her,
so she can kind of tease out secrets that they
otherwise shut down about. I love it. I mean she
walked in and she used the fact that Pinkerton underestimated
her from the second she walked in the door, right,
She's like, you just thought I was a secretary. You
underestimated me the second you looked at my pretty face
(18:52):
and used that and said, everyone's gonna underestimate me. Every
man that I talked to is going to underestimate me,
and so of course they're going to divulge their secrets.
Of course, I'm going to be able to infiltrate their
networks because people ignore women, people underestimate women, and that's
when a detective can can get the good stuff. It's
a really good pitch, I'll tell you. And he went
(19:13):
for it. He bought it. He's like, okay, yep, so
well reluctantly, because although he was a smart guy, he
was still, you know, he was still very much an
adherent to the misogyny of the time, right because he said, okay,
all right, okay, Warren, if that is your real name,
you got me on that one. Well played, but I'm
not wholly convinced. He specifically said it is not the
(19:36):
custom to employ women detectives. I'm that's not his real voice.
I just can't do a respectable Scottish accent, so just
picture the Scottish accent. But that's what he said. And
it actually took her several meetings with this guy before
he finally acceded and hired her. He would go on
(19:57):
to say that he was one of the best employee
he's he ever worked with. Yeah, I don't know. The
lower version of it is more fun to me that
he hired her on site. But yeah, I guess it
does make sense that she had to kind of convince
him a little further. But it's true. I mean, he
bragged about her, uh to the day he died, and
then in his book and he even I think wrote
(20:17):
her in to the thank you's in his book about
his kind of story career. But um, yeah, let's talk
about kind of her early days and how she sort
of started getting uh some attraction as, let's be honest,
the country's first female private investigator. What's so interesting to
me is just how taken with her Pinkerton seems and
(20:39):
the way it took him a while for him to
come over to team Kate. Oh. And I also want
to say, in terms of her being an actress and
having all these covers, isn't Kate Warren just like the
perfect stage name? Like I feel like it might not
be her real name. It's a little bit too perfect. Yeah,
and it's also pretty adapt boll. I heard she would
(21:00):
go by like Kitty Warren or Cat Warner. I'm picturing
it in her fake southern accent she later puts on
in some of her other in some of her capers,
and it's like, hello, I'm Catherine Warren right, like she can.
That name can be adapted to anything. But Pinkerton really
did gush over her. I mean one of one of
the things he said about her was quote she was
(21:22):
a brilliant conversationalist and when so disposed, could be quite vivacious. Okay,
what does he mean in this context? Is that just
mean like, I'm sorry, my mind is going to like
you know again, Like in his original description of her,
he referred to her as slender with fiery eyes and
(21:42):
a delicacy of movement. Vivacious, doesn't that just mean like
full of spirit? Kind of? It's just like he's always
so surprised, right, it's like, oh my god, look the
woman can walk and talk and she's brilliant. It's true. Yeah,
vivacious really just means very energetic, lively or animated. Um.
(22:03):
But in this case, and I think in the time
that this guy's writing, vivacious as a word is is
pretty much used to describe women that people think are attractive.
And it goes back to your point, Joe, about how
so many of the people writing who were men are
are like, Okay, she did these amazing things and also vivacious.
(22:28):
Am I right, and now they look kind of I
think the focus on that is kind of my opic. Uh,
and it makes it makes them uh, I don't know.
It makes it clear to me who the most intelligent
Pinkerton agent was, and it was it was probably Kate Warren,
probably Kate Warren. Um, do you guys want to I
(22:49):
kind of want to jump to some of our cases
because some of her early cases were really good, and
in these early cases, she proved that her skill set
was completely unique to the Pinkerton Agency at time, or
skill set as a woman, and also her skill set
as just a smart freaking human being, Like you know,
she's like, yeah, someone she she was also just clearly
incredibly intelligent and incredibly emotionally intelligent because she was able
(23:12):
to get these people to open up to her. So
the case that I really like is the one where
she made friends with the wife of a suspected murderer
to try to get the evidence against him. Yeah, that's so,
that's so weird and such a brilliant way to approach this,
because you know, you would think that standard operating procedure
(23:33):
for the Pinkerton folks would be just to go directly
to like the social network of the suspected murderer, right,
and then come down hard as nails. But sometimes the
carrot works better than the stick, exactly. And this strategy
of becoming someone's friends the honey over the vinegar, they
(23:54):
carry it over the stick. Uh. This is something that
she employs more than once. Let's maybe we could talk
a little bit about the case of the Adams Express
Company theft. That's right, this guy named Nathan Moroney was
the manager of the company's office in Montgomery, Alabama. And um,
(24:15):
he was very highly suspected of having made off with
some some serious cash from that office. And so they
hired Warren to kind of get to the bottom of us.
As she put on, you know, a little bit of
a disguise, uh, and then changed her name to Mrs
Potter and became friends with the guys, with the guy's wife.
(24:39):
Of course, she made friends with the guy's wife because
of course the guy's wife knows where the money is. Um.
And I and I love the student in Mrs Potter, right,
It's so innocuous, you know, It's like, oh, well, Mrs
Potter would never you know, I would never betray me.
It's Mrs Potter, I know her look at Mrs Potter
would never betray anyone except she does. And because Mrs
(25:00):
Moroney totally knew not only that her husband had taken
the cash. Of course he took the cash, but she
also knew where he had hidden it, and she led
the detectives all the way to Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. Nathan Maroney
was convicted and nearly all of the money was recovered.
That's right. And at this point even Pinkerton himself had to,
(25:20):
you know, give his detective her do you know real
recognized his real here and he he wrote later, the
victory was complete, but her faculties have been strained to
the utmost and accomplishing it, and she felt completely exhausted.
She had the proud satisfaction of knowing that to a
woman belonged to the honors of the day. So if
(25:41):
we unpack this, it feels like he's being a little
bit more reluctant than he should be in admitting that
his detective Kate Warren, had done things that other detectives,
even in Pinkerton, could not. This is just like one
of her many adventures. And look, maybe I've watched too
much surprise Annos, But there's a part of me that
(26:03):
finds these tactics like really cold blood where you're like,
you know, like when Adrianna she becomes friends with that uh,
that FBI agent who poses is like, you know, like
a big haired New Jersey kind of socialite, and that
moment when the rug gets pulled out from under or
she's like, you've been lying to me this whole time.
I really feel sorry for like the wife of this
(26:25):
dude that took all the money, because sure maybe she knew,
but I mean think about the time, and it's not
like she needed a friend. Probably like I was probably
a jerk. I don't know, I'm I'm editorializing here, but
I know it's it's a means to an end, and
I get that, and I respect the cunning and the tactics,
but there is part of me that's like, oh, you
made friends with the lonely wife of a bank teller
(26:48):
who stole some money, and now that you're all going
to prison, just stabbed in the gut. With that mention
of Adrianna, every still gets me, still gets me, still
feels a little soon brutal. Yeah, I have to say
my that one of these cases stands out and look,
I'm excited about getting to the time that she saves
(27:09):
Abraham Lincoln's life. Everybody loves a good Abraham Lincoln story,
as do I, But this one is so there's so
many aspects of this one. So on another case, Warren
actually thwarted a plot to poison a wealthy captain. This
this part is so brilliant. She poses as a fortune teller,
because who do people like to talk to? Who do
(27:31):
people like to divulge their secrets to a fortune teller?
So Pinkerton rents out this place where she can apply
her fortune telling trade, and she all she studied. She
studied up. Kate was a good student, and she studied
what she had to do to pretend to be a
good fortune teller. And she hosted Captain Sumner's sister, Annie Thayer.
(27:55):
Now Warren already knew a little bit about Annie Thayer
because she had already done her search. But the fact
that she knew about Annie Thayer meant that she seemed
like the best fortune teller of all time. And so
Thayre start really starts trusting her, and you know, develops
this connection with her, and then she eventually discloses that
(28:17):
she has been told by a lover named Mr Patmore
to assist Mr Donald Navy um a lover named Mr
Patmore to assist in the murder of Mr Patmore's wife
and her own brother, Dunn Captain Sumner. This this reads
(28:39):
like a clue the game play scenario. We've got Mrs
pat Moore with the poison in the drawing room and
Captain Sumner with the whatever candlestick. I don't know, but yeah,
this is wild. I love this in the intrigue so much.
It's like a good drawing room murder mystery. Don't forge
(29:00):
at Lucille. Where's tell? Oh, gosh, she could have done
better than that. That's I mean, that's a little but
I mean I think we can. I think I can
speak for all of us. You know, sometimes you have
to be you have to fake being a fortune teller
to get stuff done. It happens. Do you think she
did the voice? Oh, she definitely did the voice. Of
(29:22):
course she did the voice. You all know what the
voice is. We don't have to do we don't have
to hopefully crystal Ball and a classic you know, fortune
teller Turbine. These are all problematic tropes, by the way.
I'm just putting that out there, but that is the
quintessential kind of fortune teller um cliche that I guarantee
is what she pulled off. But it clearly worked because
she got her man or a woman again in this situation.
(29:45):
She did show although I have to say, and you
guys can edit this if you want, but since since
we brought up Weezer, every time I think about fortune teller,
I think of the fortune teller in the movie Mall
Rats with three nipples in the dirt, Mallya. You know
what I think of I think of the movie be
Big and the Arcade Machine with the Great Zultar or
whatever exactly. Again, all problematic tropes. But this was another age,
(30:08):
another time, and like and like you said, Kate cracked
this case wide open. Pat Moore was convicted of his
wife's murder, spent ten years in prison, and everything was
cleared up before poor Captain Sumner could be murdered. Good
old Captain Sumner. I hope he went on to live
a long and fruitful life on the high seas. I
hope he at least at least wrote to wrote to
(30:33):
Warren uh And and thanked her. Or maybe you know
what we don't know how Daniel day lewis or how
method she was with this. Maybe he is convinced that Lucille,
through her powers of divinations, saved his life. And if
that's the case, put it in the movie. I mean,
I'm just picturing this like we needed an amazing actor
(30:54):
for this, who can play all these different characters? Juries
out for me, I think it's anybody's game. But but
it's happened again, longtime listeners, we have run into another
two part series. We haven't even gotten to Lincoln yet.
Uh And and I agree Joe, honestly, just just from
(31:15):
an aesthetic storytelling perspective, I think the Fortune Teller is
a little bit of a stronger story, but the Abraham
Lincoln one is also historically important, so much so that
we are going to dedicate part two of our series
on the United States first female detective entirely to this
assassination attempt and her heroic actions on that day. Spoiler guys,
(31:41):
don't don't search for this before the episode two comes out.
You're gonna enjoy it. It's got a lot of weird twist. Um, Joe,
thank you so much for coming on the show today. Uh.
I you know, through the magic of podcast editing. Will
be back in what Noel Casey two days? Uh in
real time? Oh well no, and and podcast timely back
(32:02):
in two days in our time. We'll be back in
like one minute. You know, you're shattering the illusion here. Hey, look,
you know have to pretend that we're all gonna go away.
We're gonna come back two days later and then resumed,
we're gonna go about our lives and me. Okay, all right,
I wouldn't that be nice? I got a couch to
build you guys, and we have a story to tell.
(32:24):
While you're waiting for part two of Kate Warren, the
US first female detective, why not check out Fierce? Joe.
Where's the best place for people to learn more about Fierce? Well,
you can find episodes of Fierce on the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
(32:45):
I also post all of the episodes on my own Instagram,
which is at Joe Pianza Author. And you have a
pretty cracker jack website too with links tell your books,
of which there are many, um and your other podcast
projects and all the stuff that you've got going on.
I think you might even have one of those blogs
people used to write blog blog, blog blah blah. Blog
(33:05):
doesn't plug sound like a fake word. If you say
blog enough, it's a fun word to say. Oh oh,
this is so useless and unrelated to what we're talking about.
The phenomenon you're describing is semantic satiation, when you say
a word over and over and over uh, and you
trick your brain into completely losing whatever that that word
is supposed to represent, meaning guise. So there, there it is.
(33:26):
I came here for etymology and idioms and luck. I
feel good now that happens. Ask any shall receive h
So once again, huge thanks to Joe Piazza for joining
us today. Big thanks super producer Casey Pegram Alex Williams,
who composed our theme. Christopher Haciota is always here in spirit.
Oh sorry, I was drinking my ice coffee. I drink
so much of this nowadays. Big thanks to Eve's Jeff Coat.
(33:49):
Of course, thanks to our research associate, uh the Magnetic
North of Ridiculous History, Gabe Bluesia. Did you already say Gabe?
I did not say Gabe. Oh okay, Well we'll keep
this part in the great We'll see you next time.
Fix for more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the
(34:13):
i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
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