“Did you often see female police officers or PIs in the ’20s?”
Could Phyllis Malone from A Case of Dist rust ever have been a detective?
Although detective fiction gained popularity in the ’20s, it remains one of the most potent genres in fiction. A Case of Distrust taps into its murky iconography perfectly. Set in 1924’s San Francisco, it follows a newly minted PI called Phyllis Malone as she trawls a realm of speakeasies, barbershops, and townhouses to solve a case. Phyllis is a woman with a crummy apartment who noses her way into spaces primarily for men and stakes her claim. She’s like the Jessica Jones of the ’20s, I thought at one point. But I wondered if her experiences were historically accurate. Did you often see female police officers or PIs in the ’20s? I didn’t think so. So was this just wish fulfilment, to create an alternative noir story where a woman takes the place of the jaded detective? I dug into the internet to find out.
Things were starting to change for women in the ’20s. A movement called the New Woman embraced new fashions, freedom, and ideas. Opportunities also rose following World War 2, and women could find work as factory workers, secretaries, shop girls, and telephone operators. Phyllis fits into this trend, but her role goes further. She’s an ex-cop, she drinks, and supports herself. You can’t forget that most women were housewives, dutiful and feminine.
There were jobs for women in the police force, but these were support roles. I did find one woman, Alice Wells, who was sworn into the LAPD as its first female officer in 1910. Wells also founded the International Association of Policewomen, where she advocated for women’s rights. But this was just one amazing woman in a profession created for men.
Write on
Anne Katharine Green was the first American woman to write detective fiction, and her detective Violet Strange appeared in the novel The Golden Slipper and Other Problems in 1915. The first American woman detective to take a central role was Clarice Dyke in Harry Rockwood’s crime novels, and it was in the pulp novels of the ’30s that the female private eye came into fashion.
I did come upon an example of a real-life female PI: Kate Warne, who joined the Pinkertons in 1856. PIs then were usually part-bodyguards, and always men, but in her interview Warne pointed out that women could be “most useful in worming out secrets in many places which would be impossible for a male detective”. In 1858, this was proven true when Warne befriended the wife of the prime suspect in an embezzlement case, and acquired evidence that eventually convicted him.
A Case of Distrust isn’t historically accurate, but that hardly matters. It’s exciting to play in an alternate history where women have control of their bodies and the places they inhabit. I hope the women of the ’20s would have loved it just as much.
It ’s exciting to play in an alternate history where women have control