Research into a Hundred Years Ago with Edith Maxwell

RHYS BOWEN: Edith is one of our Reds regulars here so needs no introduction, except for me to say that I loved her Midwife mysteries and I'm so glad she delving into history again, this time with a fabulous real heroine.

EDITH MAXWELL:  Thanks so much to Rhys for inviting me back to the front part of Jungle Red Writers! I'm here to share my exciting venture into a historical era new to me with last week's release of A CASE FOR THE LADIES, the first Dot and Amelia Mystery.

 

Yes, that Amelia.

 

And for fans of Rhys’ books – and who isn’t? – I included an Easter egg, which might include mention of a New York PI named Molly. (A grinning winking emoji might be appropriate here, except it would be a historical anachronism.) Rhys and now Clare are masters of research into life of decades and even a century past, and I hope my own efforts meet with their approval.

 

Here’s how my writing A Case for the Ladies happened. About five years ago, I learned Amelia Earhart had taught English to immigrant factory workers in my town of Amesbury, Massachusetts, which is nestled into the top right corner of Massachusetts. This was before Amelia became famous, and that simple little fact was enough to inspire an entire mystery novel.

 After Amelia left Amesbury, she worked at the Denison House settlement house in Boston, teaching and counseling immigrant women during the week.

 

 She even coached the Chinese girls basketball team out of the settlement house, and you can bet that went straight into my novel. I also loved learning that Amelia kept a scrapbook of strong women she heard about, those with accomplishments in many fields, and she would talk to girls and young women about them as role models for what they could achieve.

 In the mid-1920s, Amelia lived with her mother and sister in the Boston-area suburb of Medford.

 

The nearby neighborhood of West Medford, a quiet area along the Mystic River, was originally settled by Pullman porters and still has a large number of Black residents. (It’s also where I formerly lived and where my best friend has lived for decades). West Medford a hundred years ago was called The Ville. An older Black porter and a young Black police officer play important roles in A Case for the Ladies.

 I walked with my friend Jennifer from her home in West Medford on a kind of pilgrimage to the home Amelia shared with her mother and sister

 

I also learned that Amelia drove a yellow Kissell speedster at the time, a gorgeous – and fast - vehicle, which she called Gold Bug. I found a car guy in the Midwest who kindly sent me photos of his restored Kissell along with a recording of the sound of the horn. Thanks, Ronald Hausmann!

 

During the time Amelia worked at Denison House, she flew a Kinner Airster on the weekends out of an airfield south of Boston.

 

Confusingly, it was the Dennison airfield in Quincy, named after the man who built it, but I found a way to address those two spellings in a conversation in the book.

 I didn't go up in a small plane like Amelia’s, but I consulted with a friend who holds a pilot's license. Janet Catherine Johnston commuted to work for a few years in her own small plane, and she helped me so much with details about the scene in the book where Dot swallows her nerves in the pursuit of justice and goes aloft with Amelia. (Janet also writes plays and speculative fiction – really sciencey science fiction – and is an astrophysicist, an officer at MIT, and oh, did I mention she teaches belly dancing?)

 All of this history took place before Amelia became a famous aviator. I recently had the change to share a piece of the stage at my local historical museum with actor Sheryl Faye, who embodies Earhart in her later days.

 

 

It was so fun to share notes with her about our favorite pilot.

 And then there was my research into 1926 culture. Historical mystery author Susanna Calkins saved my, uh, bacon by making sure I knew Amelia was a confirmed teetotaler. I pivoted and made that work, even though others had stockpiled alcohol just before the Volstead Amendment (aka, Prohibition) took effect.

 I always love researching language. “Gasper” and “ciggie” were slang for cigarettes. “Cheaters” referred to eyeglasses. “The bee’s knees” was high praise, as was “the cat’s pajamas.” “Flapping your gums” meant talking too much, and “ankling” meant walking. And so much more.

 At about the same time I learned about Amelia’s Boston-area presence, I had envisioned an alternate reality as a lady PI for my father’s mother, Dorothy Henderson Maxwell.

 An avid and adept automobile driver since she was a teenager, my Mama Dot was an elegant and capable wife, mother, and grandmother. Frankly, she could have been so much more, and I love imagining her life as a warrior working alongside Amelia for justice for abused and murdered women.

 The following photo shows Dot at thirty-two with my grandfather, Allan Sr, and their three children, Allan Jr (my beloved father), Ruthie (smiling), and Joan (scowling, despite being a perpetually smiling aunt to me).

 

 

Readers: What historical era do you like to read novels set in? I’d love to send one of you a special limited-edition A Case for the Ladies tote bag.

A Case for the Ladies:

Amid Prohibition, Irish gangs, the KKK, and rampant mistreatment of immigrant women, intrepid private investigator Dorothy Henderson and her pal Amelia Earhart seek justice for several murdered young women in 1926 Boston. As tensions mount, the sleuths, along with their reporter friend Jeanette Colby and Dot’s maiden Aunt Etta Rogers, a Wellesley College professor, experience their own mistreatment at the hand of society and wonder who they can really trust.

 "Maddie Day’s tale — in which she imagines an alternate and crime-solving reality for a pre-fame Amelia Earhart — is as much fun as a ride in one of Earhart's planes! Day's heroine Dot Henderson, visiting from California, detects around a well-drawn 1920s Boston with an appealing circle of friends, including the famous aviatrix. Fans of historical fiction will love this women-focused mystery." 

 —Sarah Stewart Taylor, author of Amelia Earhart: This Broad Ocean, and the Maggie D'arcy series 

 "This book is a triumph on so many levels! From the excitement of our foremothers stepping out of their traditional roles, to the exhilaration of early plane flight, to tackling tough subjects such as immigration, bigotry, and crime gang rivalries in 1920s Boston, Maddie Day paints a stunning portrait of one of America's most dynamic periods."

—Alyssa Maxwell, author of the Gilded Newport Mysteries

 

 Maddie Day pens the Dot and Amelia Mysteries, the Country Store Mysteries, the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, and the Cece Barton Mysteries. As author Edith Maxwell, she’s the author of the Agatha Award-winning historical Quaker Midwife Mysteries and short crime fiction. Day/Maxwell lives with her beau and cat Martin north of Boston, where she writes, gardens, cooks, and wastes time on Facebook. Find her at EdithMaxwell.com, wickedauthors.com, Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen, and on social media:

And Edith is doing a giveaway of the new book! Add your comments.