Well-behaved Women Seldom Make History
In honor of International Women’s Day, I wanted to introduce some of the rebel-rousing and law-breaking women of liquor.
We must go back to the early 1800s to find our first woman who skirted the law to build an empire. Helen Cummings and her husband took out a lease on a plot of land in a remote spot with easy access to water and peat but away from the prying eyes of the law. With Helen at the helm of the illegal stills, she quickly built a reputation for high-quality whisky. When alcohol distillation became legal in 1823; Helen and her family went on to build the internationally recognized Cardhu Distillery.
Dabbling in the illegal production and sale of liquor was rampant during the Prohibition Era. When most people think of prohibition, they conjure up images of Al Capone and Temperance Movement Marches, but most bootlegging or rum-running occurred in small towns and on back roads.
Our first story comes from Blairmore, Alberta; yes, we have our very own rebel-rousing lady of illicit libations. Florence Lassandro moved to Blairmore from Italy and began working for bad-boy bootlegger Emilio Picarillo. Lassandro would run whisky into Southern Alberta, British Columbia, and Montana. Lassandro found herself in a precarious situation which resulted in her being charged and found guilty of the murder of Const. Stephen Lawson. Picarillo was also found guilty of the same charges, even though it was never determined who fired the fatal shot. The sentence of death by hanging caused outrage among Albertans which resulted in a disdain for prohibition laws. Lassandro was hanged at the gallows in Fort Saskatchewan on May 2, 1923. She is the only woman to be executed by hanging in Alberta. She is also credited for the reversal of prohibition in Alberta.
If Lassandro couldn’t get you your whisky in Montana, our next bootlegging lady sure could. Josephine Doody is known as the Bootleg Lady of Glacier Park. Doody resided in a remote cabin, and she had an ingenious method of supplying illicit liquor to the men of the Great Northern Railroad and beyond. As the train passed through the area, the conductor blew the whistle a specific number of times; this number correlated to how many quarts of whisky were needed. Doody would then load up her boat and row across the Flathead River to deliver the hooch. Her legendary bootlegging legacy even appears on her gravestone.
Our next two bootleggers built empires as well as legends.
Maggie Bailey A.K.A. Queen of the Mountain began making moonshine when she was just 17, in Harlan County, Kentucky. She started moonshining to help her family, but it soon became her life’s work. Bailey was known to do anything for her community with the funds garnered from her moonshining empire, including sending kids to college. Bailey never drank and would never sell to children or drunkards. She was a smart woman and knew the law very well, including the American 4th amendment regarding search and seizure. It was this knowledge that allowed Bailey to make illegal moonshine well into her 90s and only be prosecuted once in 1947. Bailey passed away at 101 in 2015.
Last but certainly not least is Gertrude “Cleo” Lythgoe, who was arguably the best and most profitable rum-running during Prohibition. Lythgoe was an American with ties to a British liquor exporter. During Prohibition, she moved to the Bahamas where she became a licensed liquor wholesaler. She used British connection and fierce independence to start smuggling the finest Scotch into the States. Legend has it that she amassed a million-dollar fortune during her rum-running days.
Rebellious and rule-breaking women will always have a place in history!