During the early twentieth century, the Black press—including newspapers such as the Chicago Defender, the New York Amsterdam News, and the Baltimore Afro-American—became a source for debating and reiterating notions of race, gender, and sexuality. Through the figures of female celebrities such as Josephine Baker and Hattie McDaniel, the writers of the Black press articulated Blackness, Black femininity and sexuality, and older conceptions of race womanhood and uplift. Baker, a theatrical performer who found most of her popularity in France, was positioned as a positive example of Black modernity and success, but also as a potentially negative example of blatant sexuality and Black womanhood. McDaniel, whose Academy Award win for Best Supporting Actress in 1940 presented her a pioneer for Black representation on film, was both praised and harshly criticized for working within a white Hollywood which made little space for Black actors outside of stereotypical, small roles. During a period of upheaval for African Americans, including the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, and continuing segregation and racial violence, the Black press used public figures such as Baker and McDaniel to comment on both a past and a potential future of Black representation in the media.

This dissertation explores the intersections of criminality, gender, and whiteness in turn-of-the century Colorado through analysis of four criminal cases. The cases in this study, though very different from each other, reveal the ways in which women attempted to navigate their troubled circumstances and sought to improve their lives - despite potential legal consequences. Though some of them are admittedly guilty of the crimes that they committed and others proclaim innocence, their trials reveal how women understood their positionality within the Colorado legal system and, at times, attempted to exploit it. Additionally, these cases demonstrate how political forces - ranging from politicians and journalists to physicians and judges - attempted to capitalize on the trials and appropriate them for their respective political causes. As the feminist staying goes, “The personal is political.” In these trials, the political is deeply personal and has lasting ramifications for women around the state of Colorado, not just the women who were put on trial.