By Kelli Huggins, Education Coordinator
What was a lonely maiden, ageing widower, or other longing singleton
to do to find a spouse in the days before Match.com or OkCupid? Well, actually,
they did something very similar to online dating! In the late 19th
and early 20th centuries, local folks and people around the world
placed advertisements in newspapers and used matrimonial agencies to find “the
one.” Some advertisements were romantic, but most were exceptionally pragmatic. There are many local examples; you can find them in the classifieds
section of papers nestled between ads for livestock, real estate, and men’s “vitality”
pills (a subject for another post…). Some of these love stories had happy
endings, but others didn’t work out so well.
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| From 1910. |
There were a couple of ways that people went about seeking a
spouse. Some contacted matrimonial agencies, which worked to compile profiles
of singles all around the country to make matches. Sometimes these companies
would place newspaper ads for clients and would accept the resulting
correspondence. Other times, the companies would compile catalogs of marriageable
people. For example, in 1912, a matrimonial agency in Skaneateles advertised that
for 25 cents they would send a catalogue with hundreds of photographs and
descriptions of eligible people, “rich, poor, young, old.”
In 1908, the Intelligence and Matrimonial Agency operated at
117 W. Water St. in Elmira. As you can see from their ads below, however, they had
clearly diversified their offerings (you could buy sugar while looking for your
“sugar”).
Another ad specifically targeted Catholic singles. It’s hard
to know how many locals were using matrimonial agencies, but by the 1890s,
there were notices in the papers about young local women finding husbands that
way. In 1892, it was reported that some young Elmira women were heading out to
the wild west to be married.
Other singles placed their own ads in the paper, briefly offering
some facts about themselves and detailing what they were looking for in a
partner. Below are some examples:
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| From 1907. The top one is from an Elmira man, but I can't help loving the earnest ad from the Tonawanda gentleman below it even more. |
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| In this set of ads from the Elmira Star-Gazette in 1920, you can see that ads showed up from all over the country. The one at the bottom is from Elmira. |
Matrimonial agencies, while costing more, added an extra layer
of protection for their users. They could filter responses, something not
available to someone going it alone. This could be useful to make sure that all
of the inquirers were serious. The necessity of this can be seen in a prank
played by two Elmirans, John B. Fitzpatrick and Charles H. Armitage. In 1897,
they were managing the tour of actress Floy Crowell. While promoting an Albany
show, Armitage put an ad in the papers reading: “Young lady of engaging appearance
and enjoying her own private fortune would like to correspond with handsome and
well connected young man. Object: matrimony. Address C.R.F., Box 317, Albany.”
Armitage took the letters and had a woman at the Albany Argus respond to all of them as follows: “your kind note
received. Before making my identity known I would like an opportunity of seeing
you, under circumstances which will render it impossible for you to identify
me. Please attend the Floy Crowell entertainment at the Leland Monday evening, wearing
a white carnation as a boutonniere.” On the night of the show, at least 14
white-carnation-wearing men came, and upon seeing the others, knew they had
been duped.
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| From 1917. As you can tell from this ad, folks were wary of pranks and scams. |
While Armitage’s prank was relatively harmless, male and
female con artists sometimes used the matrimonial ads for criminal ends. In
1923, Elmiran Jennie Steele, a 56-year-old widow, married Charles W. Davis, a
75-year-old man (he told her he was 65) she met through a matrimonial agency.
She said a few days after they married, he left with her diamond ring, money,
and other property worth $600. Police discovered that he had done the same
matrimonial agency marriage scheme to women across the region.
In 1930, Elmiran Jacob F. Brookman’s new matrimonial agency
wife disappeared with $1,200 after 5 weeks of marriage. She was Patsy Sullivan,
a 33-year-old widow from Kansas. He connected with her through an agency and
sent $56 for her to come to Elmira. He considered his loss to be $1,285.50 once
you also factored in his legal fees. That same year, John B. Blake of Van Etten’s
matrimonial agency marriage to Lucy Robertson of Elizabeth, NJ failed. They
married in 1926 and he said that she threatened divorce less than a week after
their wedding if he didn’t put the title to his farm in her name. He did so and
shortly after, she returned to New Jersey. He sought legal means to reclaim ownership
of his property.
Of course, not every pairing that failed did so for criminal
reasons. Sometimes, one or both parties engaged in some false advertising. For
example, in 1902, J.D. Gordon of Elmira worked with a matrimonial agency to
connect with Fanny Gleason of Sage College. They met in Ithaca after
corresponding. Gordon, however, failed to disclose that he was deaf and mute
and could only communicate through writing; likewise, Gleason was the
60-year-old stewardess of the college, not the young college girl he
envisioned. Needless to say, their match was not a success.
Stories like all of the above were rather popular in the
press, which is likely why John O. Roberts from Graphiteville, N.C asked the
Elmira Police Department to provide a “Certificate of Reputation” for Hazel
Summers Tobey of Elmira Heights before they were wed. The pair had been matched
by an agency, but Tobey still needed to get an official divorce from her first
husband. Roberts said that as long as it could be proved she was an honorable
woman, he would help her secure the divorce and relocate to Graphiteville.
There’s no word on how that shook out.
Despite the risks, there still was a romanticism to the ads
and many people wanted these relationships to work out. For example, in 1901, the
news printed a story of an Elmira woman who was distraught on a train after
failing to meet up with a man she had been corresponding with in Ithaca (the
failure was rather convoluted and involved her wearing flowers on the wrong
side of her body and him then not knowing which woman was the one he was to be
meeting). She told her story to members of a band sitting near her. When she
mentioned his name, it turned out that they knew him and that he was also on
the train. The band members united the two engaged would-be lovers.
