Evelyn Nesbit was one of the most famous faces of the early 1900s. Her life was spectacular and tragic.

I’ve written a lot about her. I’ve always been interested in her because she had been ordinary. She grew up in difficult circumstances, with no particular talent, no money, and no connections.

It seemed as though destiny picked her out of the masses, elevated her to heights of fame and wealth she had never dreamt of, and sent her crashing back to earth a few years later, irreparably broken.

The trauma Evelyn was subjected to by Stanford White and Harry Thaw took its toll on her legendary beauty. After Thaw’s trial for the murder of White, she began to fade from public view.

Evelyn appeared with decreasing frequency in the papers and existed in relative obscurity. She struggled with depression and addiction, and worked to maintain herself for the remainder of her 82 years. She dabbled in acting, writing, singing, dancing, restaurants, and teaching sculpture. She worked hard but she never reached anything close to the success she had achieved so effortlessly earlier in her life. Yet even today, well over half a century after her death, people know the name Evelyn Nesbit and are intrigued by her.

Evelyn once described her unhappiness and boredom during her first marriage when she lived with her phenomenally rich in-laws. She described them as shallow, saying, “The plane of materialism which finds joy in the little things that do not matter – the appearance of things.” It’s a very interesting quote from a woman whose appearance was tied to her fortunes in life in a way that few people have ever been.

I recently came across a photo I’ve never seen of her. It looks as though it was taken right before she became really famous. She looks a little younger and a little less polished.

I’d normally put the links to my previous posts about Evelyn here but I recently learned that posts that have links to other pages aren’t indexed on Google. So I’ll put the links in the comments.