Gussie Freeman: Slasher of the RopeWalk

Hattie Leslie

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the American media became more accepting of female boxers, even in large metropolises. In 1891, underneath the write-up of the swanky annual New York Chamber of Commerce dinner where the city's wealthiest men smoked cigars and consumed steaks at Delmonico's, an article appeared in the New Hampshire Sentinel detailing the "notorious scandal" of two women meeting for a boxing match in Brooklyn. Hattie Leslie, already a fixture in New York's boxing community, issued a challenge—$25 to any woman that Hattie could not knock out within four rounds. The Grand Street Theatre filled with local 'toughs,' over 2,000 people, half of whom were women. Rising to the challenge was Gussie Freeman, a New York blueblood who defied her social standing to face Hattie Leslie in front of a frenzied crowd. The battle would eventually be broken up by the police, although the officers apparently watched alongside the rowdy crowd, only to break in when the women were too bloody for even the saltiest New York city policeman. News reports, as per usual, bleated about the shocking demonstration of female fighting as a humiliating to the great city of New York. Yet both women were already prominent features of the late 19th century sports media complex, simultaneously praised and punished for their pugilistic careers, and neither of them gave a single fuck.

Hattie Leslie

Born in 1868 in Buffalo, New York, Hattie Leslie was, according to The National Police Gazette, considered "the champion female pugilist of the world" who would challenge any woman. A veritable Amazon, Hattie weighed 199 pounds, stood five feet, seven and a half inches tall, and was described as "a good-looking brunette" who "does not look tough" by the Police Gazette. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, Hattie was "a boxer of unusual ability and has knocked out pretty fair fighters in practicing with them." On September 16, 1888, Hattie boxed Alice Leary, who was "very hard with her fists," "more quarrelsome," and "more of a slugger" than Leslie. Both women were called actresses in later documents, but apparently had enough pugilistic training to be skilled in the Queensbury rules. The Daily Inter Ocean published the story of the bout, dubbing it "A DISGRACEFUL AFFAIR" while also admitting that the women fought well. According to the article, Hattie and Alice

slogged each other in regular male professional style….The women fought like tigresses at times, but hit no foul blows. After the fight both made their toilets, came back to Buffalo, and had their disfigured faces and bodies attended to by physicians.

The headline for this bout appeared at the top of the page, directly above a short article about famed boxer John L. Sullivan, who was, according to the paper, in very ill health at the time. Sullivan, a famous pugilistic with a history of debaucherous behavior, was often cited in newspaper stories. The positioning of the Leslie/Leary fight above Sullivan seems significant in 1888. They were, in fact, headliners of the fighting world.

A year after her bout with Alice Leary, Hattie Leslie was once again in the news with the announcement of an upcoming bout with Ethel Marks. An article in The Cincinnati Enquirer on December 19, 1889, announced that this "Novel Match" would indeed be novel, because instead boxing as usual, Hattie and Ethel would wrestle in the Greco-Roman style. According to the paper, this type of exhibition had never before occurred, so the fighters and their backers met to agree to terms, which were as follows:

Articles of agreement entered into by and between Hattie Leslie, part of the first part, and Miss Ethel Marks, party of the second part. Said parties hereby agree to meet in a wrestling match on a day to be named hereafter, under the following conditions: The said party of the first part agrees to throw the said part of the second part four times in an hour, actual wrestling time, or forfeit a purse of $100.

The agreement also stipulates that "all dangerous locks, such as the hang and strangling holds, are hereby barred by mutual agreement." "The match," the Enquirer assured readers, "aside from the novelty of the participants being women, ought to be a good one from an artistic standpoint." Ethel Marks was a weight-lifter, but apparently very skilled in numerous athletic endeavors. The bout, as the newspaper suggested, promised to be entertaining. However, the Enquirer reported on December 29, 1889, that the bout was rather embarrassing, with the two women "rolling about the canvas as graceful as baby elephants in the straw." The Cincinnati Enquirer, often changing their opinion of Hattie from beautiful and skilled, to fleshy and apparently 'elephantine,' declared that Hattie's fighting ability was "seventy-five percent wildcat power." Hattie may not have demonstrated her best fighting skills with Ethel, but, like all true athletes, she forged ahead, honing her craft over the next few years and leading up to her fight with Gussie Freeman.

In 1891, Gussie Freeman entered the boxing community with a nonchalance attitude for gender and social norms that shocked and delighted newspaper outlets and fans alike. An article in the November 22, 1891 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle named Gussie Freeman "The Slasher of the Ropewalks," a "born fighter" who "never cared for the society of people of her own sex, except to meet them at a bout of fisticuffs and to glory in their inevitable discomfiture." Gussie's prowess in the ring was recognized during her bout with Hattie Leslie, marking the beginning of Gussie's career, and sadly, the approaching end of Hattie's, who would die only a year after the fight.

At the time of the bout, Gussie was twenty-five years old, 175 pounds, and claimed to be "afraid of nothing that walks on the ground." She answered Hattie's challenge in 1891 and according to the New Hampshire Sentinel report, over 2000 spectators packed into a tiny hall to watch the two women fight for a $25 purse. Who would have won the fight is unknown, because the police interrupted the bout, although they did not do so until Hattie and Gussie had apparently "cut and battered" each other and were "covered with their own blood." The sixteen policemen it took to separate the women were part of the audience, and only jumped in, according to the account, when the crowd were whipped into a frenzy at the sight of Hattie and Gussie's bloody, yet skillful, brawl. Many of New York's elite denizens were horrified by the news of the bout, especially when they learned that Gussie hailed from the upper crust herself. In the years after the battle with the legendary Hattie Leslie, Gussie rose to fame as a fighter and inveterate eccentric who lived outside of social and gender norms at the fin-de-sicle.

Historically, female boxers typically did not occupy the higher orders of the American social strata. Most of these women, and men as well, worked with their hands (literally), which set them apart from the middle and upper classes who feared all elements of 'rough' work. It was the prerogative of the growing American middle class to emulate elements of the elite, while also forming habits and conventions that demonstrated the new respectability of the bourgeoisie. And the term respectability was of the utmost importance to middle-class Americans in the late nineteenth century. Men and women avoided any type of behaviors linking them to the lower echelons of society. Female pugilists, of course, were automatically revealing themselves to be outside of the normative middle-class ideology simply by their participation in fighting. However, many of these women, when outside of the ring, presented themselves as respectable, or at least, as a simulacrum of Victorian American propriety. Hattie Leslie, and her contemporary and fellow namesake, Hattie Stewart, dressed in appropriately middle-class female garb when not in the midst of fighting. One can image that barring any bruises or cuts from their training, female fighters might have looked like any other middle-class lady on the streets.

Unlike the Hattie's, who maintained some semblance for culturally normative femininity, Gussie was known for her masculine ways as she swaggered amongst men, smoking a pipe, drinking whiskey, and swearing like a sailor. Despite her shockingly unfeminine practices, Gussie was not a low-born lady, but the product of a "Long Island family of excellent reputation." Like Babe Didrickson, the famous female golfer, Gussie Freeman was a talented athlete, playing numerous sports and even besting professional baseball player Jack Cassidy by throwing farther then him one day. Gussie's mother was apparently broken-hearted by this anomaly of a daughter, who defied her mother's instruction and acted more like a boy than the lady-like child of the Long Island matron. Gussie was no elegant lady, but she did nothing to blacken her name morally. Gussie was "simply a tough girl," but not an amoral one, although her career choice would continue to make her mother apoplectic.

Gussie entered the world of business in her typical not-so-lady-like fashion by opening up a saloon in Brooklyn. However, she continued to train and fight in addition to keeping her bar. In April of 1894, Gussie appeared at the Howard Athenum in Boston, Massachusetts, and fought alongside the delightfully named Fatty Langtry, a famous male boxer of the period. Fatty and Gussie trained together in preparation for both of their matches, evidence that some male and female boxers worked as training partners during this period. Gussie used her sparring experience with Fatty in 1895 when she pummeled one George Schmitzer, an iceman who insulted her and denied the supply of ice he typically provided for her saloon. At this point, Gussie's weight had crept up to a ponderous 250 pounds, but she remained technically sound as a pugilist. After confirming that Schmitzer, a diminutive man of only 120 pounds, did indeed slander her, Gussie demanded that he face her in the typical stance. She then roundly thrashed him, despite his efforts at a defense, and left him knocked out in front of a crowd of hundreds.

Following Hattie Leslie's example, Gussie would appear at a venue for a specified number of days, taking on all challengers as an exhibition of her skill. Tragically, on September 25th, 1892, Hattie Leslie passed away at the young age of twenty-three from a battle with typhoid fever, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her husband, John Leslie, nursed her throughout her illness, and despite his valiant efforts, his young wife died. Typhoid, an illness born of contaminated food and water, was a prevalent calamity of the nineteenth century. At the time of her death, Hattie was engaged at the People's Theater, where she gave "sparring exhibitions with a male opponent" – presumably her husband. Hattie's death was commemorated in the National Police Gazette with the full page image and headlines entitled "Hattie Leslie's Last Round," in Milwaukee's Sunday Sentinel.

One year later, Gussie challenged the other famous boxing Hattie, Hattie Stewart, in February 1893 in a bout providing a purse of at least $1000. At the time of her challenge, Gussie walked at 220 pounds, but her manager asserted that she could cut to 180 for the fight and still be strong. Gussie apparently had a financial backer, who would provide a purse of any price as long as the women were able to fight uninterrupted by the police. Interestingly, Gussie's manager was named John Leslie, the widower of boxing legend and recently deceased Hattie Leslie. However, it does not appear that Hattie Stewart ever joined Gussie Freeman in the ring, whether it was bad timing or, perhaps, the fear of meeting the plucky and undefeated championess.

Gussie Freeman's legacy remains one of a joyfully unique woman, who lived as she wished to live, without adhering to the social morays of the period. Her first opponent, Hattie Leslie, may have dressed in the appropriate attire outside of the ring, but she, too, defied normative gender behavior. Gussie Freeman and Hattie Leslie's 1891 fight reveals that while pugilism was considered unseemly by a significant portion of the population, there was always an audience, and a titillated reading public, that valued the stories of women acting outside the norm.