divorce

Miss Elizabeth Simon, a cook in the Tatum household, testified in a society divorce case involving Jack Ottman, Dr. John C. Tatum and Mrs. Mary Jane Tatum, of Great Neck LI, in January 1915.

Thank you for the information. We may add it to the record.

Maybe connected to a society divorce: In 1915, Henry Meinken sued his wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Benson Meinken, for divorce, naming Harry P. Hewes as co-respondent. Hewes was described as "the man with the beautiful eyes" in reporting from the courtroom.

Robert Marsden Shaw was a New York banker whose wife, Katherine Lyall Shaw, left him for another man, Richard S. Darling. In 1915 Shaw sued Darling for alienation of affection and had him prosecuted under the Mann Act for transporting Mrs. Shaw across state lines for immoral purposes. Darling was aquitted in the Mann Act prosecution and Shaw dropped the alienation of affection suit. query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10C15F9395C13738... Shaw and his wife must have divorced, because in June 1916 he married another woman, Lillian Mahoney. query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0E12F93A5B17738... There's a close up of Shaw on the LOC Photo division site www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ggb2005018715/ that hasn't been loaded on Flickr yet.

There are a number of these floor-level shots of trial proceedings. I wonder if the photographer shot this surreptitiously or if the judge permitted pictures if the camera wasn't raised?

I was wondering the same thing. This one in particular really looks like the photographer was trying to hide the camera.

Thanks for connecting up the two photographs and the information about Shaw and the trial. We can add some information when we next update the description. Good question about photography during trial proceedings. I don't know the precise answer, although Emma Little, who published an article about Bain many years ago had a colorful account of how one of the office boys Bain trained to take pictures got the first photos of a trial in a New York federal court, where photographers were banned on pain of contempt of court. The boy "got a step-ladder and placed it in front of the court-room door, put his camera through the high transom and let the flash light, leaped down and dashed off with his camera, leaving the step-ladder to block the door." (Emma Little, "The Father of News Photography: George Grantham Bain," Picturescope 20 (1972): 203.) A talent for being surreptitious from any angle may have been the order of the day!