The Scandal of the Stage Tights
A Spokane socialite faced a moral crusade for daring to play a male role in a light opera.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The excitement at Spokane over the marriage of A. M. Cannon has subsided, and the town is all worked up over the case of Alice May Harrah. Alice having announced her intention of assuming the male part of Grenechieux in an amateur production of 'The Chimes of Normandy,' in which she would wear tights, the Spokane Review took her to task, saying it would be indelicate for her to dress as Grenechieux on the stage. The Chronicle announces, however, that 'Miss Harrah will sing; she will not be bluffed out.' Miss Harrah is a social favorite in Spokane and is, besides, so well proportioned that she will make a very pleasing male figure before the footlights. Miss Harrah wrote: 'When I was first asked to take the part of Grenechieux, I was disposed to decline, not that I felt that it would be in any sense an indelicate act, but because I am aware of the existence in every community of a class of coarse people who contrive by the help of their own vile imaginations to clothe the most innocent act with an imputation of immodesty.'
“I am aware of the existence in every community of a class of coarse people who contrive by the help of their own vile imaginations to clothe the most innocent act with an imputation of immodesty.”
This 1894 moral panic over gender performance reflects the long, restrictive history of policing clothing and identity in public spaces—a recurring theme in Seattle’s cultural history that resonates with contemporary debates over bodily autonomy and self-expression.
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