A Refused Dance, Then a Club and a Bottle of Acid
Hannah and Ida Jensen were walking home from a dance when a man clubbed them and threw nitric acid in their faces; police arrested a Northern Pacific engineer who had been refused by one of the sisters.
Spokane—First felling his victim with a club, then throwing nitric acid from a bottle on their faces, burning them horribly, a fiend Sunday night viciously attacked Hannah and Ida Jensen, two working girls, who were returning home from a dance. The police have arrested on suspicion Louis Gray, a Northern Pacific engineer, who had been going with one of the girls and who had Friday night failed to obtain the consent of one of the Jensens to take her to the dance.
“First felling his victim with a club, then throwing nitric acid from a bottle on their faces, burning them horribly...”
The attack reads like a dark inversion of the era's dance-hall courtship: a woman's refusal was answered with disfigurement and violence. It is a reminder that 'working girl' in 1909 meant both independence and vulnerability, and that violence against women was often reported as a crime of passion rather than a public safety crisis.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.