“The Policy of Secrecy:” Parents, Administrators, and Spies Investigating Sexual Violence Before UWPD

By Kyle Miron

 

The research in this publication was completed as a part of the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Rebecca M. Blank Center for Campus History. The Center seeks to expand and enrich UW–Madison’s historical narrative by centering the voices, experiences, and struggles of marginalized groups. The Center grew out of the Public History Project which culminated in the Sifting & Reckoning physical and digital exhibition in the fall of 2022, curricular tools, an event and lecture series, and a final report. By sharing research, we hope to continue conversations about the history of UW–Madison and discuss how we can all work towards building a more equitable campus community. The nature of historical research is that it will always be incomplete. It is impossible for us to know everything that happened in the past. Therefore, the research in this post is imperfect, as all history is. Our researchers have completed the research below with all of the historical documents available to them at the time of publication.


There was snow on the ground when a Madison police officer and a Pinkerton agent arrived on campus in February 1911 to investigate the rape of a sorority house mother. Agents kept arriving over the coming months as more reports of sorority break-ins and sexual harassment of students rolled in. It was the dead of summer by the time the investigation wrapped up and the (at least) eight private detectives called in from The Pinkerton National Detective Agency and their rival, the William J. Burns International Detective Agency, returned to Chicago.

The five-month investigation into this attack and the attacks and harassment that followed involved coordination from the two private detective agencies, University of Wisconsin President Charles Van Hise, Wisconsin Governor Francis McGovern, the Dane County sheriff, the University Board of Regents, a cadre of night watchmen, and one student’s wealthy father. This father and the governor funded the investigation, and the group kept it “strictly a confidential matter,” hiding all evidence of the agents’ presence and keeping the investigation a secret from students, staff, faculty, parents, and the public. [1]

Long before it had its own police force, the university found other ways to police students and the Madison community. Administrators hired night watchmen to patrol campus and nearby areas and employed private police to investigate on and off campus. These security forces overstepped their mission to keep students safe and intruded into students’ lives. Because this early security apparatus was ad hoc and outsourced, it was able to operate in the shadows, without any public accountability. The patterns of secrecy, policing morality, and operating outside of university control persisted as an official police force took shape in the years that followed. [2]

Out of respect for the wishes they expressed during their lives to not have people know about their assaults, I have given all of the victims pseudonyms. The names Mary Nelson, Ida, Catherine, and Alice are fake, but the details of their stories are real. I have chosen to leave everyone else’s name unchanged, including the likely perpetrator, because their identities and connections are crucial for understanding the power networks involved in what unfolded that semester and how the university’s early policing apparatus worked.

The Initial Search

A scanned page from the 1911 Badger Yearbook showing a black and white photo of 30 women posed in three rows. Below is a black and white exterior photo of a sorority house.
The Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority page from the 1911 Badger Yearbook. UW Archives

On a Friday night in February 1911 someone broke into the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority house for the second time in two weeks. Two Mondays earlier, a short man with a hat but no beard brandished matches when he forced his way into the room of house mother Mrs. Mary Nelson. Mrs. Nelson, the 58-year-old mother of a university public speaking professor, had lived in the Kappa Kappa Gamma house on the corner of Langdon and Henry Streets since the death of her husband two years earlier. [3] At the first break in, she awoke to a man in her doorway, and tore through the house, screaming and ringing bells as she went. The man bolted as the 20 women students living in the house woke up and flooded into the halls. When he came back to Mrs. Nelson’s room two weeks later, he had a flashlight and a gun. [4]

The day after the man raped Mrs. Nelson, the Madison Police Department was ready to dismiss the event as an older woman’s confusion. A doctor examined Mrs. Nelson multiple times and confirmed that she had “experienced sexual intercourse.” [5] Even so, the Madison chief of police “did not believe there was anything to it” and instead suspected “that the woman became so frightened when she saw the man standing in her bedroom door, that she did not know what happened.” [6] This dismissal isn’t surprising, given that police routinely disbelieved women’s accusations of sexual violence. During this period, arrests or prosecutions for rape were rare. When they did occur, they usually targeted Black men who were accused of assaulting white women. Police officers were often reluctant to get involved in cases that did not fit this model. [7]

Despite the city police’s incredulity, the university had hired the Pinkerton agents to investigate, giving them greater incentive to believe that a crime had occurred. One agent highlighted Mrs. Nelson’s reputation and family as reasons to believe her accusations. He noted that “Mrs. [Nelson] is a woman of good education and family connections,” and that her late husband had been a minister. Taking this into account, the agent argued there was “no reason to doubt…that the assault was committed as stated.” [8] These details solidified Mrs. Nelson as the kind of victim that they thought deserved protection.

The detectives, or “operatives,” of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency and the William J. Burns International Detective Agency were not best known for their presence on college campuses. The Pinkerton Agency, founded in 1850, created the blueprint for American private policing and detective work. In the 19th century they overwhelmingly functioned as private police for banks, railroads, and occasionally, state governments. These groups usually asked the Pinkertons to guard property from theft, especially theft by employees. The agency is best remembered for its extensive efforts to undermine labor unions on behalf of industrial employers like Andrew Carnegie. [9] In 1909, former Secret Service agent William J. Burns created his own private detective agency and quickly garnered a reputation as “America’s Sherlock Holmes” for the investigative acumen of his group. His agency conducted similar investigations to the Pinkertons and sometimes competed with them for the same clients. [10]

Scanned portion of paper letterhead with 'Pinkerton's National Detective Agency' written in decorative block text.
Official letterhead from the Pinkerton Agency in 1911. UW Archives.

Operating without any public oversight, these agencies wrote their own rules of conduct. Agents followed targets across various local and state jurisdictional boundaries and kidnapped people across state lines. [11] Their escapades on the UW campus are visible now because they left meticulous records of their time at the university. The university’s business manager kept the daily reports from each visiting agent and letters from an agitated father. These play-by-play accounts from agents reveal a campus surveillance infrastructure involving the Sheriff’s Office, private detectives, the university, and students’ parents decades before the university created its official police department.

Just as Mrs. Nelson was the kind of victim agents were willing to take seriously, the assailant she described was the kind of perpetrator that agents were likely to punish. One agent noted that “Mrs. [Nelson] thinks, from the slight brogue of the man, that he was an Italian, or foreigner of some sort.” [12] This period was characterized by an anti-immigrant fervor that especially targeted immigrant men as sexually predatory to white women. [13] Mrs. Nelson may have reported this man’s race as Italian because she really believed he was Italian, or she may have said that because she thought it would increase the chances of the police taking her claim seriously.

The search for this man kicked off with a tip from Mrs. Nelson’s son. Mrs. Nelson told her son the next day that someone had broken into her room, and that “she was nearly frightened to death.” [14] The son sprang into action to protect his mother. She didn’t reveal to him that the intruder had sexually assaulted her, but even without this piece of the story, Mrs. Nelson’s son suspected a local man named Henry Duke who had a history of sexual misconduct. Duke was not Italian — he, like the Nelsons, had German ancestry and family in the U.S. dating back several generations. [15] Although Duke did not match Mrs. Nelson’s description of the perpetrator’s ethnicity, he seemed the most likely suspect anyway. Mrs. Nelson’s son shared that six years prior, when Duke was a student at the university, he “was arrested for getting a girl in a family way,” a euphemism for impregnating someone. Mrs. Nelson’s son went on that since then, Duke had been “mixed up with University girls upon whom he forced his attention, and was ordered by the girls’ parents to quit coming to see them.” Learning of these accusations in 1905, Mrs. Nelson’s son, a university professor, had been instrumental in getting Duke expelled from UW. He believed that Duke “was just the sort of man… who would do an act of that kind of revenge” on his mother in retaliation for that expulsion. [16] His theory animated the early hunt for a perpetrator.

A scanned yearbook photo showing the head and shoulders of a man. He is wearing a suit jacket, white collared shirt and dark tie, with rimless eyeglasses and short hair parted in the center.
A portrait of Henry Duke in the April 1904 edition of the Wisconsin Alumni Magazine. UW Archives

Duke was an enigmatic choice for lead suspect. Before and after this event, he had an exemplary record in public and a reputation for predatory sexual behavior in private. He first entered the university in 1896 and, after taking time off to work, was set to graduate in 1906 at 29 years old. [17] As a student, he was an accomplished public speaker, winning oration contests on campus and across the country. [18] He later founded a public speaking school in Madison operating out of the same office above the Commerical National Bank building in which he had sexually assaulted at least one woman 20 years earlier. [19] The office served as a place for him to advertise his growing business during the day and bring women back to assault at night. Afraid to speak to an agent in public, one woman had confided in private that the word on the street in 1911 was that “all [Duke] kept his office for [was] to get young girls up there so he could seduce them.” [20] Evidently, Duke’s pattern of sexual predation was well known. In 1911, Duke even confessed to an agent that he had a habit of watching women students undress through the windows of their dorms. [21] Despite this reputation and confession, Duke did not suffer additional professional setbacks. In 1930 the university even celebrated Duke becoming “nationally known as an instructor of public speaking.” [22] Neither his sexual misconduct in 1905 nor his pattern of sexually predatory behavior later ever seemed to impact his professional reputation.

Following Mrs. Nelson’s son’s claims, agents and administrators focused on finding proof of Duke’s guilt, and in the process blew past other stories of sexual harassment and assault. They decided they needed to catch Duke in the act of another break-in or find someone willing to testify about Duke’s misconduct to secure a conviction. On his first day investigating, one Pinkerton agent heard from multiple house chaperones that women students had seen men lurking around their houses, breaking into their houses, or peering into dorm windows. He followed this tip only as far as it pointed him to Duke and disregarded stories about other perpetrators. He learned of a male student who kept sexually assaulting women landlords when they showed him apartments. After looking into this student, the agent noted that “his description does not in the slightest answer description of the man wanted” and stopped investigating him. [23] He focused on finding Mrs. Nelson’s attacker and in the process disregarded other sexual crimes on campus.

The investigators were so determined to find other women who would accuse Duke because Mrs. Nelson adamantly refused to testify against her attacker. She told one agent that “she would rather be killed than to testify in court to anything of that nature.” She continued that she would “absolutely refuse to do it, no matter what happened.” [24] Mrs. Nelson also instructed her lawyer to keep any reports of the assault out of the newspapers. It’s unclear if this arrangement included a payout to the newspapers, but it is very possible that it did. She continued to keep the assault a secret from her son, telling him only about the break-in. [25]

It’s not surprising that Mrs. Nelson wanted as much anonymity as possible. When prosecutions of rape did occur in the early 20th century, they frequently directed as much (if not more) scrutiny and shame onto female victims as male perpetrators. Historian Brian Donovan describes the courtroom during rape trials as a “theater of respectability” in which victims had to prove their virtue as well as their adherence to gendered norms of honorable behavior. [26] Donovan notes that amid conflicting ideas about women’s proper behavior, “women were simultaneously encouraged to assert their independence but punished if they did.” [27] When it came to matters of sex, police danced back and forth across the line between protecting and policing women. [28] Beyond being wary of the judicial scrutiny that she would likely face, Mrs. Nelson was also presumably anxious about the impact to her reputation. The public, as well as the court, frequently smeared women as immoral and wicked for sexual encounters outside of marriage, even when those encounters were not consensual. [29]

Without Mrs. Nelson’s testimony, convicting Duke would require a confession or catching him in the act. Van Hise and the university Board of Regents hired an additional Pinkerton agent to surveil Duke. The university also hired their own night watchmen to protect students who lived in the 11 campus sororities. [30] It was not uncommon for universities’ janitorial services to hire campus watchmen like these to safeguard the grounds, often directing them to prioritize protecting school property. [31]

A Pinkerton agent diligently followed Duke for two weeks, cataloging his daily movements, finding background information on him, and trying to set up times for Mrs. Nelson’s son to see Duke and confirm his identity. By March 4, 1911 the agent had not secured a confession or witnessed Duke breaking in anywhere, so he turned in the police star lent to him by the sheriff and returned to Chicago. [32] The investigation went quiet.

Another Incident

One month after the Pinkerton agents ended their investigation, the case came back to life with renewed fervor. On April 12, 1911, a man matching the description of Mrs. Nelson’s rapist broke into the Delta Gamma sorority house on Langdon Street. Brandishing his gun in a student’s room in the middle of the night, he forced sorority sisters Ida and Catherine to dance for him. [33]

Ida’s father, milling magnate Frank Blodgett, learned about the break-in the next day and used his considerable wealth and influence to demand university action. Furious that the university was not planning to investigate, Blodgett wrote heated letters and demanded meetings with university President Charles Van Hise, Governor Francis McGovern, and the Board of Regents. The Regents initially deflected any responsibility for the kind of security or investigation that Blodgett wanted. Blodgett noted that they told him that they had “absolutely no authority to expend any amount whatever for the protection of the students living outside of the University grounds.” He was even more incensed that they claimed not to have any authority “to expend any sum whatever in investigating offenses of this character.” [34] The university balked at paying for an investigation of off-campus crimes or sexual crimes. While the governor had stepped in to pay for the investigation of Mrs. Nelson’s rape, it was clear that investigating other predatory behavior was less of a priority.

A scanned page from the 1911 Badger Yearbook showing a black and white photo of about 30 women posed in three rows. Below is a black and white exterior photo of a sorority house.
The Delta Gamma sorority page from the 1911 Badger Yearbook. UW Archives

Indignant that the school would not use its considerable resources to safeguard women students, Blodgett threatened legal and extra-legal action. He had heard about Mrs. Nelson’s attack from another house chaperone and suspected that the same perpetrator had broken into his daughter’s room. He lambasted university and state officials for failing to secure a conviction against Duke in March and for refusing to investigate him again in April. He wrote, “The State of Wisconsin should have exhausted its resources in locating the offender in that case and convicting him.” He went on to propose a vigilante solution to this problem if the state did not find more money to finance an investigation, blustering, “if the evidence secured is not sufficient to secure a legal conviction there are other ways of securing the same result. If a mad dog was at large in the University section I have no doubt but that it would be killed within a short time, and yet a mad dog as compared with this degenerate is a trivial affair.” [35] This violent threat went ignored.

With little action from the school, Blodgett took matters into his own wallet. Furious that “the only protection that parents can expect for their daughters is by individually or collectively contributing to the necessary expenses of a proper investigation,” he hired the Burns agency himself. [36] The Burns detectives initially reported to the university‘s business manager, but as he grew more desperate to secure a conviction, Blodgett told the agents that they should only take orders from him. Blodgett and Catherine’s father refused to let their daughters testify, so they reinvigorated the plan to lure Duke into breaking in or confessing. [37]

Burns agents arrived in Madison to surveil Duke and the sorority houses in the days following the break-in to Ida and Catherine’s room. The agent in charge stayed in the parlor of a women students’ boarding house on Frances Street that had been broken into as well. He hoped that his presence there would let him coordinate the search from the center of the concern and give the six women residents extra protection. Another agent came to stay in this house days later to surveil the residents. These agents’ presence in women’s homes did not prevent more break-ins or make it easier to locate intruders after the fact. They invaded these women’s lives but did not insulate them from harm.

Spying Inside

Just a few days into the Burns agent’s stay at the Frances Street boarding house, someone broke in again. Alice, one of the women students living in the house, screamed out when she “thought she saw a man in her room” at midnight. [38] The intruder had already run away by the time the Burns agent ran into the night looking for him. The Burns agent returned to his parlor, went back to sleep, and then moved out later that week. He was gone when someone broke into Alice’s room again a few nights later. Alice awoke to a man tripping over her trunk and shining a flashlight in her eyes. As she screamed, the house chaperone blew a whistle to alert another student in the house to call the police. [39] Again, the intruder was gone by the time help arrived–this time, it was a university-employed night watchman who came, running over from his post outside the sororities several blocks away.

Whereas agents and the university believed Mrs. Nelson, Ida, and Catherine, they immediately doubted Alice’s story. The Burns agent reported that when he arrived on the scene, Alice was “trying to cover it up” and make sure that “the affair” did not “get in the papers.” The agent believed that her desire for privacy was suspicious. He suspected that she was actually to blame for the break in. He noted that she was “rather ‘loose’ about pulling down her shades when undressing” and “was inclined to be a little fast.” [40] To the agents and the school, this meant that Alice was untrustworthy and most likely involved in sexually immodest behavior. Her perceived lack of sexual propriety made them believe she could not be a victim and must in fact be a co-conspirator. The Burns agent suspected that the intruder was Alice’s sweetheart and that Alice, in a sleepy confusion, didn’t recognize him and screamed. [41] He then directed surveillance onto Alice herself.

A scanned sheet of paper with several lines of typewritten text
An update written by a Burns agent investigating Henry Duke in Madison, dated May 7, 2011. UW Archives

A woman Burns agent then came to Madison to spy on Alice. She posed as Alice’s new roommate, moving into her bedroom and acting as her friend. The two went shopping together and spent evenings sitting in their room sewing and talking about boys and family. Far from actually being Alice’s friend, however, the agent worked from the assumption that Alice was involved in the break-in to her room and tried to earn Alice’s trust to discover evidence of her collusion. The agent described how she “was instructed to go thru [Alice’s] things, which I am doing and am mailing a copy of a letter which I found, also a pamphlet or book.” [42] With the cooperation of the house mother and the regents, this operative gained Alice’s trust when she was there and rifled through her things when she was away. She mailed copies of some of Alice’s letters to and from her grandmother back to the Burns agency. [43] The letters from the grandmother had nothing to do with the break-in but had everything to do with insinuating that Alice was irresponsible with money. If Alice was untrustworthy in one aspect of her life, then the agents and the school assumed she must be irresponsible in every aspect of her life, and couldn’t be the victim of a crime, only an associate of the perpetrator.

The woman operative worked to become Alice’s confidante but held her in contempt. She reported that one day Alice “was expecting a girl friend…This young lady met Miss [Alice]; I also met her, and she seems to be a perfect lady, entirely different from Miss [Alice].” [44] The operative’s opinion of Alice as promiscuous and unladylike made the school and the operatives doubt her allegations. To them, Alice didn’t measure up to this friend, and she didn’t measure up to the previous victims either. Alice did not have the weight of an important and monied man behind her like Ida had, and rumors of her sexual past made authorities distrust that she had sexual modesty to violate. In an investigation to ostensibly protect women students, Alice’s privacy was invaded and her character questioned.

Spying Outside

Surveillance also escalated outside of student housing. An unsigned letter indicates that someone, most likely from the Pinkerton Agency but possibly from the university, “Ordered revolvers. Ordered guard placed in telephone room. Gave patrolmen orders to battle.” [45] A Burns agent then “called and arranged with the Chief of Police for the men to carry guns and make arrests.” [46] These private agents who had not been vetted by the city or the state had now been deputized and outfitted with police powers.

The Burns agents escalated surveillance of Henry Duke and even brought in another woman agent to try to entice Duke into breaking into her room. This plan did not lead to any results, but more evidence piled up against Duke anyway. One agent took a report from a woman in town who Duke had assaulted. She detailed the assault and shared that Madison women widely knew Duke was predatory. She explained, “The women would not have anything to do with Duke, on account of his dirty habits, and what he wanted them to do.” [47] This woman also refused to go to court, or even to have the conversation about Duke in a place where someone might see her. She was married and was mortified about what would happen to her reputation if news broke of an extra-marital sexual encounter — even a nonconsensual one.

The agents, Frank Blodgett, the university, and local law enforcement were certain that Duke was guilty. According to a Burns agent, “The Sheriff seems satisfied that Duke is the guilty party, and said that he would donate $25.00 of his own money to see this man behind the bars.” [48] Duke himself grew nervous. He panicked about newspaper articles describing a Madison “Peeking Tom” and confessed to a Burns agent that he had watched women students undress through their windows before, wondering if the article was describing him. He stressed over and over that “it would not pay for him to get mixed up on account of his business.” [49] The agent did not arrest Duke even after this apparent confession. Despite widespread certainty that he was the perpetrator of multiple crimes, Duke never faced any legal repercussions. The Dane County Sheriff’s office has no record of any charges ever filed against him.

One of the very last papers in the file on this ordeal is a note from the lead night watchman to the university’s business manager in late June, 1911. The Pinkerton and Burns agents were all back in Chicago, but some university night watchmen continued to patrol around the sororities at night. One of them wrote, “These are the names of the two girls at the Delta Gamma House 250 Langdon which I found not in very good company at twenty past two o’clock in the morning.” [50] He had seen two women students out with men and alerted the business manager of the university to pursue disciplinary action against them. While he and the other night watchmen had been hired to patrol the area to keep women students safe in the wake of a shocking rape, their continued presence created a new apparatus for scrutinizing their behavior, especially their sexual behavior. He did not protect these students by reporting that they were out late at night, but he did contribute to the university’s growing interest in policing sexual conduct.

Not a Fluke

This investigation was not a one-off case of parental power run amok or of a few rogue agents. The five-month investigation was sanctioned by the highest levels of university and state governance. Van Hise actively participated in concealing the surveillance and giving Pinkertons and Burns agents authority on and off campus. Blodgett secured Van Hise and Governor McGovern’s approval and cooperation by threatening to publicize the story. He told McGovern that he would bring the story to the Legislature if necessary because “I believe that it is only necessary for proper publicity to these facts to arouse a popular clamor that will secure the desired result.” [51] He stressed to Van Hise, too, that he would make the story public if Van Hise and McGovern did not finance and approve a security plan, arguing, “the policy of secrecy can only result in safeguarding the offender.” [52] The governor conferred with Van Hise after these letters and gave Van Hise the funding and approval to comply with Blodgett’s demand. [53]

As he granted Blodgett’s requests under threat of publicity, Van Hise pleaded for secrecy. He wrote to Blodgett, “Publicity would be the worst possible remedy.” [54] In another letter later the same day he stressed, “Publicity, in my opinion would be an almost certain bar to success in the matter.” [55] It may never be clear if Van Hise wanted this secrecy because he thought it would protect victims or if he wanted to protect the university’s reputation. The effects on the university’s image would likely have been disastrous. During this period the university was legally empowered to act “in loco parentis,” or as parental figures for students, both in terms of punishment and protection. [56] Women at the university in 1911 were all white and predominantly wealthy. [57] A scandal involving the assaults and harassment of these women within university-affiliated housing would most likely have sparked wider outrage among their parents at the failure of the university to protect their daughters. There likely would have been more wealthy and influential fathers like Blodgett demanding action or refusing to send their daughters to the university.

Van Hise would have been particularly aware of this pressure given that his daughter had just graduated from one of the sororities in question. In her time at the university, Van Hise’s daughter was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma and was cared for by Mrs. Nelson herself. [58] Less than a year after her graduation, her father spearheaded the efforts to keep news about assaults on campus secret, including assaults that took place in her former home away from home. The secrecy that Van Hise worked to create not only protected the university’s image and parents’ trust in the school but also fueled the growth of a policing apparatus. The imperative for secrecy allowed the investigation and surveillance of students to continue without public accountability.

Conclusion

In June, 1911, one of the last Pinkerton agents on campus told the university’s business manager that he had “nothing particularly new” to report about the ongoing investigations. He was told to turn in his police star and his flashlight and to expect payment soon from the governor. He went home to Chicago. [59] While he and his colleagues left, the atmosphere of secrecy and surveillance outlasted their time on campus and became central to the operation of the university’s own police department a generation later. [60]

This early security apparatus did not meet its stated goal of protecting women students. Instead, it policed student behavior away from public accountability. Security forces identified the likely perpetrator in Mrs. Nelson’s assault as Henry Duke and later identified the same man in a series of other harassment and assault incidents on and off campus. Neither the private agents nor the city police ever arrested Duke, however. They failed to do so because they couldn’t secure the trust of the victims who refused to testify or make their stories public out of fear of the social consequences they would endure. Women students who were seen as less respectable than these other victims ended up enduring some of these social consequences anyway. While the detectives and night watchmen scrutinized the sexual and social affairs of these supposedly less respectable women students, Duke built a prolific career in Madison and garnered national recognition for his professional accomplishments. Despite a mandate to protect women, this early policing apparatus punished women for participating in consensual sexual encounters while failing to safeguard them from forced ones.

The university’s policing structure and policies about sexual violence have changed in the last hundred years, but many of the fundamental problems remain. Sexual violence is still a widespread problem on campus and there is not adequate recourse for survivors or accountability for perpetrators. More than 27 percent of undergraduate women at UW–Madison describe having experienced sexual assault while enrolled, exceeding the national collegiate average. [61] About half of all UW–Madison students describe having experienced sexual harassment while enrolled. [62] According to data compiled from colleges’ and universities’ self-reports to the federal government, sexual assault is the most common crime on university campuses, surpassing burglaries, car theft, and other kinds of assaults. [63] Victims across the country continue to express trepidation about reporting these assaults — often for the same reasons that made Mrs. Nelson, Catherine, Ida, and Alice want secrecy over a century ago. Victims overwhelmingly express fear of negative social consequences, including being “slut-shamed” or being ostracized from communities that also include their attackers. Additionally, they express fear of the police disbelieving them or dragging them through invasive and shaming proceedings that fail to protect survivors. [64] A hesitation towards campus police is compounded by growing awareness of police behavior that students characterize as overly punitive and racially discriminatory. [65]

The events on campus during the spring of 1911 also call into question the efficacy of any police response to sexual violence. Even at moments over that semester when the university, agents, and the sheriff believed victims and worked to hold perpetrators accountable, they did not make women safer. Alice’s story feels familiar in a post-#MeToo world: after revelations of her sexual harassment surfaced, authorities challenged her account of the events, questioned her character, violated her privacy, and suggested that either she had lied or invited the invasion. The story of Madison police officers initially dismissing Mrs. Nelson’s allegations despite medical evidence also feels familiar. In recent years, police departments across the country have come under fire for failing to analyze sexual assault forensic exam evidence (also known as “rape kits”). [66] In addition to these familiar moments of dismissal and victim-blaming, the university did also eventually capitulate to demands to mount a costly and extensive campaign to investigate sexual predation and to try to protect women on campus. The agents they hired represented some of the finest private detectives in the country. These agents believed the victims and went to great lengths to catch one perpetrator. It still did not work. The primary perpetrator — and numerous other sexual predators identified during the investigation — remained in university communities.

In April, 1911, Frank Blodgett grew frustrated trying to ensure recourse for the sexual harassment of his daughter Ida. He wrote to the governor, “it would seem to me that it is primarily the duty of the State to guarantee protection to its students.” [67] Ensuring this protection for all students is an unfinished project. Doing so will require that the university grapple with the times in which it has abandoned survivors or compounded the harm they have experienced.


[1] Pinkerton National Detective Agency, “JBH reports,” Madison, Tues Feb 21, 1911, “Bumpus, H.C. Rape Case Investigation Files,” 1911, Locked Cabinet Drawer 3, item 4, University of Wisconsin Archives, Madison, WI. The name and organization of this collection has changed since I had access to it. It is now called “Kappa Kappa Gamma House Assault Investigation records, February through June of 1911.” It is still located at Locked Cabinet Drawer 3, item 4, University of Wisconsin Archives, Madison, WI. Future references from this folder will be referred to as BRC Files in order to shorten the name and to reflect the collection name at the time I used it.

[2] The Center for Campus History, “The Hammersley Method: The History of Mistrust between the UW–Madison Community and the UW–Madison Police Department,” Siftings, March 8, 2021.

[3] All victims have been given pseudonyms to protect the privacy that they asked for when they were alive

[4] Pinkerton National Detective Agency, “PS reports,” Madison, February 11, 1911, BRC Files.

[5] Pinkerton National Detective Agency, “PS reports,” Madison, February 13, 1911, BRC Files.

[6] Pinkerton National Detective Agency, “PS Reports,” Chicago Sat Feb 11, 1911, “Bumpus, H.C. Rape Case Investigation Files,” 1911, BRC Files.

[7] Estelle Freedman, Redefining Rape : Sexual Violence in the Era of Suffrage and Segregation. (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2013)

[8] Pinkerton National Detective Agency, “PS Reports,” Chicago Sat Feb 11, 1911, BRC Files

[9] Frank Morn, ‘The Eye That Never Sleeps’: The History of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1982).

[10] William R. Hunt, America’s Sherlock Holmes: The Legacy of William Burns, (Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2019)

[11] Frank Morn, ‘The Eye That Never Sleeps’: The History of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1982).

[12] Pinkerton National Detective Agency, “PS Reports,” Chicago Sat Feb 11, 1911, BRC Files

[13] Estelle Freedman, Redefining Rape : Sexual Violence in the Era of Suffrage and Segregation, (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2013), 10.

[14] Pinkerton National Detective Agency, “PS reports” Madison, February 12, 1911, page 2, BRC Files.

[15] 1910 U.S. Census, Madison Ward 5, Dane, Wisconsin; Roll: T624_1708; Page: 2b; Enumeration District: 0062, Henry Duke, FHL microfilm: 1375721.

[16] Pinkerton National Detective Agency, “PS Reports,” Chicago Sat Feb 12, 1911, BRC Files

[17] “Wisconsin’s Oratorical Representative,” The Wisconsin alumni magazine Volume 5, Number 7 April 1904, 240

[18] “Wisconsin’s Oratorical Representative,” The Wisconsin alumni magazine Volume 5, Number 7 April 1904, 240

[19] Details of his assault on a woman in that building are found in William J. Burns International Detective Agency,“GFJ reports,” May 8, 1911, BRC Files. His founding a public speaking school there found in “In the Alumni World: Class of 1906,” The Wisconsin alumni magazine Volume 33, Number III Dec. 1931, p. 87.

[20] William J. Burns International Detective Agency, “GFJ reports,” May 8, 1911, BRC Files.

[21] William J. Burns International Detective Agency, “GFJ reports ,” May 4, 1911, BRC Files.

[22] “In The Alumni World: Class of ’06,” The Wisconsin alumni magazine Volume 32, Number III Dec. 1930, 119.

[23] Pinkerton National Detective Agency, “PS Reports,” Chicago, February 14, 1911, BRC Files

[24] Pinkerton National Detective Agency, “PS reports” Madison, February14, 1911, page 2, BRC Files.

[25] Pinkerton National Detective Agency, “PS reports” Madison, February 12, 1911, page 2, BRC Files.

[26] Brian Donovan, Respectability on Trial: Sex Crimes in New York City, 1900-1918, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2016), 2.

[27] Brian Donovan, Respectability on Trial: Sex Crimes in New York City, 1900-1918, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2016), 17.

[28] Jessica Pliley, Policing Sexuality: The Mann Act and the Making of the FBI. (Cambridge, MA and London, England: Harvard University Press, 2014), 6

[29] Gordon, Linda. Heroes of Their Own Lives: the Politics and History of Family Violence: Boston, 1880-1960. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Viking, 1988.

[30] Pinkerton National Detective Agency, “PS reports””, Madison, February 14, 1911, BRC Files.

[31] Grace Watkins, “’Cops Are Cops’: American Campus Police and the Global Carceral Apparatus,” Comparative American studies, 2020, Vol.17 (3-4), 245.

[32] Pinkerton National Detective Agency, “JBH reports,” March 4, 1911, BRC Files.

[33] Pinkerton National Detective Agency, “JBH reports,” May 5, 1911, BRC Files.

[34] Frank Blodgett, “Letter to Governor F.E. McGovern,” April 15, 1911. BRC Files.

[35] Frank Blodgett, “Letter to Mr. John Frederickson,” April 15, 1911. BRC Files.

[36] Frank Blodgett, “Letter to Governor F.E. McGovern,” April 15, 1911. BRC Files.

[37] William J. Burns International Detective Agency, “GFJ reports,” May 8, 1911, BRC Files.

[38] William J. Burns International Detective Agency, “GFJ reports” tues april 15, 1911, BRC Files.

[39] William J. Burns International Detective Agency, “GFJ reports,” April 21, 1911, BRC Files.

[40] William J. Burns International Detective Agency, “GFJ reports,” April 21, 1911, BRC Files.

[41] William J. Burns International Detective Agency, “GFJ reports,” April 21, 1911, BRC Files.

[42] William J. Burns International Detective Agency, “#22 Reports” April 22, 1911, BRC Files.

[43] William J. Burns International Detective Agency, “#22 Reports” April 22, 1911, BRC Files.

[44] William J. Burns International Detective Agency, “#22 Reports” April 22, 1911, BRC Files.

[45] Author unknown, “Unsigned letter,” April 17, 1911, BRC Files.

[46] William J. Burns International Detective Agency, “GFJ Reports” April 23, 1911, BRC Files.

[47] William J. Burns International Detective Agency, “GFJ reports ,” May 8, 1911, BRC Files.

[48] William J. Burns International Detective Agency, “THS reports,” May 6, 1911, BRC Files.

[49] William J. Burns International Detective Agency, “GFJ reports ,” May 4, 1911, BRC Files.

[50] C.H. Batty, “Note on scrap paper,” June 22, 1911, BRC Files.

[51] Frank Blodgett, “Letter to Governor F.E. McGovern,” April 15, 1911. BRC Files.

[52] Frank Blodgett, “Letter to UW President Charles Van Hise,” April 15, 1911, University Presidents President Charles Van Hise General Correspondence Files, Series 4/10/1, Box 23, Folder 324, Univeristy of Wisconsin-Madison Archives, Madison, WI.

[53] Charles Van Hise, ”Letter to Frank Blodgett,” April 21, 1911, University Presidents President Charles Van Hise General Correspondence Files, Series 4/10/1, Box 23, Folder 324, Univeristy of Wisconsin-Madison Archives, Madison, WI.

[54] Charles Van Hise, “Second letter to Frank Blodgett that day,” April 21, 1911, University Presidents President Charles Van Hise General Correspondence Files, Series 4/10/1, Box 23, Folder 324, Univeristy of Wisconsin-Madison Archives, Madison, WI.

[55] Charles Van Hise, ”Letter to Frank Blodgett,” April 21, 1911, University Presidents President Charles Van Hise General Correspondence Files, Series 4/10/1, Box 23, Folder 324, Univeristy of Wisconsin-Madison Archives, Madison, WI.

[56] Philip Lee, “The curious life of in loco parentis in American universities,” Higher Education in Review, 2011, 8, 65-90.

[57] Knutson, Käri. “UW Women at 150: Celebrating 150 years since first women got undergraduates degrees.” UW–Madison News (blog), September 27, 2018.

[58] The Badger Yearbook, Vol. XXIV 1910, p. 326

[59] Pinkerton National Detective Agency, “JBH reports,” Chicago Fri June 9, 1911, BRC Files

[60] The Center for Campus History, “The Hammersley Method: The History of Mistrust between the UW–Madison Community and the UW–Madison Police Department,” Siftings, March 8, 2021.

[61] Karen Herzog, ” UW-Madison touts an all-of-the-above strategy on sexual assault,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, February 14, 2016.

[62] Chancellor Blank and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Lori Reesor, “April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month – It Takes All of Us,” UW-Madison Office of the Chancellor, April 6, 2022, https://chancellor.wisc.edu/blog/it-takes-all-of-us/.

[63] National Center for Education Statistics. (2023). “Criminal Incidents at Postsecondary Institutions,” Condition of Education.,U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. Retrieved September 13, 2023, as cited in National Center for Education Statistics, “Fast Facts: College Crime.”

[64] Spencer, Chelsea & Mallory, Allen & Toews, Michelle & Stith, Sandra & Wood, Leila. (2017). “Why Sexual Assault Survivors Do Not Report to Universities: A Feminist Analysis: Reporting Sexual Assault.” Family Relations. 66. 166-179. 10.1111/fare.12241.; Eliza Gray, “Why Victims of Rape in College Don’t Report to the Police,” TIME Magazine, June 23, 2014; David Cantor, Bonnie Fisher, Susan Chibnall, Reanna Townsend, et. al. Association of American Universities (AAU), “Report on the AAU Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct,” January 17, 2020.

[65] Mary Magnuson, “Records reveal UWPD spent over $6,000 on pepper spray, smoke grenades during George Floyd BLM protests,” The Badger Herald, October 16, 2020

[66] RAINN, “Addressing the Rape Kit Backlog,” https://www.rainn.org/articles/addressing-rape-kit-backlog, 2023.

[67] Frank Blodgett “Letter to President Charles Van Hise” April 22, 1911, University Presidents President Charles Van Hise General Correspondence Files, Series 4/10/1, Box 23, Folder 324, University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives, Madison, WI.