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"Among the fabled tycoons of the Gilded Age--Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt--is a forgotten figure: Mrs. Frank Leslie. For twenty years she ran the country's largest publishing company, Frank Leslie Publishing, which chronicled postbellum America in dozens of weeklies and monthlies. A pioneer in an all-male industry, she made a fortune and became a national celebrity and tastemaker in the process. But Miriam Leslie was also a byword for scandal: She flouted feminine convention, took lovers, married four times, and harbored unsavory secrets that she concealed through a skein of lies and multiple personas. Both before and after her lifetime, glimpses of the truth emerged, including an illegitimate birth and a checkered youth. Diamonds & Deadlines reveals the unknown, sensational life of the brilliant and brazen "empress of journalism," who dropped a bombshell at her death: She left her entire multimillion-dollar estate to women's suffrage--a never-equaled amount that guaranteed passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. In this dazzling biography, cultural historian Betsy Prioleau draws from diaries, genealogies, and published works to provide an intimate look at the life of one of the Gilded Age's most complex, powerful women and unexpected feminist icons. Ultimately, Diamonds and Deadlines restores Mrs. Frank Leslie to her rightful place in history, as a monumental businesswoman who presaged the feminist future and reflected, in bold relief, the Gilded Age, one of the most momentous, seismic, and vivid epochs in American history"--… (more)
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User reviews
The book itself is a bit muddled. The author herself says that because of holes in the documentation of Mrs. Leslie, she reconstructed scenes with available data and the use of period details. She also describes clothes on occasions. Sometimes these were definitely outfits that Miriam owned, but we don't know if she actually wore them when described. The author also mentions using "inspired conjecture" in order to decipher what she thinks were the meanings of Mrs. Leslie's actions.
This is hagiography, pure and simple. There are also instances of profanity used, and this was not in a quotation. That's hardly the stuff a serious biography should include. I did, however, enjoy the descriptions of Gilded Age New York, even if I had read them in every other book about the period.
Unless you are researching personalities of the Gilded Age time period, give this book a pass.