The primary sources for Bringing Down the Colonel are contemporaneous newspaper coverage of the Breckinridge-Pollard scandal and trial in ten major newspapers, the letters of the Breckinridge and Tucker families, Sophonisba Breckinridge’s unpublished autobiography, Eleanor Breckinridge Chalkley’s autobiography Magic Casements, and Jennie Tucker’s account of her time at the House of Mercy and friendship with Madeline Pollard, The Real Madeleine Pollard: A Diary of Ten Weeks’ Association with the Plaintiff in the Famous Breckinridge-Pollard Suit.
The trial records of the five-and-a-half-week trial in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia are not extant, although they are listed as being in the records of the court held at the National Archives. According to the Federal Judicial Records archivist Robert Ellis, this is not the first instance of files from high-profile cases like sex scandals or divorces mysteriously disappearing before the records are accessioned into the National Archives. And Willie Breckinridge did have friends in high places. Fortunately for historians, both the New York World and the Cincinnati Enquirer had stenographers present in the courtroom and provide detailed transcriptions of much of the testimony, which, when cross-referenced with the other newspaper coverage, provides an accurate account of the proceedings. All newspaper articles referenced are on file with the author.
A key source for understanding the complex history of the Breckinridge family and its politics and the political rise of Willie Breckinridge is James Klotter’s essential The Breckinridges of Kentucky: 1760–1981. The most important works about the legacy of Sophonisba Breckinridge are Ellen Fitzpatrick’s Endless Crusade: Women Social Scientists and Progressive Reform and Joanne Goodwin’s Gender and the Politics of Welfare Reform. Melba Porter Hay’s Madeline McDowell Breckinridge and the Battle for the New South provides key insights into both Nisba and Desha Breckinridge’s politics and the social milieu in which the scandal occurred.
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Chicago Daily Tribune: CDT
Cincinnati Commercial Gazette: CCG
Cincinnati Enquirer: CE
Kentucky Leader: KL
Lexington Morning Transcript: LMT
Louisville Courier-Journal: LCJ
New York Times: NYT
New York World: NYW
Washington Evening Star: WES
Washington Post: WP
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