Isabella Goodwin
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Isabella Goodwin (née Loghry) was an American police officer and the first female
detective A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads the ...
in New York City.


Biography

Isabella Loghry was born in
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,
Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
in 1865 to James Harvey Loghry and Anna J. Monteith, who ran a restaurant and hotel on
Canal Street Canal Street may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Canal Street (Manchester), Manchester, England * Canal Street, Oxford, Jericho, Oxford, England United States * Canal Street (Buffalo), a street and district at the western terminus of the Er ...
. Around 1885, aged 19, she married John W. Goodwin, a police officer. The couple had six children, of which four survived. Goodwin was widowed in 1896, when she was 30 years old. The New York City police department had only started hiring women (“police matrons") to look after female and child prisoners in 1881. When Goodwin applied for a job after her husband died, she had to pass an exam then was hired as a jail matron by then police commissioner
Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), also known as Teddy or T.R., was the 26th president of the United States, serving from 1901 to 1909. Roosevelt previously was involved in New York (state), New York politics, incl ...
, who later became the
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. It was a low paid position, making only $1000/year, and she only had one day off each month. She served in this position for 15 years. During this time, she began going undercover to investigate crimes, and her mother watched her children. In 1912, there was a case involving a midday robbery where "taxi bandits" beat up two clerks and stole $25,000 in downtown Manhattan. Even with 60 detectives assigned to the case, no one could solve the robbery. The story was followed nationally, according to a ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' article at the time. After going undercover, Goodwin cracked the case. As a result, she was appointed as New York's first female detective and given the rank of 1st grade lieutenant. Her salary was raised from $1000 to $2,250/year. During her career, she specialized in exposing
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and swindlers. In 1921, she married a man who was thirty two years younger than her. She continued working after her marriage, which was not common at the time for a woman. When she retired, she had worked for the NYC police department for thirty years.


In popular media

* The book
The Fearless Mrs. Goodwin
' by Elizabeth Mitchell was based on Goodwin's life. * In the television
period drama A historical drama (also period drama, period piece or just period) is a dramatic work set in the past, usually used in the context of film and television, which presents history, historical events and characters with varying degrees of fiction s ...
series ''
The Alienist ''The Alienist'' is a crime novel by Caleb Carr first published in 1994 and is the first book in the Kreizler series. It takes place in New York City in 1896, and includes appearances by many famous figures of New York society in that era, in ...
'',
Dakota Fanning Hannah Dakota Fanning (born February 23, 1994) is an American actress. Fanning is known for her roles in blockbuster films and independent features, both as a child actor and as an adult. Her accolades include nominations for a Golden Globe A ...
's character, Sara Howard, is also based on Goodwin's life.


See also

* Mary Shanley - another woman NYPD detective *
Mary A. Sullivan Mary Agnes Sullivan (1878 or 1879 – September 11, 1950) was a pioneering policewoman in New York City for 35 years. She was the first woman homicide detective in the New York City Police Department. She was also the first woman to make lieuten ...
- another woman NYPD detective who was head of the Policewomen's Bureau as well


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goodwin, Isabella 1865 births New York City Police Department officers American police detectives 1943 deaths