THE WILD WEST HISTORY

Pearl Hart

(1871-1956)

Pearl Taylor (1871-1956), better known as Pearl Hart, was a cowgirl who became famous as a bandit

She was born in Lindsay, Ontario, Canada, of French descent. As a youngster, Pearl was attracted to older men, and she had a number of relationships with alcoholics and other men of infamous status. After attending boarding school, she met a man at the age of sixteen and became impregnated. She endured abuse by this man and returned to her mother's home with her new baby.

By 1893, she arrived at Chicago, Illinois, where she saw Annie Oakley perform at a card show. This would turn out to be a life changing experience for Pearl, as she became inspired by Oakley. She also attended the World's Fair women's pavilion and listened to speeches by Julia Ward Howe, among others.

Inspired by the experience of seeing women demonstrating some social power, she boarded a train to Trinidad, Colorado. In Trinidad, she became a popular saloon singer. It was rumored by the press that she practiced prostitution as a way to make a living while in Trinidad, but it has been argued that the press spread such rumors to embellish her legend; nevertheless, Pearl never denied nor admitted to being a prostitute; she even went as far as declaring to Cosmopolitan magazine that she was "21, good looking, and ready for anything that might come".

On June 4 she and Boot were arrested outside of Benson, Arizona. After her stay at the Florence jail, she would be transferred to a jail in Tucson, from where she became an advocate of women's rights and, later on, she escaped. Josephine Brawley Hughes, another women's rights advocate, became a supporter of Pearl, through her columns at "The Arizona Daily Star".

Pearl Hart had been a contributor to Cosmopolitan for a long time before her escape from the Tucson jail; while passing through Deming, New Mexico, she was recognized by policeman George Scarborough, an avid reader of Cosmopolitan, who proceeded to arrest her.

Pearl Hart ultimately received a sentence of five years in jail, despite trying to convince the jury that she was temporarily insane during the robbery because of a supposed desire to see her mother and children and because of her mother's sickness. She was sent to a jail in Yuma.

While at Yuma, she also became addicted to morphine and became fodder of the tabloid newspapers of the day. This led Paul Hull, an editor in chief of another leading Arizona newspaper of the time, to feel sympathy for her and to plead with these type of newspapers to leave her alone.