Skip to main content

Exhibition Drawing Justice: The Art of Courtroom Illustration

Drawing Justice: The Art of Courtroom Illustration

Sydney Biddle Barrows, the "Mayflower Madame"

Aggie Kenny. "Mayflower Madame," July 2, 1985. Watercolor, colored pencil, and graphite on tan paper. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (105.00.00)
LC-DIG-ppmsca-51153 © Aggie Kenny
Gift of Tom Girardi
Enlarge

Sydney Biddle Barrows, the "Mayflower Madame"

In a ten-minute hearing on July 19, 1985, in the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Sydney Biddle Barrows, dubbed the "Mayflower Madame" for her patrician bloodline, pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of promoting prostitution. This plea followed a week of negotiations between Barrows's lawyers and the prosecutors after an order by Judge Brenda Soloff would have required information about each charge to be made public. Barrows was fined $5,000 for the crime.

 Back to top