Tales from the Field: The Misjudged Masher

Authorities arrested Augusto Rotelli in 1916 in Southwick, Massachusetts, for violating the state's Masher Act. (It was reportedly the first arrest in Southwick under the act.)

At his arraignment on December 5, Augusto pleaded not guilty to insulting a woman in Southwick. The court issued a continuance and set his trial date for Saturday, December 9. At his trial, Augusto turned the tables on his accuser, testifying that she led him to his flirtatious behavior and that the two had been flirting for about two weeks. 

Victorian Era Hatpin

The judge halted Augusto's disparaging testimony and found him guilty. However, His Honor decided that he would impose no penalty because Augusto and the woman complainant said and did things so reprehensible that the testimony was deemed unprintable.

The complainant, believed to be Mrs. Frances Liska, accused Augusto of making advances on her in one of the American Sumatra Tobacco Company's barns in Southwick, where they both worked.

The Masher Act, first passed in Ohio in 1894, spread across the country like wildfire around the turn of the century. The law targeted married men pretending to be single and seducing or making sexual advances to women, primarily ones they did not know, for physical intimacy. In basic terms, the law prohibited unwanted touches, comments, and other advances from men. (Massachusetts passed its version of the Masher Act in 1914.)

At the local level, some jurisdictions even attached fines to certain words. In Omaha, Nebraska, the penalty for calling a woman chicken was $5, honey-bunch was $10, turtledove was $15, and baby doll was $20.

The law also aimed to reduce hatpin attacks on men as women, wearing the ever-fashionable large hat, would stab or attack "mashers" with their sharp hatpins. (Most hatpins were 6 to 10 inches long.)

Because they were so loosely defined, the Masher Acts got out of hand and were eventually repealed and replaced with new laws regarding hatpin stabbings. But, as the fashionable accessory disappeared with the changing times and more and more women ditched their hats for the flapper culture of the 1920s, so did the laws.

A Midwestern tourist stabs a masher with her hatpin on a New York City streetcar in 1903

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Edited Out/Author's Additional Research Notes

 Many in Western Massachusetts supported the Masher Act.

Augusto was born in Italy. He worked for Brewer Tobacco Company for about 20 years before retiring.

Augusto's brother Guido lived in Southwick. He lived on Point Grove Road, Sheep Pasture Road, and Congamond Road.