Unlike white GIs, it was made virtually impossible for African-American servicemen to marry the women they met and fell in love with in the UK during World War Two. If these couples had children, those so-called "Brown Babies" were stigmatized and scorned - with many ending up in grim children's homes. 

Pausing the story of the Blackout Ripper - this episode examines the experiences of those Black GIs, their white partners and two "Brown Babies" - Leon Lomax and Terry Harrison - who have both spent decades trying to piece together their family histories. 

Professor Lucy Bland's work can be seen here: http://www.mixedmuseum.org.uk/brown-babies

Further reading:

Bland, Lucy. Britain's 'Brown Babies': The stories of children born to black GIs and white women in the Second World War. (Manchester University Press), 2019

Osur, Alan. Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War II. (Office of Air Force History), 1977

Schindler, David and Westcott, Mark ‘Shocking Racial Attitudes: Black G.I.s in Europe’, The Review of Economic Studies. (University of Oxford), 2021

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Seamstress Doris Staples doesn't want to see Private John Waters any more... but the American soldier has other ideas. He goes to her workplace to make sure she doesn't "step out" with any other man... and carries with him a pistol.

Men were expected to seek an outlet for their sexual appetites, but any women who saw multiple partners or wanted to exit a relationship faced stigma, hostility and deadly violence.  

Further reading:

Ashton, John R; Machin, David; Osmond, Clive; Balajaran, Rasaratnam; Adam, Sheila A and Donnan, Stuart P B. ‘Trends in Induced Abortion in England and Wales’, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, vol. 37, 1983, pp. 105 - 110.

Dryden, Steven. ‘A Short History of LGBT Rights in the UK’.

Ellwood, David. ‘The American Challenge in Uniform: The Arrival of America’s Armies in World War II and European Women’, European Journal of American Studies  vol. 7, no. 2, 2012.

Laite, Julia. Common Prostitutes and Ordinary Citizens: Commercial Sex in London, 1885 - 1960 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). 

Monckton Smith, Jane. In Control: Dangerous Relationships and How They End in Murder. (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022).

Vickers, Emma. Queen and Country: Same-sex desire in the British Armed Forces, 1939-45. (Manchester University Press, 2013).

Wagner, Paul. The Youngest Crew (Cheyenne, WY: Lagumo Press, 1997).

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Around Piccadilly she's known as "The Lady" - a quiet, rather remote figure. Widow Margaret Lowe tries to keep herself to herself and stay out of trouble - but trouble is never far away. 

The other residents of her building on Gosfield Street are used to hearing crashes and cries in the dead of night. Margaret sells sex in her flat, and with the coming of war that's an increasingly dangerous business. But when her clients turn violent, "The Lady" can't turn to the police and her neighbours seldom lift a finger to help.    

One night the man she brings the up stairs to her door is... the Blackout Ripper. 

Sources:  

Laite, Julia. Common Prostitutes and Ordinary Citizens: Commercial Sex in London, 1885 - 1960 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

Laite, Julia. The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey: A True Story of Sex, Crime and the Meaning of Justice (London: Profile Books, 2021).

Philips, Jock. ‘History of Immigration - Depression: 1885 - 1900’, Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand.

Philips, Jock. ‘History of Immigration - The Great Migration: 1871 - 1885’, Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand.

Philips, Jock. ‘History of Immigration - Migration: 1900 to 1914’, Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand.

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The Blackout Ripper wasn't the only serviceman attacking women in World War Two. In cities, towns and villages women were being harassed and abused by men in the military - and the women who chose to join the armed forces weren't immune from such treatment.

Those women who signed up for the army, navy or air force to fight Hitler were dogged by crude insinuations that they were promiscuous - especially if they went to dances and drank alcohol. When these servicewomen were stalked, raped or murdered, the official response was often a dismal exercise in victim blaming. 

Sources:  

Dunlop, Dr Tessa. 'Army Girls: The Secrets and Stories of Military Service from the Final Few Women who Fought in World War II.' 2021 Headline Publishing Group. 

Owtram, Jean and Patricia 'Codebreaking Sisters: Our Secret War.' 2020 Mirror Books. 

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Though married to chicken farmer Harold, Evelyn Oatley has given up on rural life and returned to live in seedy Soho under her showgirl alias "Lita Ward". The coming of war has meant a boom time for those selling entertainment, liquor and sex to the servicemen flooding the area. It is in this world of dancing and drinking that Evelyn lives. 

But beneath a fun-loving facade, Evelyn is lonely. Her male callers help stave off this sense of isolation, but only temporarily. And it’s while working that she’ll meet a cruel and sadistic killer and take him back to her apartment. 

Sources: 

Iglikowski-Broad, Vicky. ‘The Shim Sham Club: “London’s Miniature Harlem”’, The National Archives, 5 February 2020.

National Fairground and Circus Archive, ‘The Second World War’, The University of Sheffield, July 2015.

Sladen, Chris. ‘Holidays at Home in the Second World War’, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 37, No. 1, 2002.

Walkowitz, Judith R. Nights Out: Life in Cosmopolitan London (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012).

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Evelyn Oatley dreams of becoming a stage star in London's glamorous theaterland. It's a world away from her grim provincial upbringing. The daughter of a German immigrant, her troubled home life was compounded by a wave of anti-German rioting that broke out during World War One.    

Tiring of both her job at a textile mill and her relationship with a local farmer, Evelyn ran off to London and transformed herself into budding starlet "Lita Ward". But she found neither fame nor fortune there... only danger.  

Sources:

Andrews, Maggie and Lomas, Janis. The Home Front in Britain: Images, Myths and Forgotten Experiences since 1914 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

Arthur, Sue. ‘Blackpool Goes All-Talkie: Cinema and Society at the Seaside in Thirties Britain’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 29, No. 1, March 2019.

Denness, Zoe. ‘“A Question which Affects our Prestige as a Nation”: The History of British Civilian Internment’, PhD Thesis, University of Birmingham, October 2012.

Denness, Zoe. “Gender and Germanophobia: The Forgotten Experiences of German Women in Britain, 1914–1919’ in: Panayi, Panikos (Ed.). Germans as Minorities during the First World War: A Global Comparative Perspective (Farnham, Ashgate Publishing Company, 2014).

Eyles, Allan. ‘Cinemas and Cinemagoing: The Rise of Cinemas’, BFI Screenonline, 2014.

Higginbotham, Peter. ‘Boarding Out (Fostering)’, Children’s Homes.

Hill, Hector. ‘Russell Street Picturehouse’, Cinema Treasures.

Lassandro, Sebastian. Pride of Our Alley: The Life of Dame Gracie Fields Volume 1: 1898 - 1939 (Albany: BearManor Media, 2019).

Mazierska, Ema (Ed.). Blackpool in Film and Popular Music (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).

Mort, Frank. ‘Striptease: The Erotic Female Body and Live Sexual Entertainment in Mid-Twentiety-Century London’, Social History, Vol. 32, No. 1, February 2007.

Panayi, Panikos. ‘Germans as Minorities during the First World War: Global Comparative Perspectives’, in: Panayi, Panikos (Ed.). Germans as Minorities during the First World War: A Global Comparative Perspective (Farnham, Ashgate Publishing Company, 2014).

Panayi, Panikos. Immigration, Ethnicity, and Racism in Britain, 1815 - 1945 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994).

Stone, Peter. ‘The German Community in London during the 19th Century’, History London.

Waddington, Keir. ‘“We Don’t Want Any German Sausages Here!”: Food, Fear and the German Nation in Victorian and Edwardian Britain’, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 52, No. 4, October 2013.

Walkowitz, Judith R. Nights Out: Life in Cosmopolitan London (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012).

Walton, John K. ‘The Seaside Resort: A British Cultural Export’, History in Focus, Issue 9, Autumn 2005.

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Evelyn Hamilton has annoyed her bosses in the male-dominated world of pharmacy - they find her quiet and independent nature mystifying and odd. After an unhappy stint at a druggist shop outside London, she's landed a new job and a fresh start in a faraway town. 

In February 1942, Evelyn sets out on her long journey – just as the Blackout Ripper is hunting for his first victim… 

Join hosts Hallie Rubenhold and Alice Fiennes as they traces Evelyn's life and struggles; and with the help of Lauren Ober (host of The Loudest Girl in the World podcast) examine why the quiet pharmacist's demeanour provoked such hostility.  

Sources:

Andrews, Maggie and Lomas, Janis. The Home Front in Britain: Images, Myths and Forgotten Experiences since 1914 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

Diniejko, Dr. Andrzej. ‘A Chronology of Social Change and Social Reform in Great Britain in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries’, The Victorian Web, 2014

Neale, Alexa. ‘Case Files For Murder Trials: The Case of Cyril Johnson’, “Domestic Murder” She Wrote, September 2016

Webb, Laura and Webb, Kevin. ‘Selina Cooper: The Story of a Working Class Suffragist’, March 2019, UK Vote 100

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London's West End - once a glittering Mecca of nightlife - is pitch black. The lights are off to hide the city from waves of Nazi bombers - but in the darkness a merciless killer is hunting down the women of this district. 

Join hosts Hallie Rubenhold and Alice Fiennes as they walk those bomb-damaged streets to tell the stories of the women targeted by this "Blackout Ripper" over the course of just one week in 1942. 

You'll glimpse inside the theaters, jazz joints and dive bars of Piccadilly and Soho; witness deadly air raids; and criss cross the blacked out streets where a serial killer lurks. You'll learn too of the hardships that blighted the lives of many women in wartime, and the extent of the violence they faced at the hands of men from their own side in the conflict. 

Sources: 

Bone, James. London Echoing (London: Jonathan Cape, 1948)

Caddick-Adams, Peter. Sand and Steel: A New History of D-Day (London: Penguin Random House, 2019).

Cederwell, William. Reading London in Wartime: Blitz, the People and Propaganda in 1940s Literature (New York: Routledge, 2018). 

Farson, N. Bomber’s Moon (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1941).

 

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London is pitch black. It's wartime and the lights are out to confuse Nazi bombers. But in this darkness a killer as warped and as violent as Jack the Ripper is hunting for women night after night in the bomb-damaged streets. 

The women murdered by the so-called Blackout Ripper received little sympathy at the time and have been largely forgotten since. So historian Hallie Rubenhold and criminologist Alice Fiennes have gathered fresh evidence about the rich and complex lives of the women - and revealing what put them in the path of a killer. 

Bad Women: The Blackout Ripper starts with a double episode drop on Oct 11. 

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We'll be dropping a trailer for the new brand new season of Bad Women next week. But in the meantime, here’s a preview from Death of an Artist, a new podcast from Pushkin Industries.

For more than 35 years, accusations of murder shrouded one of the art world’s most storied couples: Was the famous sculptor Carl Andre involved in the death of his up-and-coming artist wife Ana Mendieta? Host Helen Molesworth revisits Mendieta’s death, taking a closer look at how she might have fallen out of the window of  Carl’s 34th floor New York apartment, and the following trial which has divided the art world since 1985.

Hear more from Death of an Artist at https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/artist?sid=women.

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