What do you think?
Rate this book
The Bobbed Haired Bandit: A Story of Crime and Celebrity in 1920s New York
On January 5, 1924, a well-dressed young woman, accompanied by a male companion, walked into a Brooklyn grocery, pulled a “baby automatic” from the pocket of her fur coat, emptied the cash register, and escaped into the night. Dubbed “the Bobbed Haired Bandit” by the press, the petite thief continued her escapades in the months that followed, pulling off increasingly spectacular robberies, writing taunting notes to police officials, and eluding the biggest manhunt in New York City history. When laundress Celia Cooney was finally caught in Florida and brought back to New York, media attention grew to a fever pitch. Crowds gathered at the courts and jails where she appeared, the public clamored to know her story, and newspapers and magazines nationwide obliged by publishing sensational front-page articles.
Celia Cooney was a celebrity, a symbol of the lawlessness of Prohibition-era New York City, a cultural icon of the Jazz Age. The Bobbed Haired Bandit captures what William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper called “the strangest, weirdest, most dramatic, most tragic human interest story ever told.”
A wild ride . . . a thumping good read . . . It’s true crime, it’s top-notch American history, it’s flat-out fun–grab it.”
–Caleb Carr, author of The Alienist
“Riveting . . . an absolute winner.”
– Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“With crisp prose and a lively selection of newspaper photographs, headlines, cartoons, and excerpts, authors Stephen Duncombe and Andrew Mattson tell a story of an outlaw couple and, through them, the story of an era.”
–The Boston Globe
“A phenomenally complete work of historical gripping, suspenseful, fast-moving, kaleidoscopic, gimlet-eyed, analytic, penetrating, sympathetic, and oddly tender.”
–Luc Sante, author of Low Life
“Fascinating . . . [a] historical account that reads like Doctorow.”
– Crimespree Magazine
“Brings alive the darker side of flapper-era Manhattan.”
– Entertainment Weekly
Celia Cooney was a celebrity, a symbol of the lawlessness of Prohibition-era New York City, a cultural icon of the Jazz Age. The Bobbed Haired Bandit captures what William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper called “the strangest, weirdest, most dramatic, most tragic human interest story ever told.”
A wild ride . . . a thumping good read . . . It’s true crime, it’s top-notch American history, it’s flat-out fun–grab it.”
–Caleb Carr, author of The Alienist
“Riveting . . . an absolute winner.”
– Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“With crisp prose and a lively selection of newspaper photographs, headlines, cartoons, and excerpts, authors Stephen Duncombe and Andrew Mattson tell a story of an outlaw couple and, through them, the story of an era.”
–The Boston Globe
“A phenomenally complete work of historical gripping, suspenseful, fast-moving, kaleidoscopic, gimlet-eyed, analytic, penetrating, sympathetic, and oddly tender.”
–Luc Sante, author of Low Life
“Fascinating . . . [a] historical account that reads like Doctorow.”
– Crimespree Magazine
“Brings alive the darker side of flapper-era Manhattan.”
– Entertainment Weekly
416 pages, Paperback
First published February 6, 2006
5 people are currently reading
228 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
October 3, 2025
You can be forgiven if you've never heard of Cecilia Cooney aka the "Bobbed Hair Bandit." She and her husband were hardly Bonnie & Clyde, but they had their 15 minutes of fame in New York City in 1924. The two pulled off a series of small store robberies in their Brooklyn neighborhood yet eluded the police for months. The fact that Cecilia was barely 5 feet tall but brandished guns with the bravado of an Amazon garnered headlines. When she started to taunt the police with notes left at the crime scenes, her celebrity grew exponentially. Spoiler alert: the pair did not go down in a rain of bullets, but they were eventually caught and sentenced. Since they didn't kill anyone, the electric chair was not employed. Their story post-prison was also a bit unusual.
I really enjoyed this book due to author Stephen Duncombe's style. The story is presented in a way that the reader gets swept up in the media frenzy and we understand why thousands of "fans" turned up to get a glimpse of them every time they were transported to jail and court. The editorializing regarding Cecilia's impact on feminism, corrupt policing, prohibition and other themes was interesting and did not detract from the story.
I really enjoyed this book due to author Stephen Duncombe's style. The story is presented in a way that the reader gets swept up in the media frenzy and we understand why thousands of "fans" turned up to get a glimpse of them every time they were transported to jail and court. The editorializing regarding Cecilia's impact on feminism, corrupt policing, prohibition and other themes was interesting and did not detract from the story.
June 13, 2023
I recently had my first-ever trip to NYC and took this book along since it seemed like it might be a good companion. It's a sturdy if not spectacular telling of a largely forgotten media sensation of the 1920s, but more so than that it is concerned with media depictions and how it can mold and shape a story.
Celia and Ed Cooney are working class New Yorkers who get married and Celia is soon pregnant. In Celia's telling (much of the story is related in her own words, or rather the words of her ghostwriter at the time) she was concerned that her child should not grow up in the poverty she experienced, and so she and Ed started holding up stores to provide for the coming baby.
In the media, she soon became the "Bobbed Haired Bandit," a daring woman hold-up artist who taunted her victims and left notes for the police about her exploits. Duncombe takes us through each of her and Ed's robberies to the extent that they are really known, explores her personal life including a pretty sordid upbringing, and generally gives us a decent insight into who the "real" Celia Cooney was. I have to admit that this portion of the book was a little more dull than I was hoping for; there is not all that much genuine excitement generated out of these robberies with the exception of the last one, and the eventual capture of the duo is a fait accompli.
The real interest of the book is more to do with how different media portrayed the Bob Haired Bandit to suit the interests or needs of their readership. Duncombe says that in 1924 there were something like 14 daily newspapers publishing in New York, and the majority of them covered Cooney in one way or another. In some tellings, she is a lawless young woman (the bob haircut signaling modernity) only out of kicks. In some, she is a pitiable mother-to-be trying to provide for her coming baby.
Often she is a sort of stand-in for a woman who is subverting traditional gender roles, ordering her partner around and generally leading the operation. Duncombe is a professor of media-related stuff (technical term) and it is easy to see that this is the angle that really interested him in the story. It's an engaging example of how a story can be manipulated for the benefit of different audiences.
In the end the book is a kind of hybrid of faux true-crime lit with the academic work sitting adjacent to it. It's not edge-of-your-seat beach reading but the discussion of media narratives is old enough to be shorn of political significance you would find in an examination of more recent events and their coverage, and I can imagine that such a thing could be useful in a classroom setting.
Celia and Ed Cooney are working class New Yorkers who get married and Celia is soon pregnant. In Celia's telling (much of the story is related in her own words, or rather the words of her ghostwriter at the time) she was concerned that her child should not grow up in the poverty she experienced, and so she and Ed started holding up stores to provide for the coming baby.
In the media, she soon became the "Bobbed Haired Bandit," a daring woman hold-up artist who taunted her victims and left notes for the police about her exploits. Duncombe takes us through each of her and Ed's robberies to the extent that they are really known, explores her personal life including a pretty sordid upbringing, and generally gives us a decent insight into who the "real" Celia Cooney was. I have to admit that this portion of the book was a little more dull than I was hoping for; there is not all that much genuine excitement generated out of these robberies with the exception of the last one, and the eventual capture of the duo is a fait accompli.
The real interest of the book is more to do with how different media portrayed the Bob Haired Bandit to suit the interests or needs of their readership. Duncombe says that in 1924 there were something like 14 daily newspapers publishing in New York, and the majority of them covered Cooney in one way or another. In some tellings, she is a lawless young woman (the bob haircut signaling modernity) only out of kicks. In some, she is a pitiable mother-to-be trying to provide for her coming baby.
Often she is a sort of stand-in for a woman who is subverting traditional gender roles, ordering her partner around and generally leading the operation. Duncombe is a professor of media-related stuff (technical term) and it is easy to see that this is the angle that really interested him in the story. It's an engaging example of how a story can be manipulated for the benefit of different audiences.
In the end the book is a kind of hybrid of faux true-crime lit with the academic work sitting adjacent to it. It's not edge-of-your-seat beach reading but the discussion of media narratives is old enough to be shorn of political significance you would find in an examination of more recent events and their coverage, and I can imagine that such a thing could be useful in a classroom setting.
November 1, 2025
I liked the fact that the narrative took from contemporary primary source material, even though much of the material available was scanty in that it was more a critique of society as a whole than a character study of the actual bandits. There would have to be a lot of rewrites to make them into Hollywood anti-heroes. Cecelia Cooney was no Bonnie Parker. As an expectant mother, she just wanted a nice home for her baby. And Bonnie and Clyde robbed banks, killed people, and stayed on the lam for months. The Cooney's never got more than about twenty dollars after their first big lucky score of about six hundred dollars.
However the newspapers made much of it largely because the crimes were perpetrated by a woman (which was a novelty) and they seemed to have an axe to grind against the police. Failure to catch a girl bandit was a made them look stupid like the Keystone Cops. Celia's husband Ed, if he was named at all, took a back seat and was derided as a hen-pecked "dufus" even if he was in fact, the impetus behind the robberies if not the sole mastermind. I felt as though they were sort of like a young Fred and Ethel Mertz. They were kind of reckless and stupid and even I cannot believe the police did not catch them sooner. They never strayed outside of a ten block radius of their house and police were watching the kinds of places they routinely robbed. And yes, they were doing all this while she was in the advanced stages of pregnancy.
The sociological "sob sister" explanation for these crimes which was popular at the time posited that Cecelia was a victim of bad genetics and grinding poverty. The law and order conservatives wanted to throw the book at 'em and throw away the key even if they were by no means the worst criminals in 1924.
And boy did they need a crash course in financial literacy! When you throw in the fact that in the easy credit was a new thing, you can see why even lottery winners end up bankrupt in a few years. They immediately spent the proceeds of their "big score" all on new furniture and moved into a house they could not afford. I would have liked to go back in a time machine and tell them to forget the nice stuff and invest your six hundred dollars in RCA stock... and sell it in the early part of 1929. [Edit: I looked this up and it went from something like five dollars per share to four hundred dollars per share during this time].
And later after they had served their time, they got a reprieve and bucked the system again by winning "litigation lotto." However, they made the same dumb mistake again.
However the newspapers made much of it largely because the crimes were perpetrated by a woman (which was a novelty) and they seemed to have an axe to grind against the police. Failure to catch a girl bandit was a made them look stupid like the Keystone Cops. Celia's husband Ed, if he was named at all, took a back seat and was derided as a hen-pecked "dufus" even if he was in fact, the impetus behind the robberies if not the sole mastermind. I felt as though they were sort of like a young Fred and Ethel Mertz. They were kind of reckless and stupid and even I cannot believe the police did not catch them sooner. They never strayed outside of a ten block radius of their house and police were watching the kinds of places they routinely robbed. And yes, they were doing all this while she was in the advanced stages of pregnancy.
The sociological "sob sister" explanation for these crimes which was popular at the time posited that Cecelia was a victim of bad genetics and grinding poverty. The law and order conservatives wanted to throw the book at 'em and throw away the key even if they were by no means the worst criminals in 1924.
And boy did they need a crash course in financial literacy! When you throw in the fact that in the easy credit was a new thing, you can see why even lottery winners end up bankrupt in a few years. They immediately spent the proceeds of their "big score" all on new furniture and moved into a house they could not afford. I would have liked to go back in a time machine and tell them to forget the nice stuff and invest your six hundred dollars in RCA stock... and sell it in the early part of 1929. [Edit: I looked this up and it went from something like five dollars per share to four hundred dollars per share during this time].
And later after they had served their time, they got a reprieve and bucked the system again by winning "litigation lotto." However, they made the same dumb mistake again.
November 14, 2020
Being a fan of both the 1920s and NYC, I can't believe I was unfamiliar with this story. Very well written; I found only a couple of typos (moterman? really?). It includes interesting information about newspapers, the police department, politicians, and social conditions of that time and place, as well as lots of details about Celia (the title character) and her husband. I've been giving away a lot of my books, but this is one I'll keep, in hopes of meeting the authors someday. :)
April 7, 2024
A very enjoyable look at New York in the 1920s and the social and cultural climate that made the Bobbed Haired Bandit all the rage!
January 16, 2025
All I could think of was Chicago and ALL THAT JAZZ. Wonder if Celia served as the inspiration behind Roxie Hart though I believe that she was concurrent now that I’m thinking.
March 6, 2014
In 1924 New York, a young woman and her husband went on a short robbery spree, holding up grocery stores and drug stores in Brooklyn. The woman, Celia Cooney, had dark bobbed hair. She was pregnant, and she and her husband Ed wanted more of the good life for themselves and for their baby. The robbed ten stores before fleeing to Florida, where they were caught and returned to face a trial. The pled guilty, were sentenced to 10-20 years, served seven, and went straight afterwards. Not a very gripping story, and certainly not an unusual one. Yet this 2-month crime spree gripped New York and the rest of the country as the "yellow press" spun the story into a year's worth of frenzied newspaper accounts that made Celia the biggest celebrity of her day--with crowds of thousands of people trying to catch a glimpse of the Bobbed Haired Bandit wherever she appeared in public after her arrest. Poor Ed got no coverage at all, except to suggest he must be a "cake eater" or a "nancy-boy." After all, no "real man" would be bossed by a woman.
In 1924, a woman bandit was unthinkable. Women simply didn't commit violent crimes unless they were insane, and Celia was definitely not insane. She enjoyed her crimes and the power the gun gave her over a group of cowering men. She enjoyed what the money bought her. Widespread opinion associated bobbed hair with sin and mental illness--fathers and husbands forbade their women from cutting their long tresses or going out at night, lest they be driven to a life of crime.
The newspaper's reaction to the crime spree, such as it was, mightily embarrassed the New York police. tough cops couldn't catch a tiny young woman? How humiliating! Jobs were at stake; the newspapers screamed insults at the police, but the Cooneys remained at large and active. The police, said the newspapers, were either incompetent or on the take--either way they deserved firing. Then Celia and Ed were caught, and the pitiful story of her childhood emerged, turning her into a poster child for society's failure to care for the most vulnerable.
All in all, The Bobbed Haired Bandit is a great book if you are interested in a comment on the times, which of course I am. Since my mysteries take place in 1924 and 1925--although not in New York--I found the authors' use of primary sources helpful because they revealed the language of the day, words I can work into my own stories. Words like nifty and simp (simple or stupid). Mentally impaired people were known (politely) as morons or feeble-minded. I can also use descriptions of what people were wearing at the time. This book was a hit for me!
In 1924, a woman bandit was unthinkable. Women simply didn't commit violent crimes unless they were insane, and Celia was definitely not insane. She enjoyed her crimes and the power the gun gave her over a group of cowering men. She enjoyed what the money bought her. Widespread opinion associated bobbed hair with sin and mental illness--fathers and husbands forbade their women from cutting their long tresses or going out at night, lest they be driven to a life of crime.
The newspaper's reaction to the crime spree, such as it was, mightily embarrassed the New York police. tough cops couldn't catch a tiny young woman? How humiliating! Jobs were at stake; the newspapers screamed insults at the police, but the Cooneys remained at large and active. The police, said the newspapers, were either incompetent or on the take--either way they deserved firing. Then Celia and Ed were caught, and the pitiful story of her childhood emerged, turning her into a poster child for society's failure to care for the most vulnerable.
All in all, The Bobbed Haired Bandit is a great book if you are interested in a comment on the times, which of course I am. Since my mysteries take place in 1924 and 1925--although not in New York--I found the authors' use of primary sources helpful because they revealed the language of the day, words I can work into my own stories. Words like nifty and simp (simple or stupid). Mentally impaired people were known (politely) as morons or feeble-minded. I can also use descriptions of what people were wearing at the time. This book was a hit for me!
July 2, 2016
Stephen Duncombe uses the story of Celia and Ed Cooney to explore the broader picture of New York at a time when women were starting to really emerge from the domestic-only sphere of home and children. The Cooney's series of small-time store robberies probably would have been just another crime story if Celia hadn't been the lead robber (she would pull the gun first and make the demands and Ed would back her up) and if her hairstyle hadn't been a convenient hook for fears about these modern girls and where the country was headed.
Duncombe tells the story from as many angles as possible: Celia's own reminiscences; the newspapers, hungry for copy and happy to write to the chosen narrative; the police, under pressure to stop the "gun girl" and her "tall companion"; and other suspects, some caught up by accident, some looking to be included in Celia's fame.
Duncombe tells the story from as many angles as possible: Celia's own reminiscences; the newspapers, hungry for copy and happy to write to the chosen narrative; the police, under pressure to stop the "gun girl" and her "tall companion"; and other suspects, some caught up by accident, some looking to be included in Celia's fame.
June 10, 2010
I have read a lot of old newspapers c 1924 for my historical work and I either missed or din't remember The Bobbed Haired Bandit. Authors Stephen Duncome and Andrew Mattson fixed that.
Two things I especially liked about the book were (1)without pretension or arrogance the self-creation and self-awareness of Celia Cooney and (2) the Bobbed Haired Bandit as the nexus of "social issues" of the day: crime, poverty, class, feminism, gender roles, motherhood, and fashion, to name a few. And Celia's willingness to crawl back into the woodwork so-to-speak after she got out of prison. Celia was smart, fiesty, and resilient. She deserved better.
Two things I especially liked about the book were (1)without pretension or arrogance the self-creation and self-awareness of Celia Cooney and (2) the Bobbed Haired Bandit as the nexus of "social issues" of the day: crime, poverty, class, feminism, gender roles, motherhood, and fashion, to name a few. And Celia's willingness to crawl back into the woodwork so-to-speak after she got out of prison. Celia was smart, fiesty, and resilient. She deserved better.
Read
June 13, 2013The story of Celia Cooney and her husband Ed who reached fame in NYC in 1924 when they pulled off a series of robberies of grocery stores. Newspapers went wild with the story for the few months the two were on the run and the police were mocked for being outwitted by a girl. The two were captured in Jacksonville, Florida and served seven years in prison. Celia went on to live a normal life raising two sons who had no idea of her early fame. Well researched. Another of the Tenement Museum books.
February 27, 2012
If there's such a thing as a "fun" true crime book, this is it. It's a fascinating story and the authors make it even more so with their obviously meticulous research, their penchant for vivid detail and their unique thesis--namely, that facts aren't ever simply recorded, history is always created with intent. The structure is effective and the intersperces photos and graphic reference material keep the text from ever getting dry. Completely engrossing!
January 26, 2016
Bobbed is an interesting book, mainly because the subject of it is an interesting person. The story of a laundry girl turned a hold-up artist is thoroughly fascinting both as a biography and as a social commentary.
March 10, 2011
Thrilling! Makes me wish I were born in the 1920s even more than I do now. Read it if you like EXCITEMENT! CRIME! FLAPPERS!
August 18, 2014
I thought this would be more of a true crime book whereas I felt it was actually a social commentary. It was okay, and I enjoyed reading about Celia and Ed.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews