Augusta Tabor: Her Side of the Scandal — Key Ideas to Explore

The Interview as Narrative Frame

The booklet's structure hinges on the October 1883 interview, which Bancroft uses as a springboard to recount events from 1880 to 1883. Augusta receives the reporter in her 'elegantly furnished sitting-room' at 97 Broadway, a mansion obtained through her divorce settlement. The interview headline—'Mrs. Tabor No. 1 makes some spicy revelations'—indicates the public appetite for scandal. Bancroft weaves in details from court proceedings, such as Augusta's courtroom exclamation 'Not willingly, Oh God, not willingly!' when granting the divorce. This reliance on a single interview and legal testimony gives the narrative a narrow, episodic quality, focusing on key confrontations rather than a comprehensive biography.

Property and Leverage in the Divorce

Augusta's financial acumen emerges as a central theme. In December 1880, she bought a third interest in the Windsor Hotel, where her husband later installed Baby Doe. Bancroft notes that Augusta used her ownership to 'check up regularly on activities,' implying the two women may have passed in the lobby. She refused to sell her share despite pressure from Tabor and manager Bill Bush, who wanted controlling interest. Her lawsuit for $50,000 annual alimony in 1882 listed Tabor's holdings at $9,410,000, but the court threw it out. Eventually, in January 1883, she traded the divorce for property worth about $300,000. The excerpts show a pattern of strategic resistance—holding the hotel stake, delaying the divorce—that Bancroft presents as Augusta's primary form of agency.

The Unanswered Letter and Public Silence

A revealing detail is Augusta's letter to Horace after he built the Tabor Grand Opera House, apologizing for 'what I had said in the heat of passion' and asking to attend the opening night and accompany him to Washington as a senator's wife. Bancroft reports that this letter was found among Baby Doe's papers after her death, and that 'no one knows how, or if, it was answered.' The Tabor box remained empty on opening night. This episode underscores Augusta's shifting position—from public defiance to private conciliation—and the limits of her influence. The booklet does not reveal the letter's response, leaving the reader with an unresolved gesture. Bancroft's use of such archival fragments gives the work a documentary feel, though the excerpts do not clarify whether the author interprets this as a turning point or a mere curiosity.

Readers should approach this booklet as a focused account of a public scandal rather than a full biography. Bancroft's reliance on the 1883 interview and legal records means that Augusta's voice is filtered through journalistic and courtroom conventions. The narrative skips over her earlier life and later years, concentrating on the period 1880-1883. Those interested in the broader context of the Tabor story may wish to consult Bancroft's companion booklet on Baby Doe, but this work stands as a deliberate presentation of one side of the story, grounded in specific documentary evidence.

Reading about Augusta Tabor’s quiet, stubborn dignity reminded me of long afternoons with The Trail of the Goldseekers: A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse — Story, Setting & Ideas. Both feel like voices from a raw, unfinished West—one a woman holding her ground, the other a traveler moving through that same immense loneliness. The echo lingered, soft and true.