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In 1931, a Mrs. Hillyer wrote a letter to the Seattle Bureau of Prohibition. In the letter, she asks that they raid the home of her husband's Chinese bootlegger. You can see the letter in the Department of the Treasury General Records collection in the National Archives Catalog and posted below.
In 1931, a Mrs. Hillyer wrote a letter to the Seattle Bureau of Prohibition. In the letter, she asks that they raid the home of her husband's Chinese bootlegger. You can see the letter in the Department of the Treasury General Records collection in the National Archives Catalog and posted below.
This site and the "What If" project are inspired by Mrs. Hillyer's letter and wanting to know the rest of her story.
This site and the "What If" project are inspired by Mrs. Hillyer's letter and wanting to know the rest of her story.
The Letter
The Letter
Transcription:
El 0109 Tom Norton [handwritten upper left corner]
Possibly Mrs. Jack Hillyer 1921-3rd Ave- Apt 406 [handwritten top of page]
Received Sep 23 1931 Bureau of Prohibition Special Agents Seattle, Wash. [stamp]
Seattle, Wash.
Sept. 22, 1931
Dear Sir:
My husband is in the habit of buying a quart of wiskey [sic] every other day from a Chinese bootlegger named Chin Waugh living at 317- 16th near Alder Street.
We need this money for household expenses. Will you please have his place raided? He keeps a supply planted in the garden and a smaller quantity under the back steps for quick delivery. If you make the raid at 9:30 any morning you will be sure to get the goods and Chin also as he leaves the house at 10 o'clock and may clean up before he goes.
Thanking you in advance
I remain
yours truly,
Mrs. Hillyer
Dr. Lisa D’Adamo- Weinstein. (2024). ChatGPT 4.0 [Generative AI]. ChatGPT (Sept 11 version)
Prompt - Create an image of Mrs. Hillyer writing the letter to the Bureau of Prohibition in 1931 Seattle, Washington. Include a bottle of whiskey and her husband in the image.
Who is Mrs. Hillyer?
Who is Mrs. Hillyer?
Little is known about Mrs. Hillyer herself. Tom Norton, who logged in the letter to the Bureau of Prohibition noted that she was "Possibly Mrs. Jack Hillyer 1921-3rd Ave- Apt 406"
I have begun ancestry research in order to find out more about the Mrs. Hillyer story.
I also created a FB group to help get the word out about the project.
Here is what I have preliminarily found out:
There was a Jack Hillyer who lived at the address noted as possible on the letter by Tom Norton, and there is an entry in the 1930 Seattle phonebook.
Upon contact with descendants found through Ancestry.com, we know that Glenna Wilke Hillyer who is also known as Mrs. Jack Hillyer, is not likely the author of the letter since the Hillyers did not wed until 1937
I you would like to contribute research skills or content to the Mrs. Hillyer project, please contact me at either - Lisa.DAdamo-Weinstein@sunyempire.edu or dr.lisadw@gmail.com.
Prohibition
Prohibition
The National Prohibition Act (more commonly referred to at the Volstead Act) was ratified in 1919 and was the way in which enforcement could happen for the 18th Amendment which amended the Constitution "to prohibit manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes."
The videos to the right provide some context and background on Prohibition in general, but for our purposes, we will focus on what was happening in Seattle in and around the time of Mrs. Hillyer's letter.
Seattle voted in 1916 to "go dry". Brad Holden discusses this in his book, Seattle Prohibition: Bootleggers, Rumrunners & Graft in the Queen City; a Rise Seattle May 14, 2019 podcast titled Brad Holden: Seattle Prohibition: Bootleggers, Rumrunners and Graft in the Queen City; and video about the history of Prohibition and rum runners and bootleggers in Seattle, Washington in the early 1900s.
The "What If" Project
The "What If" Project
Students in my Stories We Think We Know course at SUNY Empire State University are asked to create creative non-fiction responses to letters written by women from the American Revolution to the present day. One of the letters is the letter written by Mrs. Hillyer. Some of these responses inspired by Mrs. Hillyer's plea to the Seattle Bureau of Prohibition are just wonderful imaginings of the rest of the Mrs. Hillyer story, and they inspired this "What If" project.
Several students who took the course over the last 4 years will work together with me to create an online performance (and possibly in person) of creative nonfiction letters inspired by Mrs. Hillyer's. Some students have written from the perspective of agents in the Bureau of Prohibition (building on their research from the Seattle Conspiracy Case), the bootlegger's lawyer, Mr. Hillyer, and even other letters "written" by Mrs. Hillyer to friends or family.
All of these letters come from the imagination of the students leading us to wonder not only who Mrs. Hillyer is and what happened to her, but also the "what ifs" of potential storylines in these creative nonfiction epistolary creations.
Presentations
Presentations
Mrs. Hillyer "What If" Project. Empire State University 2023 Spring Student Conference, Desmond Hotel, Latham, N.Y., April 13-15, 2023. Materials accessible on Slideshare.
Narratives We Think We Know. Presentation at the Spring 2022 SUNY Empire State College Student Academic Conference, April 8, 2022. Materials accessible on Slideshare.
Learning and Letters: A Course and OER Development Journey. Virtual presentation at the Fall Academic Conference, SUNY Empire State College, October 27, 2021. Materials accessible on Slideshare.
![A person holding a bottle ready to throw it to the floor in a room with bottles and boxes of alcohol. Dr. Lisa D’Adamo- Weinstein. (2024). ChatGPT 4.0 [Generative AI]. ChatGPT (Sept 11 version) Prompt - Create a black and white photo realistic picture of a man breaking bottles during the 1930s and prohibition era.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/sitesv/AICyYdZkX_HHQkH2sOjgixfhwFb-JC88OIS5NG7X5Afa_RqcQpdVIoMJwGf7MpNEV-LHv1N3KjFRS4in1qhdGCW1oO7qHVO2KbrX9OMjt6HXYhuzAOA75o5U2IFyxQrR6jI5ajNU2HRFBzVQPVLLVhJ4dWlL5XL17EOGIjuDs-SD4G4lNNkGIw8lzWXR=w1280)
Image Source:
Dr. Lisa D’Adamo- Weinstein. (2024). ChatGPT 4.0 [Generative AI]. ChatGPT (Sept 11 version)
Prompt - Create a black and white photo-realistic image of a man breaking bottles during the 1930s and prohibition era.
All questions, comments, and inquiries about being included in the project should be sent to:
Lisa D'Adamo-Weinstein, Ph.D.
Coordinator of Interdisciplinary and Multidisciplinary Studies
& Visiting Associate Professor, School of Arts & Humanities
Lisa.DAdamo-Weinstein@sunyempire.edu
dr.lisadw@gmail.com
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