THE GIRLS WHO FOUGHT CRIME

A retired Army major general unearths the story of one of the first detectives in the New York Police Department.

Eder chronicles the life and work of Mary “Mae” Vermell Foley (1886-1967), who was raised by Irish and French immigrants in the gang-infested Gas House District of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Sharp, energetic, and determined to make her own way in the world, she began working for the city when she was 17. From clerking at a settlement house to organizing for the Women’s Police Reserve under the auspices of the newly formed International Association of Policewomen (1915), Foley was interested in police work from an early age. Married with small children, she convinced her husband that the police force was the future. With the passage of the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act, it was an opportune time for her to join the NYPD. By the time Foley was selected and began her training in 1923, there were 55 women serving as “full police officers,” making the department 8% female. Early on, Foley spent time on the “Masher Squad,” which “had the mission of stopping perverts and other so-called mashers bent on harassing or even assaulting women on the streets of New York, at subway stations, and even in movie theaters.” Widowed in 1928, Foley became a detective in Queens, serving in the homicide division. In 1935, women were finally “issued their own uniforms.” Foley went on to serve under Manhattan District Attorney Thomas Dewey, protecting female witnesses in the Luciano crime boss case, among others, and later worked undercover to expose the pro-Nazi actions of the German American Bund. She retired in 1945, and in 1961, the borough of Queens proclaimed her birthday Mae Foley Day. Though the prose is average, Eder presents an informative historical portrait of a largely unknown trailblazer.

An inspiring work about a persistent woman who succeeded in a challenging profession.