How does a woman succeed in a man’s world? In the 19th century American West, most accepted what society offered. Find her man, marry her, have children, then commit to a life of washing, cooking and sewing; tough, relentless and invariably ungrateful.
But some women had none of this. Everything a man could do, they argued, a woman could do too. And they showed it. Some, notably Annie Oakley, spoke out with a gun. Another thing the game table. The cards were a great equalizer of the sexes and three women in particular demonstrated how.
Alice Ivers (1851-1930)
When you marry an American mining engineer, Alice agreed, the mining camps of states like Colorado and Texas become your home. You may be the only woman in a rough, tough man’s world only relieved by drinking and gambling. Originally from Devon, England, the girl played the society ‘game’, to a degree. She sewed and cooked for her husband Frank.
But if he can have fun playing it, Alice reasoned, why can’t I? So she followed Frank into the card room and found that she was good at cards, very good. Particularly poker. Just how good, casinos like The Gold Dust in Deadwood, Colorado quickly found out. Here was a woman, they realized, who was a ‘natural’ poker player. One with a good head for numbers who could quickly weigh the odds. Someone who could keep a straight poker face. She became known as ‘Poker Alice’ for good reason.
Alice was quite capable of making $6000 in one night and breaking the bank. The owners realized it was better to have this little 5’4″ beauty with shiny brown hair working for you as a merchant. Men were drawn to her table like flies to a spider’s web. Mesmerized by her appearance, distracted by the cigars that she loved to smoke, many felt humiliated by her skill with cards.
“I’d rather play poker,” Alice once quipped, “with five or six ‘experts,’ than eat.” Except for a Sunday. A strict moral upbringing and strong religious convictions guided her to the end, even as she in later years ‘diversified’ into prostitution.
And no one crossed it. Everyone knew that she kept a .38 pistol in the voluminous folds of her fashionable dresses, purchased on her frequent shopping trips to New York. And she wasn’t afraid to use it.
Eleanor Dumont (1834 – 1879)
Few consciously quarreled with Eleanor. She’s certainly not the drunken miner who nicknamed her ‘Madame Mustache’, alluding to the lock of her hair on her upper lip. A rare woman in the California gold rush mining camps, everyone knew she kept a derringer pistol under her skirt. To accost this lady and demand her purse, as two gentlemen discovered one night, was to invite an explosion of lead. Neither of them, it is recorded, waited for it to recharge.
Like Alice, Eleanor was an accomplished card player who outclassed men. An early professional Blackjack player, her skill as a dealer and card counter was legendary. Few men surpassed her. Many tried it as they flocked to the tables at Dumont’s Palace, the card joint she ran with another professional player, David Tobin.
Everyone knew the entry rules: dress smartly, behave properly, and no women allowed. The all-male clientele fell in love with her elegant, bejeweled hostess, who soothed them with her calm dignity and deflected her troubles with her sharp wit. Most soon got used to the lady rolling her own cigarettes and drinking champagne.
As time stole his appearance, he became more difficult to charm and disarm; prostitution was added to the career portfolio. The poised and elegant hostess became the character of the room, exchanging ribald banter over a glass of whiskey.
But Eleanor never lost her passion for cards, nor her principles. Even though her jealous rivals maligned her as a sharp card dealer, she upheld to the end her reputation as an honest merchant who never failed to pay a debt. When her luck finally ran out at the gambling table and the money lent her by a friend could not be repaid, Eleanor slipped quietly out of the room and out of her life, aided by a glass of morphine-laced wine. A note found next to her body stated simply that she had “gone tired of life”.
Lottie Deno (1844-1934)
What was a southern belle, from a prosperous Kentucky family, doing in Fort Griffin, Texas, in the 1870s? This outpost, near the Texas Panhandle, was one of the wildest frontier towns of its day, home to notoriety on both sides of the law, from Sheriff Pat Garrett to Billy The Kid, a place, people said. , who “had a man for breakfast every morning”.
However, this striking redhead, with a personality that shone as brightly as her brown eyes, revealed herself in her notoriety and took advantage of her booming economy. This was a city full of cash from high bison prices, much of it spent at The Beehive gambling hall. In addition to good looks, Lottie was a talented card player, who thrived separating men from her money, including notorious gunfighter and card player, Doc Holliday, whom Lottie relieved for $3000 one night.
His strict Episcopalian family would have been horrified. But the woman born Carlotta J.Thompkins made sure they never found out, hiding behind a series of pseudonyms of which Lottie Deno was the most famous. An abbreviation for Dinero, Spanish for money, she won after she beat all the participants in a hand of poker. A drunken voice from a far corner of the bar called out, “Honey, with winnings like that, you should be called Lotta Money.”
His father, a successful racehorse breeder who died fighting for the Confederacy, could have won around him. But he would have been quietly pleased. His daughter ‘flipped cardboard boards’ with a skill and passion to match her own. All those hours spent teaching young Lottie about cards, on steamboats and in the best card rooms of New Orleans, had been worth it.
And she carried herself like the Southern Lady she’d been bred to, exuding class to the last. A lady with impeccable manners, who expected the same from others: no one dared to drink, swear, or smoke at her table. A woman to trust, whose word was her bond.
And she was smart. It’s rare that a gambler’s luck lasts forever, but Lottie Deno was that rarity. She retired with her earnings intact and aged in comfortable retirement, with her only husband, Frank.
as good as any man
Three women, each one very different from the others, all with a gift: a natural ability to play cards. It’s not enough on its own to survive in a world of men, but the three of them took advantage of this ability. They proved that they were as good as any man through strength of character, innate intelligence, and sheer determination.