Isabella Goodwin

Isabella Goodwin (née Loghry) was an American police officer and the first female detective in New York City.

Isabella Goodwin Seaholm
Isabella Goodwin, c.1915
Born	Isabella Loghry (1865-02-20)February 20, 1865 Greenwich Village, New York City, U.S.
Died	October 26, 1943(1943-10-26) (aged 77–78) New York City, U.S.
Burial place	Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn
Occupation	American police officer.
Spouses	John W. Goodwin ​ ​ (m. 1884; died 1896)​ Oscar A. Seaholm ​ (m. 1921)​

Biography

Isabella Loghry was born in Greenwich Village, Manhattan in 1865^[1] to James Harvey Loghry and Anna J. Monteith, who ran a restaurant and hotel on Canal Street. Around 1885, aged 19, she married John W. Goodwin, a police officer. The couple had six children, of which four survived.^[1][2] Goodwin was widowed in 1896, when she was 30 years old.^[3]

The New York City police department had only started hiring women (“police matrons") to look after female and child prisoners in 1881. When Goodwin applied for a job after her husband died, she had to pass an exam then was hired as a jail matron by then police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt, who later became the president of the United States.^[4][1] It was a low paid position, making only $1000/year, and she only had one day off each month.^[3][1] She served in this position for 15 years. During this time, she began going undercover to investigate crimes, and her mother watched her children.^[5][1][6]

In 1912, there was a case involving a midday robbery where "taxi bandits" beat up two clerks and stole $25,000 in downtown Manhattan.^[7] Even with 60 detectives assigned to the case, no one could solve the robbery.^[1][8] The story was followed nationally, according to a New York Times article at the time. After going undercover, Goodwin cracked the case.^[9][10][11] As a result, she was appointed as New York's first female detective and given the rank of 1st grade lieutenant.^[5][3][12] Her salary was raised from $1000 to $2,250/year.^[1] During her career, she specialized in exposing fortune tellers and swindlers.^[8]

In 1921, she married^[13] a man who was thirty two years younger than her. She continued working after her marriage, which was not common at the time for a woman.^[12][1] When she retired, she had worked for the NYC police department for thirty years.^[1]

In popular media

• The book The Fearless Mrs. Goodwin by Elizabeth Mitchell was based on Goodwin's life.^[5][14]
• In the television period drama series The Alienist, Dakota Fanning's character, Sara Howard, is also based on Goodwin's life.^[10]

See also

• Mary Shanley - another woman NYPD detective
• Mary A. Sullivan - another woman NYPD detective who was head of the Policewomen's Bureau as well