Book excerpt: Modesty on the line in "The Summer of Death"

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In 1936, America suffered a devasting heat wave that resulted in five thousand deaths. But not all civic responses to the health emergency were reasonable.

In "The Summer of Death: The Great Heat Wave of 1936 and the Making of Modern-Day America" (published by Pegasus Books), author Geoff Williams recounts the actions taken in one Kentucky city with regard to the heat – namely, setting out to arrest women whose warm-weather attire was considered too revealing.

Read the excerpt below, and don't miss Mo Rocca's interview with Geoff Williams on "CBS Sunday Morning" August 16! 

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Kentucky

A group of guys patrolled the streets, seeking teenage girls and women dressed in shorts and halter tops on the streets of Covington. These men weren't being creeps per se. A woman police officer named Elizabeth Cohran requested that her colleagues keep an eye out for any girls or women wearing any clothing that was deemed too revealing.

Miss Cohran was a product of her time, and the girls she was trying to look out for were a product of theirs. Cohran was a rarity in 1936 — a female police officer, known then as a police matron. The unmarried former nurse handled situations that the city government believed needed a woman's delicate touch. For instance, if the authorities were looking for a teenage runaway girl, Cohran would get involved. If a young woman was pregnant and needed to find a home for her baby, Cohran was on the job. If a woman was the victim of abuse, you'd call Miss Cohran.

She did a lot of good in Covington, but this summer, she arguably went too far. She wanted any girl over the age of ten cited for indecent exposure if they were caught outside wearing scanty outfits, such as shorts.

"The heat of the past few days has brought them out," Cohran told a reporter. "Now, I think the shorts and halters are perfectly lovely in the right place. The streets, however, are no place for them."

She had been on a crusade against hot-weather garments since late the previous year. Not everyone in the area agreed with how Cohran saw things.

"I don't think that under the law, shorts and halters would be defined as contributing to indecent exposure. They seem to have become an accepted custom," said John Ames, acting secretary director of Cincinnati, in an interview.

Still, Cohran may have had a point, if you look at it from the viewpoint of a woman born in 1891. Maybe she encountered a lot of male deviants who couldn't handle women wearing skimpy clothing. Cohran was living in an age in which masculinity and youth were prized (she shaved four years from her age when she applied to the police force). She probably believed she was saving young women from predators by ensuring they were well clothed.

Excerpted from "The Summer of Death: The Great Heat Wave of 1936 and the Making of Modern Day America" by Geoff Williams. Published by Pegasus Books, June 2026. Reprinted by permission. 

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"The Summer of Death" by Geoff Williams

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• "The Summer of Death: The Great Heat Wave of 1936 and the Making of Modern-Day America" by Geoff Williams (Pegasus Books), in Hardcover, eBook and Audio formats