12 AMERICAN HISTORY
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TConnor Scott
Brown
Jessica Wambach Brown (“Man vs.
Mountain,” p. 40) writes on a wide range
of topics from Kalispell, Montana. The
U.S. Army Historical Foundation has cho-
sen Brown’s most recent article, “Great
War in the Big Woods” (December 2018),
as a finalist in the foundation’s 2018 Dis-
tinguished Article competition.
Retired prosecutor Joseph Connor (“Born
in the USA,” p. 30) writes about historical
topics with resonant current-day connec-
tions. His most recent article was “High
Crimes” (February 2019).
Sarah Richardson (“Passing Fancy,” p. 50)
is senior editor of American History.
Archaeologist Stuart D. Scott PhD
(“Hard Labor,” p. 58) is retired from a
professorship at the State University of
New York at Buffalo. A former Fulbright
scholar, he has written extensively on
fieldwork in Latin America and the
South Pacific, including the 1837 Rebel-
lion narrative, To the Outskirts of Habit-
able Creation (iUniverse, 2013). He
writes in Tucson, Arizona.
On the Money
Thanks for a very fine publication; I enjoyed your article about Eliza-
beth Powel. William Bingham, to whom Mrs. Powel sold her house
(“Washington Danced Here,” April 2019), was not only a neighbor but
a relative through his marriage to Anne Willing, daughter of Eliza’s
brother Thomas and well known in numismatic circles. Family lore
has it that Anne’s was the face of Liberty gracing American silver and
copper coins 1795-1808. As the story goes, Anne posed for Gilbert
Stuart, from which portrait engraver Robert Scot fashioned the “Draped
Bust” of Liberty, above. No contemporaneous accounts confirm the leg-
end, but it’s nice to imagine that this was the face of Eliza’s niece.
David W. Lange, research director
Numismatic Guaranty Corporation
Sarasota, Florida
Maine Squeeze
If, as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1963 decision in Gideon v.
Wainwright, every other state has public defenders (“Trumpeting
Change,” February 2019), what’s the hitch in Maine’s legal getalong?
Barbara J. Thomas
Houston Texas
The editor replies: Rather than employ public defenders, the state of
Maine through its Commission on Indigent Legal Services hires pri-
vate attorneys at $60 per hour to provide representation.
Resettlement House
Members of my family always spoke highly of Hull House (“Secular
Saint Scorned,” April 2019). My mother, Eva Katz, her sister Ita, and
their brothers Abraham and Gregory, who arrived around 1925 from
Ekaterinaslav, Ukraine, in the Soviet Union, took English and civics
courses at Hull. The Katzes came in through Ellis Island. Their father,
Aaron, had been a prosperous baker in Ekaterinaslav. In 1923 he and
Abraham fled, winding up in Chicago. His wife, Anna—my grand-
mother—followed in 1925 with Eva, Gregory, and three much younger
children—Morris, Reuben, and Morton. Ita had to remain behind in
Hamburg, Germany, until she, too, was able to get to Chicago.
Robert Bermant
Thousand Oaks, California
Class Act
Eva Katz, on floor right,
graduated from the Hull
House school in 1925 with
sister Ita, in chair at far
left, and brothers
Abraham, in chair far
right, and Gregory, third
row, third from left.
Gregory Katz wed
teacher Emma Leavitt,
in third chair from left.