THE NEW YORK TIMES, SEPTEMBER 8, 1895 – Mrs. Clara McArthur of 167 [sic] East One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Street, the young woman who attempted to jump from the Brooklyn Bridge ten days ago, but was prevented from doing so by the police, dropped off quietly in the darkness at 3:30 o’clock yesterday morning, and she is now in the Hudson Street Hospital, a prisoner, charged with attempted suicide. Although when she was picked up she was unconscious, she had apparently entirely recovered from the effects of her daring feat by 7 o’clock A.M.
The latest bridge jumper seems to have been moved to the feat not so much by desire for notoriety as by her wish to earn a living for her husband who is a railroad man out of work, and her five year old child. The man has been without work for some time, and the family has been living in poverty. Mrs. McArthur had been told how easily she could earn $100 a week by jumping from the bridge, and afterward appearing in a dime museum.
Mrs. McArthur was driven to the bridge in a furniture van…
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I swear, I did not make that last part up.
Clara survived, but I was unable to find out if she made her fortune and saved her family by appearing at dime museums like Barnum’s and Ripley’s. I hope she did.
I hope you do, too. Sometimes you have to get a little crazy to get ahead.