Captive of the Labyrinth by Mary Jo Ignoffo

Author:Mary Jo Ignoffo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
Published: 2019-05-31T04:00:00+00:00

Few nineteenth-century American women have come down in history as parodied and as fractured as Sarah Winchester. A woman of many paradoxes, the wealthy Winchester worked. She did not enjoy leisure, the most prized goal of her class, gender, and social standing. She preferred work, and she spent her California days and her money building and rebuilding her large, rambling house, working as superintendent of the construction project, a decidedly unfeminine occupation, directing architectural and landscape design, tradesmen, and experimental utility installations. The work improved her emotional and physical health. In another time and place perhaps she would have pursued academic degrees in design or architecture, or at least a contractor's license.

In the rural and provincial Santa Clara Valley, Winchester was one of only a handful of extremely wealthy individuals. And although others built large, unwieldy homes, few carried as recognizable a name or so substantial an inheritance. The public linked Winchester to the large advertisements that the Winchester company ran in weekly newspapers across the country—ads that propelled the Winchester Model 1896 to outsell any other rifle in the world. Sarah underestimated the celebrity that accompanied her name and her money. She did not want public attention, yet she caused quite a stir by building a maze of a house out on a quiet country road. She wanted to work in peace, plodding along in a labyrinth of her own making, perhaps reflective of an equally complex interior life. Despite her best efforts, Sarah Winchester could not maintain the privacy she desired. Neighbors who wished to know her or have access to her were rebuffed. To the local people, she was an enigma. They did not know what to make of her. Eventually, they just made fun.

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