Ashea Wabe
Ashea Wabe became front-page news item in 1896 after she danced at a swank Fifth Avenue bachelor party for Herbert Seeley. A rival promoter reported that Wabe was going to dance nude and the party was raided by the vice squad. Though the raid precluded Ms. Wabe from completing her "act," she nonetheless admitted to local authorities that she had been paid to dance and pose "in the all-together," a euphemism for sans clothing. Theodore Roosevelt, then a New York City Police Commissioner, supported the police captain who conducted the raid and who was subsequently vilified by the city media for interfering with a party held by upstanding gentlemen. Only later did the story come out that Ms. Wabe (a.k.a. Little India) had every intention of performing in the nude and would have done so had the police raid not occurred.
The raid brought some amount of fame to Wabe. She was hired by Broadway impresario Oscar Hammerstein I to appear as herself in a humorous parody of the Seeley dinner. She might have then been forgotten except for a series of photographs taken by Benjamin Falk.
On January 5, 1908, she was found dead in her apartment at 236 West 37th Street, New York City, by her sister, having apparently died from gas asphyxiation. She was said to have left an estate of over $200,000.
Read more about this topic: Little Egypt (dancer)