Ruth Wheeler (1894-1910) Maple Section

Ruth Wheeler was a 15 year old young woman who lived in Manhattan. She was just beginning her secretarial career after graduating business school in 1910. Her employer would send her to different residences to do secretarial work.

She received a postal card for employment through her employment agency. She arrived at work to an establishment which turned out to be an apartment in a four story tenement on East 75th Street.

She was hired as a stenographer, and her pay at that time was 7 dollars a week.

The person who hired her was Albert Wolter, a 20 year old man, who was in the habit of sending postcards to many young woman with the hopes of luring them. Mr. Wolter murdered this young woman, first strangling her, then setting her on fire while still alive with lamp oil, and then dismembering her and trying to hide her body parts. He had marked down Ruth’s age, height and weight on a piece of paper the police found later. They also found improper photographs of many young girls.

Although Albert Wolter never confessed, he was convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair at Sing Sing two years later in 1912.

Because of the ease in which a woman could be lured to a strange location through an agency, a new law was put into effect in 1912, called “The White Slave Act”, which held employment agencies responsible for the verified credentials of their clients. Her death created strict standards for the innocent girls looking for honest work.

Ruth Wheeler’s Sunday school memorialized her in a touching service with all the members dressed and white, and they referred to her as “Saint Ruth”, and promised she would be memorialized there forever.