By Nikolai Kotkov
Between 1910 and 1919, a series of axe attacks disrupted the steady flow of life in New Orleans. An unknown figure broke into people’s houses, took the victims’ own blade, attacked them, and proceeded to escape from the scene without taking any valuables. Despite the fact that the Axeman was never caught, his figure became a legendary symbol in New Orleans urban folklore. This paper does not attempt to solve the mystery of the murderer’s identity, but rather focuses on the public reactions to these murders, as they might help to reveal certain aspects of New Orleans society during the early twentieth century. The major argument of this research focuses on the connection between the Axeman murders and the city’s anxieties about such groups as Italian immigrants, German residents, and different political factions within the city.
One of the most popular explanations at the time was the rumor that the Axeman was connected to the Italian Mafia, as most of the victims were Italian grocers. This idea came from long-standing suspicion of Italians in New Orleans, dating back to the 1890 assassination of Police Chief David Hennessy, who was rumored to have been killed by the organized Mafia. Beginning in the 1890s and continuing into the 1910s, politicians, newspapers, and the police often portrayed Italians as dangerous or corrupt. Therefore, a sudden wave of axe murders in the Italian community was explained through their alleged connection to criminal organizations such as Mafia. Modern-day historians reject the idea of a powerful Mafia in New Orleans at that time, but the theory’s popularity reveals how and why people thought that the Axeman may have been related to the Mafia.
Another popular theory blamed the Axeman on a German spy. This idea emerged during World War I, when anti-German views were high and the government encouraged citizens to report suspicious behavior. The newspapers and police were disturbed by the fact that one of the victims was Polish instead of Italian. Moreover, his neighbors shared information that he was able to speak several languages and had rich traveling experience. All of these factors combined led to the rumor that he was a German spy responsible for attacking other people as part of a greater plan. This theory attracted substantial attention, as even federal agents were asked to investigate the case. They did not find any evidence, but the story still demonstrates how wartime fears were connected to the murders of the Axeman.
Moreover, the way police picked suspects also reflected social and racial biases. They tended to be those on the margins of society, starting with a drug-addicted petty criminal and ending with Black laborers. All of these suspects lacked any major evidence against them, but they were selected to fill gaps in the investigation, as their profiles fit into the stereotypes of the mentally unstable, dangerous, or racially suspect. It can be argued that these arrests were more about reassuring the public than finding the killer. The only serious suspect who attracted attention from media, police, and scholars was a criminal named Joseph Mumfre, who became linked to the Axeman only after his own murder by a victim’s widow. Newspapers portrayed him as the killer, as the murders in New Orleans stopped after his death, but the existing evidence shows that his identification was false.
Overall, these theories seem to suggest that the legendary status of the Axeman grew from the killer’s mysterious identity as well as New Orleans’ own social and ethnic fears. The murders became a way for people to express anxieties about immigration, war, and social outsiders. Retrospectively, the figure of the Axeman can be considered a mirror that showed who was considered part of the city and who was not.
