In the 1920s, the role of women in public life was changing. They could vote, drive, and hold jobs formerly reserved for men, and they reflected this freedom by wearing short hair and shorter skirts than their mothers. Most noticeable were the party girls who drank and danced and were known as flappers. Rebecca Bradley wasn't that kind of woman. She was a graduate student who also held a job and took care of her elderly mother, but she wore her hair short, so the newspapers branded her as a flapper when she was caught robbing two banks -by herself- in Texas. Her very appearance led bank employees to trust her up until the moment she made off with the money.
Newspapers recognized a sensational story when they saw it. Bradley was pretty and petite, and the sexy headlines about her crime sold a lot of papers. She wasn't even the only "flapper bandit" of the time, because who needs facts when you've got a sympathetic criminal to write about? Even the justice system was confused. How could such a pretty young woman pull of these crimes? Read about Rebecca Bradley and her criminal activities at Atlas Obscura.