On a rainy January morning in 1898, Sadie Williams boarded the Blue Island Avenue cable car on her way to a funeral. The car was empty except for one other woman and the conductor, so she picked a seat toward the back and settled in the for the trip to 26th Street and California Avenue. Two men jumped on the car near Harrison Street.

When the conductor bent over to shovel more coal into the stove, one of the newcomers pinned the conductor's arms behind his back while the other began to rifle through his pockets. The conductor struggled to get free.

According to the Tribune, Williams leapt forward, saying, "See here, you can't fight here." One of the men hit her and pushed her into a nearby seat. She quickly stood up again, raising her hand to her hat and pulling out a long pin. Then, "holding it like a dagger," she plunged the hatpin into the man's chest.

She didn't stop the robber from escaping. But she did help start a revolution.

A hatpin, for those who've never seen one, is a pretty thing. At the turn of the 20th century, women tucked these long pins, often with delicate filigree or jewels at the head, into their large, heavy hats to secure them to their hair. The average hatpin clocked in at 8 inches long. A big hat needs a big pin, after all.

It was the dawn of a new era for many women. The suffragettes were pushing for the right to vote, and women — particularly those who lived in wealthier urban areas — began to explore smaller freedoms. Some started to take public transportation alone or walk without an escort at night.

And men noticed. "The present attitude of American women invites aggression," the Tribune wrote in a 1911 story about women's self-defense. "Given, therefore, a dark, deserted street, a woman glancing timidly from side to side, a vagabond, perhaps well dressed, probably inflamed with alcohol, and the stage is set for robbery and tragedy."

In particular, "mashers" — men who made unwanted advances on women in public — started to plague women who braved cable cars, trains and crowded streets. Then, as now, there was also the chance of being mugged or assaulted.

At the time, it was a misdemeanor — for both men and women — to carry a concealed firearm in Chicago. Likewise, it was illegal to carry most types of knives. The prevailing wisdom was that a woman with a weapon would more likely do damage to herself than her attacker.

The Tribune's self-defense story noted that "Women have an odd fear of firearms, but all women can and do carry a parasol or an umbrella. In the umbrella, the woman of courage and skill has a weapon of considerable merit." It went on to offer the modern woman instructions for defending herself with an umbrella, specifically how to "thrust with speed, force and precision, and to have perfect command of her feet."

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But some women who wanted to strike out on their own found a more practical self-defense solution: their hatpins. And, for a time, people loved the audacity of it.

On a visit to Manhattan, Kan., in the fall of 1900, then-governor of New York, Theodore Roosevelt, witnessed a "hatpin brigade." A large crowd had gathered to hear Roosevelt speak. Men began climbing on railings to see better, blocking women's views. When the men refused to get down, a woman yelled, "Try your hatpins!" Several women advanced forward, each "with hatpin in hand and blood in her eye." The men fled. The women prevailed. And Roosevelt appreciated "heartily this exhibition of strenuous life." For "no man, however courageous he may be, likes to face a resolute woman with a hatpin in her hand."

But over the next few years, the hatpin began to lose its charm. Doctors complained of male patients who had been accidentally stabbed in the eye by overly large hatpins — some "sword shaped" and as long as 30 inches — sticking out of women's hats.

Women also crossed pins with each other. In the spring of 1910, the Tribune published a short news item about two women — identified only with their husbands' names — who were dragged apart by the police for dueling with their hatpins in Lake Forest. Mrs. Joseph Smith of Highland Park attacked Mrs. Otto Ekstrant of Lake Forest when she saw Mrs. Ekstrant with her husband, who had left her three months before. The fight, which lasted for 20 minutes, began when the women, "without formalities, rushed together, each drawing a hatpin for the attack."

"The only visible wound after the women had jabbed viciously with their ugly weapons for so many minutes," the Tribune reported, "was a bad scratch in the corner of Mrs. Smith's right eye. Smith was minus a hat and part of his hair."

Joseph Smith bailed Mrs. Ekstrant out of jail — and left his wife in the hands of the police.

That same spring, the Chicago City Council drafted an ordinance to restrict the length of hatpins. Nan Davis, the daughter of a steel manufacturer who took late classes downtown, wrote a letter to the mayor and the council begging them to quash the ordinance. She explained that "a hatpin is a woman's weapon of defense. ... I always feel safe going home at night with a hatpin available for protection."

But Ald. Herman Bauler, who wrote the ordinance, ultimately won the battle, pleading "for the 'mere men' whose scarred faces and punctured anatomies demonstrated too close proximity to the slender blades." Mayor Fred Busse signed the ordinance in late March 1910. Within two years, the head of the council's health committee was advocating for an even stricter limit on hatpin length. The Illinois legislature also debated a bill to regulate hatpins.

Some civic groups encouraged women to scream or use whistles to scare away attackers, arguing that "revolvers of the ladylike, pearl handled variety and hatpins have been relegated to the past as too scientific."

But in the end, the hatpin's ultimate undoing was fashion. Big hats were out. The sleek, short bob was in.

Still, when its popularity was at its height, the hatpin offered women an opportunity to embrace their independence and show their nerve. Case in point: Sadie Williams.

When the conductor of the Blue Island Avenue cable car was asked about Williams coming to his aid, he hit the pin on the head: "If it hadn't been for the bravery of that woman they would have robbed me. She put up a better fight than a good many men would. The way she jabbed her hatpin into that man was a great sight. There's no doubt about her pluck."

Elizabeth Greiwe is the Tribune's Voice of the People editor.