The Scandalous Lives of Carolina Belles Marie Boozer and Amelia Feaster

A look into the lives of a Civil War-era mother and daughter whose exploits were tabloid fodder and worthy of a reality show.

In Civil War Columbia, South Carolina, no women were more gossiped about than Amelia Feaster and her teenage daughter, Marie Boozer. The Philadelphia-born Feaster, a widow three times before her thirty-first birthday, aided the Union war effort from her home, while Marie became infamous for her beauty and vanity. For over a century, scandalous tales of these women have been published across the nation, linking them to rich and powerful men both at home and abroad. Historian Tom Elmore sorts through the many myths and legends—involving such things as adultery, decapitation and the Russian tsar’s jewels—about Feaster and Boozer to present the first fact-based biography of these two nineteenth-century tabloid queens.