LADY HOOCH HUNTER - DAISY SIMPSON 1921 POSTER

From 1921, Daisy Simpson receives her PROHIBITION AGENT commission in San Francisco, a rarity for a woman in those days. She went on to become one of the top Agents in the Treasury Department. Known as the Lady Hooch Hunter, Simpson quickly attracted attention--and press--with her spectacular busts of Volstead Act violators. Simpson rapidly became a star in the sensationalist press of the 1920s. Her fame came from chasing down bootleggers and working undercover on the streets of San Francisco, but she also worked special assignments as far afield as Baltimore, Chicago, Milwaukee, and New York. While women gained the equal right to vote 1920, gender-based assignment of tasks endured. Women worked in the Treasury's Prohibition Unit, but their roles were limited to taking field notes or photographs for their male counterparts following a bust. However, a few women managed to become field agents themselves--the most famous of these was Daisy Simpson. Simpson's successful captures of bootleggers and rum runners, however, was not enough to help her escape the gender discrimination of her times. In 1925 a San Francisco Treasury Department official banned women from serving as field agents. Simpson, unwilling to face life behind a desk as a secretary or stenographer, resigned her post soon thereafter.