Cult Leader May Otis Blackburn and her daughter Ruth Wieland Rizzio, Los Angeles, 1929

Item Overview

Title

Cult Leader May Otis Blackburn and her daughter Ruth Wieland Rizzio, Los Angeles, 1929

Date Created

1929

Date

1929

Publisher

Los Angeles Times

Language

No linguistic content

Collection

Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection
OpenUCLA Collections

Notes

Description

May Otis Blackburn and her daughter Ruth Angelina Wieland Rizzio founded a cult called the Divine Order of the Royal Arms of the Great Eleven in the 1920s. The two women believed they were high priestesses who were charged by Angel Gabriel to write two books that would "reveal all the mysteries of life and death and heaven and earth." The cult was investigated in 1929 for the death of Willa Rhoads, a child, and the disappearance of some of the cult's members. All of these investigations were started by a complaint made by Clifford R. Dabney, who charged that he gave Blackburn $40,000 to finish writing the books but the books never materialized. Reported in "Pair Describe Death in Oven...," Los Angeles Times, 10 Oct. 1929: A2, and "Cult "Queen" Tells of Being Chained Two Months to Bed Post...," Los Angeles Times, 11 Oct. 1929: A2.

Caption

Handwritten on negative: Mrs. May Otis Blackburn, Ruth Wieland
Text from negative sleeve: Blackburn, May Otis. Cults. 1929

Physical Description

Extent

1 photograph

Dimensions

10 x 12.5 cm.

Medium

b&w glass negative

Keywords

Genre

news photographs
glass plate negatives

Names

Blackburn, May Otis, 1881-1951
Rizzio, Ruth Angelina Wieland

Location

Los Angeles (Calif.)

Resource type

still image

Subjects

Cults--California--Los Angeles