The Hanging Of Ephraim Wheeler

Author : Irene Quenzler Brown,Richard D. Brown
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 428 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2005-04-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9780674249240

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The Hanging of Ephraim Wheeler by Irene Quenzler Brown,Richard D. Brown Pdf

In 1806 an anxious crowd of thousands descended upon Lenox, Massachusetts, for the public hanging of Ephraim Wheeler, condemned for the rape of his thirteen-year-old daughter, Betsy. Not all witnesses believed justice had triumphed. The death penalty had become controversial; no one had been executed for rape in Massachusetts in more than a quarter century. Wheeler maintained his innocence. Over one hundred local citizens petitioned for his pardon--including, most remarkably, Betsy and her mother. Impoverished, illiterate, a failed farmer who married into a mixed-race family and clashed routinely with his wife, Wheeler existed on the margins of society. Using the trial report to reconstruct the tragic crime and drawing on Wheeler's jailhouse autobiography to unravel his troubled family history, Irene Quenzler Brown and Richard D. Brown illuminate a rarely seen slice of early America. They imaginatively and sensitively explore issues of family violence, poverty, gender, race and class, religion, and capital punishment, revealing similarities between death penalty politics in America today and two hundred years ago. Beautifully crafted, engagingly written, this unforgettable story probes deeply held beliefs about morality and about the nature of justice.

Author : Lynn Sacco
Publisher : JHU Press
Page : 364 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2009-08-17
Category : History
ISBN : 9780801893001

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Unspeakable by Lynn Sacco Pdf

First place, Large Nonprofit Publishers Illustrated Covers, 2010 Washington Book PublishersNamed one of the Top Five Books of 2009 by Anne Grant, The Providence Journal This history of father-daughter incest in the United States explains how cultural mores and political needs distorted attitudes toward and medical knowledge of patriarchal sexual abuse at a time when the nation was committed to the familial power of white fathers and the idealized white family. For much of the nineteenth century, father-daughter incest was understood to take place among all classes, and legal and extralegal attempts to deal with it tended to be swift and severe. But public understanding changed markedly during the Progressive Era, when accusations of incest began to be directed exclusively toward immigrants, blacks, and the lower socioeconomic classes. Focusing on early twentieth-century reform movements and that era’s epidemic of child gonorrhea, Lynn Sacco argues that middle- and upper-class white males, too, molested female children in their households, even as official records of their acts declined dramatically. Sacco draws on a wealth of sources, including professional journals, medical and court records, and private and public accounts, to explain how racial politics and professional self-interest among doctors, social workers, and professionals in allied fields drove claims and evidence of incest among middle- and upper-class white families into the shadows. The new feminism of the 1970s, she finds, brought allegations of father-daughter incest back into the light, creating new societal tensions. Against several different historical backdrops—public accusations of incest against “genteel” men in the nineteenth century, the epidemic of gonorrhea among young girls in the early twentieth century, and adult women’s incest narratives in the mid-to late twentieth century—Sacco demonstrates that attitude shifts about patriarchal sexual abuse were influenced by a variety of individuals and groups seeking to protect their own interests.

Author : Elaine Forman Crane
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2018-05-15
Category : Family & Relationships
ISBN : 9781501721335

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The Poison Plot by Elaine Forman Crane Pdf

"Explores in colonial Newport, Rhode Island, the tumultuous marriage of Benedict and Mary Arnold in the 1720s and 1730s. In and through their sordid and possibly criminal marital story, in which Mary is accused of poisoning Benedict, Crane sheds light on the liabilities and possibilities for women under couverture, the complex social and economic networks that bound together the elite and laboring classes of Newport, and the trans-oceanic cultures of trade, consumption, and sociability that came to shape expectations for marital satisfaction on both sides of the Atlantic"--

Author : Lawrence M. Friedman
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
Page : 238 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2015-05-04
Category : Law
ISBN : 9780700620777

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The Big Trial by Lawrence M. Friedman Pdf

The trial of O. J. Simpson was a sensation, avidly followed by millions of people, but it was also, in a sense, nothing new. One hundred years earlier the Lizzie Borden trial had held the nation in thrall. The names (and the crimes) may change, but the appeal is enduring—and why this is, how it works, and what it means are what Lawrence Friedman investigates in The Big Trial. What is it about these cases that captures the public imagination? Are the “headline trials” of our period different from those of a century or two ago? And what do we learn from them, about the nature of our society, past and present? To get a clearer picture, Friedman first identifies what certain headline trials have in common, then considers particular cases within each grouping. The political trial, for instance, embraces treason and spying, dissenters and radicals, and, to varying degrees, corruption and fraud. Celebrity trials involve the famous—whether victims, as in the case of Charles Manson, or defendants as disparate as Fatty Arbuckle and William Kennedy Smith—but certain high-profile cases, such as those Friedman categorizes as tabloid trials, can also create celebrities. The fascination of whodunit trials can be found in the mystery surrounding the case: Are we sure about O. J. Simpson? What about Claus von Bulow—tried, in another sensational case, for sending his wife into a coma.? An especially interesting type of case Friedman groups under the rubric worm in the bud. These are cases, such as that of Lizzie Borden, that seem to put society itself on trial; they raise fundamental social questions and often suggest hidden and secret pathologies. And finally, a small but important group of cases proceed from moral panic, the Salem witchcraft trials being the classic instance, though Friedman also considers recent examples. Though they might differ in significant ways, these types of trials also have important similarities. Most notably, they invariably raise questions about identity (Who is this defendant? A villain? An innocent unfairly accused?). And in this respect, The Big Trial shows us, the headline trial reflects a critical aspect of modern society. Reaching across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the latest outrage, from congressional hearings to lynching and vigilante justice to public punishment, from Dr. Sam Sheppard (the “fugitive”) to Jeffrey Dahmer (the “cannibal”), The Rosenbergs to Timothy McVeigh, the book presents a complex picture of headline trials as displays of power—moments of “didactic theater”" that demonstrate in one way or another whether a society is fair, whom it protects, and whose interest it serves.

Author : Estelle B. Freedman
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 414 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2013-09-03
Category : History
ISBN : 9780674728493

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Redefining Rape by Estelle B. Freedman Pdf

The uproar over "legitimate rape" during the 2012 U.S. elections confirms that rape remains a word in flux, subject to political power and social privilege. Redefining Rape describes the forces that have shaped the meaning of sexual violence in the U.S., through the experiences of accusers, assailants, and advocates for change.

Author : Julie Keppen,Lisa Kumar
Publisher : Contemporary Authors
Page : 472 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2004-09
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0787667048

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Contemporary Authors by Julie Keppen,Lisa Kumar Pdf

Find biographical information on more than 115,000 modern novelists, poets, playwrights, nonfiction writers, journalists and scriptwriters. Sketches typically include personal information, addresses, career history, writings, work in progress, biographical and critical sources, authors' comments and informative essays about their lives and work. A softcover cumulative index is published twice per year (included in subscription).

Author : Tracey Watson
Publisher : Contemporary Authors New Revis
Page : 472 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2005-04
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0787667285

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Contemporary Authors New Revision Series by Tracey Watson Pdf

A biographical and bibliographical guide to current writers in all fields including poetry, fiction and nonfiction, journalism, drama, television and movies. Information is provided by the authors themselves or drawn from published interviews, feature stories, book reviews and other materials provided by the authors/publishers.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 634 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2004
Category : United States
ISBN : STANFORD:36105123415437

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American Spirit by Anonim Pdf

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 1628 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2004
Category : Bibliography
ISBN : UOM:39015062055200

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The Book Review Digest by Anonim Pdf

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 908 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2004
Category : Academic libraries
ISBN : STANFORD:36105122345395

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Choice by Anonim Pdf

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 492 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2004
Category : Electronic
ISBN : BNC:5063389830

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HISTORICAL JOURNAL OF MASSACHUSETTS by Anonim Pdf

Author : Eileen Razzari Elrod
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : Christian biography
ISBN : STANFORD:36105124101218

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Piety and Dissent by Eileen Razzari Elrod Pdf

"For pious converts to Christianity in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century New England, all reality was shaped by religious devotion and biblical text. It is therefore not surprising that earnest believers who found themselves marginalized by their race or sex relied on their faith to reconcile the tension between the spiritual experience of rebirth and the social ordeal of exclusion and injustice. In 'Piety and dissent', Eileen Razzari Elrod examines the religious autobiographies of six early Americans who represented various sorts of marginality: John Marrant, Olaudah Equiano, and Jarena Lee, all of African or African American heritage; Samson Occom (Mohegan) and William Apess (Pequot); and Abigail Abbott Bailey, a white woman who was subjected to extreme domestic violence. Through close readings of these personal narratives, Elrod uncovers the complex rhetorical strategies employed by pious outsiders to challenge the particular kinds of oppression each experienced. She identifies recurrent ideals and images drawn from Scripture and Protestant tradition -- parables of liberation, rage, justice, and opposition to authority -- that allowed them to see resistance as a religious act and, more than that, imbued them with a sense of agency. What the life stories of these six individuals reveal, according to Elrod, is that conventional Christianity in early America was not the hegemonic force that church leaders at the time imagined and that many people since have believed it to be. Nor was there a clear distinction between personal piety and religious, social, and political resistance. To understand fully the role of religion in the early period of American letters, we must rethink some of our most fundamental assumptions about the function of Christian faith in the context of individual lives." --

Author : Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 728 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : African Americans
ISBN : STANFORD:36105026440888

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G.K. Hall Interdisciplinary Bibliographic Guide to Black Studies by Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Pdf

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 902 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2004
Category : Books
ISBN : STANFORD:36105122033348

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International Bibliography of Book Reviews of Scholarly Literature Chiefly in the Fields of Arts and Humanities and the Social Sciences by Anonim Pdf

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 758 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : American literature
ISBN : UCD:31175028564790

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The Publishers Weekly by Anonim Pdf