Fall River Outrage: Life, Murder, and Justice in Early Industrial New England / Edition 28

by David Richard Kasserman

Overview

Fall River Outrage recounts one of the most sensational and widely reported murder cases in early nineteenth-century America. When, in 1832, a pregnant mill worker was found hanged, the investigation implicated a prominent Methodist minister. Fearing adverse publicity, both the industrialists of Fall River and the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church engaged in energetic campaigns to obtain a favorable verdict. It was also one of the earliest attempts by American lawyers to prove their client innocent by assassinating the moral character of the female victim. Fall River Outrage provides insight in American social, legal, and labor history as well as women's studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780812212228
Publisher:	University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
Publication date:	05/28/1986
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.73(d)
Lexile:	1430L (what's this?)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

David Richard Kasserman taught anthropology at Glassboro State College. His interest in the Cornell-Avery trial grew out of his research on the American cotton industry.

Table of Contents

	List of Illustrations	ix
	Acknowledgments	xi
	Introduction	1
1.	The Outrage	5
2.	Beginning a Life in the Mills	29
3.	Ending a Life in the Mills	51
4.	The Minister	75
5.	Preliminary Engagements	99
6.	The Prosecution	133
7.	The Defense	159
8.	The Verdict	187
9.	Public Justice	213
	Conclusion	247
	Bibliography	255
	Index	273

Editorial Reviews

In 1832, Sarah Cornell, an unmarried, pregnant mill-worker, was found hanged. A married Methodist minister was charged with the murder; his defense depended on showing Cornell's depravity. The trial threw tensions into relief: traditional New England, the new industries, independent wage-earning women, growing Methodism. It attracted prominent lawyers, avid reporters, playwrights, and pamphleteers. Citizen-amateur investigators raised questions science could not yet answer. Kasserman scrupulously reconstructs events and supplies contexts for evaluation but avoids imposing interpretations, leaving readers to draw their own conclusions. The historical care will engage scholars and true-crime buffs. Sally Mitchell, English Dept., Temple Univ., Philadelphia

Library Journal

"A meticulous account that reads as engrossing as a modern murder mystery. . . . A deeply textured and highly readable book on which any such synthesis [about the social forces in Jacksonian America] must draw."—New York Times

"Kasserman scrupulously reconstructs events and supplies contexts for evaluation but avoids imposing interpretations, leaving readers to draw their own conclusions. The historical care will engage scholars and true-crime buffs."—Library Journal

From the Publisher