Research Catalog

Title

Lizzie Borden on trial : murder, ethnicity, and gender / Joseph A. Conforti.

Author

Conforti, Joseph A.

Publication

Lawrence, Kansas : University Press of Kansas, [2015]

Supplementary Content

Cover image

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xii, 241 pages; 23 cm.

Summary

"Most people could probably tell you that Lizzie Borden "took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks," but few could say that, when tried, Lizzie Borden was acquitted, and fewer still, why. In Joseph A. Conforti's engrossing retelling, the case of Lizzie Borden, sensational in itself, also opens a window on a time and place in American history and culture. Surprising for how much it reveals about a legend so ostensibly familiar, Conforti's account is also fascinating for what it tells us about the world that Lizzie Borden inhabited. As Conforti--himself a native of Fall River, the site of the infamous murders--introduces us to Lizzie and her father and step-mother, he shows us why who they were matters almost as much to the trial's outcome as the actual events of August 4, 1892. Lizzie, for instance, was an unmarried woman of some privilege, a prominent religious woman who fit the profile of what some characterized as a "Protestant nun." She was also part of a class of moneyed women emerging in the late 19th century who had the means but did not marry, choosing instead to pursue good works and at times careers in the helping professions. Many of her contemporaries, we learn, particularly those of her class, found it impossible to believe that a woman of her background could commit such a gruesome murder. As he relates the details, known and presumed, of the murder and the subsequent trial, Conforti also fills in that background. His vividly written account creates a complete picture of the Fall River of the time, as Yankee families like the Bordens, made wealthy by textile factories, began to feel the economic and cultural pressures of the teeming population of native and foreign-born who worked at the spindles and bobbins. Conforti situates Lizzie's austere household, uneasily balanced between the well-to-do and the poor, within this social and cultural milieu--laying the groundwork for the murder and the trial, as well as the outsize reaction that reverberates to our day. As Peter C. Hoffer remarks in his preface, there are many popular and fictional accounts of this still-controversial case, "but none so readable or so well-balanced as this.""--

Series Statement

Landmark Law Cases & American Society

Uniform Title

Landmark law cases & American society.

Subjects

• HISTORY / United States / 19th Century
• Murder > Investigation > Massachusetts > Fall River
• Murder > Massachusetts > Fall River
• Borden, Lizzie, 1860-1927 > Trials, litigation, etc
• Trials (Murder) > Massachusetts > New Bedford
• TRUE CRIME / General
• Women > Massachusetts > Fall River > Social conditions > 19th century
• LAW / Criminal Law / General

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

1. Setting: The Bordens of Fall River -- 2. The Bordens of Second Street -- 3. The Crime Heard 'round the Country and Beyond -- 4. The Investigation -- 5. Arrest -- 6. "Probably Guilty" -- 7. Lizzie's Long Wait -- 8. Prosecuting Lizzie -- 9. The Court's Heavy Hand -- 10. Defending Lizzie -- 11. Verdict.

Call Number

JFD 15-1174

ISBN

• 9780700620715
• 0700620710
• 9780700620722 (canceled/invalid)
• 0700620729 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2014048865

OCLC

895730838

Author

Conforti, Joseph A., author.

Title

Lizzie Borden on trial : murder, ethnicity, and gender / Joseph A. Conforti.

Publisher

Lawrence, Kansas : University Press of Kansas, [2015]

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Landmark Law Cases & American Society

Landmark law cases & American society.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Connect to:

Cover image

Research Call Number

JFD 15-1174