发表于2016年5月2日
By: Jen Manion
犯罪,惩罚和流行文化,1790至1920年是材料的兴趣在性别,性别表达,和性欲的历史学者和学生宝库。刑事账户通过突出生活,动作,和那些谁越过了所谓的可接受行为线路的动机提供了一个解释性窗口进入的时代的文化。女子非法活动,如盗窃,抢劫,袭击,谋杀或参与普遍耸人听闻两个审判和报纸记录,给这样一个账户色彩性行为无论多么看似平凡。源材料,从报纸的报道审判的手稿组织记录煽情毛钱的范围小说,让读者从不同的角度接近一个奇异的话题。历史学家可以检查的人一起种族,阶级,性别,或图表的变化随着时间的推移这些法规的线治疗。
Billings, Hammatt, and Gridley James Fox Bryant. View of the New Jail for Suffolk County, in the State of Massachusetts, Erecting by the City of Boston upon Charles & North Grove Sts: 1848 Josiah Quincy Jr. Mayor: G.J.F. Bryant Architect; H. Billings Del. [1848]. MS Nineteenth Century Crime: Literature, Reports, and True Crime from the American Antiquarian Society 152081. American Antiquarian Society.犯罪, Punishment, and Popular Culture 1790-1920.
Scholars are increasingly viewing the carceral state as an extensive network of institutions—from policing authorities, holding pens, and county jails to almshouses, hospitals, asylums, and houses of refuge—with deep roots throughout the country. There are many important inquiries in this area for historians of gender and sexuality working at the intersection of race and slavery. One story points to the unusual acquittal of an enslaved man for murder. Titled “Trial of a Slaver for Murder,” the article describes a slave named Richard who killed an enslaved woman named Maria under the orders of his mistress. The court ruled, “Whenever a slave, in the presence and command of his owners, committed an unlawful act, as murder or other crime, he was the mere instrument of his owner’s cruelty, and having no will of his own, could not be amenable to the punishment of the law.” This short account invites far more questions than it answers and is a starting point for exploration of criminal justice in slave holding Charleston, especially given the concluding sentence of the article: “The mistress is, therefore to be tried for killing Maria.”[i]