Post-Civil-War industrialization and urbanization put new stresses on American law and society. Criminal records reveal the circumstances where social strain boiled over into violence and unrest. Using this website, visitors can search the complete Chicago Police Department Homicide Record Index from 1870 to 1930, detailing more than 11,000 homicides, and read and watch accompanying contextual material that explores tensions between laborers, industry leaders, political ideologies, social reformers, organized crime, and more.
The core of the site is the "Interactive Database." Here, visitors can search cases using keyword, case number, date, circumstances (accident, manslaughter, homicide, number of victims, number of defendants, method of killing, involvement of alcohol), details about the victim and defendant (age, gender, race, occupation), victim/defendant relationship, and legal outcome. Searches return one-line case summaries including the date, names of people involved, case number, a description of the crime, and legal outcome. Clicking on a result brings up details on the particular crime: time, location, type of death/homicide and details of homicide, details on the victim(s) and defendant(s), police involvement, and legal outcome.
Contextualizing primary and secondary sources frame this bare-bones information. A timeline features a summary of one major event and up to five photographs for every year. "Historical Context" currently offers a second timeline highlighting links to up to 17 notable cases for each year and a section on children's lives in the city, with nine newspaper articles on child labor and obituaries for activist Florence Kelley and lawyer Levy Mayer. (Sections on labor and reform movements and people and events did not work at the time of this review.) In "Legal Content," visitors can read short essays on topics related to Chicago criminal and social history, including capital punishment, anti-corruption campaigns, the Chicago Police Department, judges, lawyers, criminology, prostitution, gambling, murder-suicides, and accidents. Each essay links to related cases and onsite and off-site documents. "Legal Content" also hosts 16 downloadable acts and statutes under "The Laws."
"Crimes of the Century" organizes links to related cases under 23 topics, including the 1919 Chicago race riot and the Haymarket Affair. "Publications," the most valuable part of the site for teachers looking for primary sources, archives the full text of 15 primary and secondary documents related to Chicago crime and social change. Here users can download in PDF form modern studies on the death penalty, crime and policing in Chicago, and the Haymarket Affair, or download primary sources such as law codes and crime reports, the Hull House Maps and Papers, Chicago Daily News articles exposing graft and corruption, 19th-century studies of Chicago's homeless, and contemporary commentary on the Haymarket Affair. Finally, visitors can watch 18 interviews with present-day professors, judges, and lawyers in "Videos."
Though difficult to navigate, this site has rich resources to help students and teachers explore the challenges of change at the turn of the century.
COO of the New England Genealogical Society D. Brenton Simons explores the criminal history of colonial Boston. He examines such issues as murders and murderers, including a serial murderer; con men; and witch trials. His presentation includes slides.
Audio and video options are available.
Crime historian Karen Elizabeth Chaney examines the case of Lizzie Bordan, accused of killing her father and stepmother with an ax in Fall River, MA, on August 4, 1892. Chaney focuses on the journalistic coverage of the case and the gender issues and sensationalism it dealt in.
Audio and video options are available.
Professor Alan Rogers describes the historical context of the 13 killings by the Boston Strangler from June 14, 1962 to Jan. 4, 1964 and details the crimes; the investigation; and the arrest, conviction, and sentencing of Albert DeSalvo.
Professor Eli C. Bortman describes the case and trials of Ferdinand Sacco (1891-1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (1888-1927), Italian-born anarchists charged with the armed robbery and murder of two Massachusetts payroll clerks in 1920. The case, which ended in Sacco and Vanzetti's execution in 1927, drew worldwide attention and criticism, for the alleged anti-immigrant, anti-Italian, and anti-anarchist sentiments that colored it and the uncertain guilt of the men. Bortman looks at the case from both sides—considering the men as both guilty and innocent.
Audio and video options are available.
Author Bruce Watson describes the lives and trials of Ferdinand Sacco (1891-1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (1888-1927), Italian-born anarchists charged with the armed robbery and murder of two Massachusetts payroll clerks in 1920. The case, which ended in Sacco and Vanzetti's execution in 1927, drew worldwide attention and criticism, for the alleged anti-immigrant, anti-Italian, and anti-anarchist sentiments that colored it and the uncertain guilt of the men. The presentation includes slides.
Jim McDonald, once lead interpreter of the Wythe House in Colonial Williamsburg, outlines the the murder of George Wythe and the trial that followed.
To listen to this podcast, select "All 2007 podcasts," and scroll to the June fourth program.
Valarie Holmes, an interpreter at Colonial Williamsburg, discusses the life of slave Lydia Broadnax, cook to George Wythe, whose role she plays.
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, also known as the Freedmen's Bureau, was established by the War Department in 1865 to supervise all relief and education activities for refugees and freedmen after the Civil War. The Bureau was responsible for issuing rations, clothing, and medicine, and had custody of confiscated lands in the former Confederate states and other designated territories. This website contains an extensive collection of Freedmen's Bureau records and reports.
Included are more than 100 transcriptions of reports on murders, riots, and "outrages" (any criminal offense) that occurred in the former Confederate states from 1865 to 1868. There are also 30 links to records and indexes of labor contracts between freedmen and planters between 1865 and 1872; seven links to related sites; six links to marriage records of freedmen, 18611872; and more than 100 miscellaneous state record items concerning freedmen.
The U.S. Department of Justice takes another look at the Emmett Till case in which a 14-year-old African-American boy was brutally murdered by two white men in Mississippi.
This feature is no longer available.