The hangman's knot : lynching, legal execution, and America's struggle with the death penalty / Eliza Steelwater.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Steelwater, Eliza.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Capital punishment--United States--History.

Capital punishment.

Executions and executioners.

History.

United States.

Executions and executioners--United States--History.

Physical Description:

ix, 280 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Boulder, Colo. : Westview Press, [2003]

Contents:

Introduction: The Hanging of George Woods 1

1 "The Right Type of Case" Capital Punishment, Prisoners without Capital, and Public Support for Executions 11

2 The Worst of the Worst: Puritans, Punishment, and Political Power 21

3 "A Vast Circle of People" Authority, Public Execution, and Crowd Control 39

4 "Darkness, Threatening, Ruins, Terror" The Penitentiary and Capital Punishment 51

5 The Will of the People: Early Reactions Against Capital Punishment 63

6 Legacy of Conquest: Civil War, Slavery, and the First Ku Klux Klan 75

7 Shivaree: Punishment by Mob 87

8 "Let Each Man Be His Own Executioner" Rise of the San Francisco Vigilantes 97

9 Takeover: Return of the San Francisco Vigilantes 109

10 Boots, Bullets, and Big Bucks: The Vigilante Myth 121

11 "Beaten All to Smash" Labor, the Robber Barons, and the Law 133

12 "Death and Destruction to the System" Labor on Trial 149

13 White on White Terrorism after the Civil War 161

14 "Serving Your Racial Needs" Colonel Simmons's Ku Klux Klan 171

15 "Foreigners and Negroes" Discrimination, Lynching, and the Penalty of Death 185

16 A Clean, Well-Lighted Place: Death-Penalty Reform in the Progressive Era 203

17 "Evolving Standards of Decency" Civil Rights and Abolition of the Death Penalty 215

18 The Endless End of Capital Punishment 229.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 243-272) and index.

ISBN:

081334042X

OCLC:

52055145