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Hannah Mary Tabbs and the disembodied torso : a tale of race, sex, and violence in America / Kali Nicole Gross.
LIBRA HV6534.P5 G76 2016
Available from offsite location
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Gross, Kali N., 1972- author.
- Series:
- Oxford scholarship online
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Tabbs, Hannah Mary.
- Murder--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--Case studies.
- Murder.
- Family violence--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--Case studies.
- Family violence.
- African Americans--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--Social conditions--19th century.
- African Americans.
- African American women--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--Social conditions--19th century.
- African American women.
- Multiracial people--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--Social conditions--19th century.
- Multiracial people.
- Race relations.
- History.
- Social conditions.
- United States--Race relations--History--19th century.
- United States.
- African American women--Social conditions.
- African Americans--Social conditions.
- Pennsylvania--Philadelphia.
- Genre:
- True crime literature.
- Case studies.
- History.
- True crime stories.
- Physical Description:
- 220 pages : illustrations, maps ; 22 cm.
- regular print
- Place of Publication:
- New York : Oxford University Press, [2016]
- Summary:
- Shortly after a dismembered torso was discovered by a pond outside Philadelphia in 1887, investigators homed in on two suspects: Hannah Mary Tabbs, a married, working-class, black woman, and George Wilson, a former neighbor whom Tabbs implicated after her arrest. As details surrounding the shocking case emerged, both the crime and ensuing trial brought otherwise taboo subjects such as illicit sex, adultery, and domestic violence in the black community to public attention. At the same time, the mixed race of the victim and one of his assailants exacerbated anxieties over the purity of whiteness in the post-Reconstruction era.
- Contents:
- Prologue
- Handle with care
- The woman found
- To do him bodily harm
- Wavy hair and nearly white skin
- Held for trial
- A most revolting deed
- Epilogue.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 157-211) and index.
- Hurston/Wright Legacy Award - Nonfiction, Winner, 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190241216
- 0190241217
- 9780190860011
- 0190860014
- OCLC:
- 907657561
- Publisher Number:
- 40025682395
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