Mondo Lizzie Borden

Len Rebello, author of Lizzie Borden Past and Present, Borden historian Shelley Dziedzic and I went to Wheaton College today and conducted a lot of research on Emma Borden’s time there as a Seminary Student in the mid 1800s. The library staff was stupendous in finding all the info we could possibly need!

An extensive article on Wheaton and Emma’s time there is soon to be published in the next issue of The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies. The Online journal will be full of brand new information, photos, and all sorts of amazing things about the quiet and lesser known Borden sister.

This is the second trip for me and Shelley to Wheaton, and we were honored to have Len Rebello join us to absorb all the new information.

The photo above is Len, Shelley and myself. Behind us is a painting of the lovely Caroline Cutler Plimpton Metcalf, Emma’s principal during her stay there, and probably her English grammar instructor as well. The painting is by William Page, an internationally respected artist and one of the leading exponents of figure painting among the American Romantics.

This is just a photo of me and Len Rebello. One great guy!

Yours truly will be speaking in Fall River at the Fall River Public Library on Wednesday, August 15, 2007, at 6:30 PM. I am the invited speaker of the Friends of the Library. The topic of my talk will be “Lizzie Borden in Cyberspace.”

The event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited and no reservations are accepted, so please mark your calendars now! The address is 104 North Main Street, Fall River, MA 02720. For directions please visit the Library’s site here.

For information on becoming a Friend of the Library, please visit the Friend’s site here.

An auction on eBay recently exceeded its estimates. It was for an original advertising sign for the Fall River Line.

Fall River Line material usually brings in the bucks, as you have a mixed bag of collectors: Fall River Line, transportation, Fall River, 19th Century, etc. This item was an unusual piece and in very good shape considering its age. It was estimated to bring in $500 and pulled in double that. If I were a rich man . . . .

Another Fall River line item on sale now that caught my eye is this very good condition copy of the sheet music for the song “On the Old Fall River Line.” Now there is a song that can get into your head and torture you by not letting you go!

Wanna hear it? Listen here. And don’t say I didn’t warn you!!

Ever since Dunn & Powell books had that Lizzie Borden collection for sale last year, and I purchased a few items from the list, I have been receiving notices of their new catalogues. I am happy to pass them onto you. Here is their latest. Enjoy!

******************************************

Greetings, Mystery Lover.

We are pleased to announce that our new Mystery Catalogue 83 is available for download. You may view or download the catalogue here:

http://www.dpbooks.com/cat83.txt (plain text)
http://www.dpbooks.com/cat83i.htm (html for maximum compatibility - illustrated)
http://www.dpbooks.com/cat83.pdf (pdf - you need the free Adobe Acrobat software - see link at our website)

Catalogue 83 features 1066 items including a large number of pre and post-war mysteries, many in dust jacket and a selection of mystery anthologies and mystery reference titles. Among the highlights: several important first mysteries including IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (John Ball), THE MAN WITH THE LOAD OF MISCHIEF (Martha Grimes) and THE BLACK DUDLEY MURDER (the first Albert Campion mystery by Margery Allingham); several interesting Stephen King limited editions; and an inscribed copy of RED GARDENIAS by Jonathan Latimer.

(If you do not wish to be notified of future Dunn & Powell Books Mystery Catalogues, please reply to this message and add “Remove” to the subject line.)

Thank you and good hunting,
Steve Powell & Bill Dunn

Dunn & Powell Books
The Hideaway
13 Hideaway Lane
Bar Harbor, ME 04609
Phone (207) 288 4665
Fax (206) 202 305
dpbooks@adelphia.net

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle published an interview with first-time writer Benjamin Feldman, author of Butchery on Bond Street: Sexual Politics & The Burdell-Cunningham Case in Ante-Bellum New York. The book is about an 1857 murder in Antebellum New York. Of course, Lizzie’s name is mentioned (along with OJ’s in another Q).

What is it about this thirst for death we have? The cigar girl that Poe made famous, Lizzie Borden — Why do these murders from a century and longer ago still captivate us today?

That’s a tough question. I think the main part is curiousness. The opportunity to get close to the gruesome, get close to light and shadow, I think is something that appeals to readers. And what is different about 19th Century murder cases and circumstances of lust and greed and deceit that surround them, as opposed to today’s, is that the 19th century and particularly the mid- and the late 19th century, there was every place for the perpetrators to hide. Being anonymous, changing your name, getting away with murder, was a lot easier in the mid- to late 19th century, as well as sexual predation, than it is today. Today the smokinggun.com is going to nail you, your name’s going to be up on Craigslist; there is no place to hide today.

Read the full interview here.

KXNet.com North Dakoka News has decided to give you some advance on the news. They have posted an Associated Press article that is supposed to appear on August 4th. It is like living in the future! Kewl!

Read all about what other papers will print in a few weeks here.

Found this today and thought I would pass it along. It is a bit pricey, but perhaps it is made out of materials that make this item worth the investment. Only $42. I just like they call her an “alleged” murderer instead of assume the guilt that other sites do. In actuality, however, and not to split hairs, but she was an “accused” murderer who stood trial for the crimes and was later “acquitted.” But I’ll take alleged any day!

Buy it here.

Here we have a gorgeous necklace that features a portrait of the alleged axe murderess Lizzie Borden. The focal piece is the handcrafted coffin pendant that features an image of Ms. Borden in a handpainted silver frame. The necklace is composed of smooth jet glass, little garnet nuggets and glass pearls all hand knotted on black nylon cord. Closes with a lovely black beaded button and beaded loop. All of our art pendants are individually handcrafted and are varnished with a clear gloss finish for shine and durability.

Dimensions: Necklace measures approx. 19″ in length. Coffin is 1-1/2″ tall.

168 Belmont Street, the Victorian home of Richard Cormier and Judith Levesque, has just received a variance from the Fall River Zoning Board to convert their existing single family dwelling into a bed and breakfast and install a non-illuminated wall sign. The house looks like a lovely place to visit and just around the corner from Maplecroft on French Street. It looks to me like you can see Maplecroft from the second floor of this beautiful home.

Cormier and Levesque plan to continue to live in the house and function as owner-operators.

The Fall River Zoning Board was beside themselves with praise for the idea, and added their heartfelt good wishes for the success of this new establishment in the Highlands.

Over the years, I have done some editing to the Lizzie Borden page on Wikipedia. I have found various erroneous statements and some factually inaccurate statements that needed correcting. This has been an ongoing process, and an ongoing headache.

As a college professor, I know that students use this Internet encyclopedia to aid them in writing term papers, to quickly research a topic, and to spot find a factoid to include in presentations. Colleges and universities are dissuading students from using Wikipedia as a resource of any kind as the nature of the site is such that anyone can post anything there, adding to the mountain of knowledge and misinformation.

Wikipedia is a grand idea, in theory—the people’s encyclopedia—free and open. But it is also everything you should be warned against about the Internet: don’t believe everything you read. When the Internet first geared up, millions of web pages appeared that were full of flubs, fiction, and faux facts—one had to rely on the academic sites to provide scholarly and fact-checked information. Today, that is still the case.

Unfortunately, this exciting experiment in online education has encountered many problems, most notably what has become known as the Essjay controversy. Several prominent pages (Adolf Hitler, Jesus, Gerry Adams, retired journalist John Seigenthaler, and others) were the victims of vandalism and malicious entries. Wikipedia’s solution? Wikipedia’s editors implemented a semi-protection policy for certain articles, and in effect, locked down certain pages from editing. In addition,

removed the ability of unregistered users to create new articles in Wikipedia.

Unregistered users will still be able to fix spelling mistakes and add to existing articles, but are required to register a user account before creating new pages. Link.

But this change in policy only came about when the national news media, and the reporter at the heart of one such attack, brought this to the attention of the public at large, exposing, as it were, the unsavory side of what an open and free encyclopedia can become.

I have had “issues” with Wikipedia for years. One problem is that you cannot contact anyone who is anyone at Wikipedia, either by mail, email or telephone. Their solution to any problems with their site is to have you work it out with the person you disagree with. They have posted extensive instructions on proper behavior and standards in disputing facts with those who have posted before you. The process even includes formal mediation. Isn’t this how eBay got started? And isn’t this what is horrible about eBay? It relies on its members to police the site, refusing to accept responsibility for any fraudulent behavior, even though they have the technology to prevent such matters from occurring in the first place.

So my Lizzie problem is that every time I update the Wikipedia page, it reverts back to the one I just corrected by the “author” or what I call the “gate keeper” of the page. For instance, take a look right now at the page.

Notice anything wrong here?

How about photos purporting to be Lizzie and Emma that are not Lizzie and Emma. I uploaded correct images, standard ones that are these people, and they get taken down time and time again and these images appear.

I mean how silly is this going to get? So what is a scholar to do? Apparently, according to Tualha, who operates as the bouncer for the page, I must follow the rules and cite every source for every fact presented on the page (even though the page that is there now does not do this!). Says Tualha

Contrary to some opinions, experts are very welcome here. But we do insist that, like everyone else, they support the claims they make in articles instead of simply waving their credentials and saying “shut up, I’m an expert”. It’s considered polite to learn a little about how we do things here before making wholesale changes and complaining when people revert them, too.

I have been put in my place, I suppose, and now if I want to work with the gate keeper, I must post footnotes. Ok, that will come in time as I find the time to spend doing this.

It is a catch22. You try to help, you try to clean up the Internet a bit in the tiny tiny corner of Lizzie Borden studies, and you find yourself being lectured by a person who feels the need to tell you that “Citing “LizzieAndrewBorden.com”, and the entirety of Rebello without page numbers or specific citations, doesn’t cut it here any more than it would in academe.”

So I guess that Wikipedia is expecting experts to do the hard work while amateurs get to rule the roost.

Poor Lizzie.

In recent posts, I noted that while Fall River is well regarded as being one of the top 10 least segregated cities in the county for blacks, it is at the same time infamous for appearing second on the list of most segregated cities in the nation for Latinos. All this is based on census information, and examines eveness, exposure, concentration, centralization, and clustering. Why study this now?

For the most part, sociologists are interested in residential segregation, which simple means refers to the racial/ethnic mix of blocks, neighborhoods, cities, and metropolitan areas. We tend to be less concerned with segregation as a legal concept, and it seems that a minority of sociologists studying segregation focus on school segregation or segregation in other social institutions such as churches and families.. I suspect that we don’t focus as much of school segregation because it is so highly correlated with residential segregation. I think too often people start by looking at school segregation, but they ignore the fact that more integrated neighborhoods would lead to more integrate schools. I suspect that people don’t focus on residential segregation because it is much harder to challenge, and it’s much more firmly entrenched (at least it is in recent history).

The reason why Fall River made this Latinos list is simple. It is the government’s fault. The State of Massachusetts made a great deal of money by bringing in, or importing, Latinos to Fall River and putting them in low income housing. These folks are not from the area. They were brought to the city in busses and planted here.

So this black eye of Latino segregation in Fall River is not because the people of Fall River are segregating the Latino population, it is the government who has created the segregation!

Fall River has a rich long history of absorbing minorities and immigrants into the fold. Portuguese and Irish live side by side with English and African American neighbors. But then the State steps in and literally creates a segregated community! What could be a worse reputation for a city? Segregation of this nature reflects badly on the city and its people and gives prospective businesses and newcomers the impression that the people of Fall River are a bigoted bunch—-a perfect way to further depress an already depressed economic situation.

By the way, this importing of low income housing residents has come under federal scrutiny recently, as possibly being a big payoff for some. The former governor Mit Romney was instrumental in creating the housing by providing “tax credits, grants and low-interest loans to produce over 548 rental apartments.” (source: Office of Gov, 8/25/2003). I read, but cannot locate, a Boston Globe article claiming that some of this section 8 housing was involved in some illegal practices.

So who suffers from this segregation problem? The community at large, who has become a dumping ground for low income families from other areas and becomes known for being number two in the nation for segregating Latinos.

Lizzie Borden, born July 19, 1860, in Fall River, Massachusetts.