Review of Fall River Outrage

by Kat Koorey

First published in April/May, 2008, Volume 5, Issue 2, The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies.

Kasserman, David Richard. Fall River Outrage: Life, Murder, and Justice in Early Industrial New England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986, 1993.

Fall River Outrage is a dry, scholarly approach to the case of the death of Sarah Cornell, which examines her life as a tradeswoman and factory girl, and her unfortunate involvement in the lifestyle of the traveling Methodists, all contributing factors to her downfall. The author began his study with an interest in a unique period in history—1830s New England—an era of growing industrialism, where there was a new emphasis on commercialism in Yankee New England society. He found that it clashed with an emerging system of religion, Methodism, which embraced the uneducated common man and woman and gave emphasis to extreme spiritual feelings that were manifested at “camp meetings.” This young lady, Sarah Cornell, lived and died at such an unusual time in American history that the combination of factors that influenced her life might never coalesce again in just this way with just such an outcome.

As of the publish date, the author, David Kasserman, was Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Glassboro State College. “His interest in the Cornell-Avery trial grew out of his research on the American Cotton Industry” (back cover). His perspective on this crime mirrors that of the mill owners: “The factories and Fall River were faultless, more than that, they were admirable. It was the girl’s religion that had failed her” (236). The point was that, inherent in the crime itself, there were vestiges of this conflict between a freedom-loving newly emerging Yankee society and its perceptions of a religion that seemed to be almost a government unto itself, answerable to itself, with a disregard for any town politics: manifesting as a literal contest between church and state. Methodism appeared as a dangerous organization growing amidst the citizenry and each faction found grievous fault with the other in their handling of the murder case.

The mills needed female workers and endeavored to assure the families that the fate and future of their girls were safe, and Sarah Cornell, through her downfall, degradation, and murder, became a dangerous symbol to the mill towns of what might possibly be wrong with their system, as she was an unwitting representative of this working class of girls. The Fall River Committee, charged with finding the truth, did fervently believe the mill system was blameless—which at that period it seemed to be—and that the fault lay in the Methodist way of life that the young woman followed.

The final public castigation of that religion involved the outcry against the exploitation of young girls caught up in the idolization of ministers and thus easily led astray, especially in the raucous, circus-like atmosphere of the traveling camp meetings that Sarah loved to attend. “The contrast between the pleasant harmony of Fall River’s factories, where well-ordered young women worked under the benevolent protection of men schooled in the healthful mental discipline of their forefathers, and the chaos of the camp meeting, where the regular structure of society was shattered . . . made it clear where the fault in Sarah Cornell’s death must lie . . . it was this comparison that was compelling” (238).

In Kasserman’s treatment, Sarah’s murder becomes a sociological study. Although it endeavors to give every fact of the crime, every description of what had been done to the body, every witness statement, and every author’s up-to-date information on the case is included, there are no visceral tears evoked, no outstanding emotion evinced. Actually, there is no “Outrage”—at least not in any sympathetic reaction the reader may have felt for the untimely demise of this much-abused victim and her fetus. The only outrage demonstrated is the dry exposition and exposure of the inordinate power the Methodist ministry wielded in the early 1830s New England. There was a demonstrated outrage by the citizenry over the acquittal of the Rev. Avery as the defendant in the case, with effigies of him created, dragged through the streets, hung, and burned. These scenes drove the Rev. Avery out of business, and he eventually retired to Ohio. Another outrage was that he was free to live out the rest of his life, though as an ordinary farmer, which occupation he abhorred as a youth and had committed his life to religion and the ministry in order to avoid it. Thus, Mr. Avery did not thrive, but the reader has not been fueled with a need for vengeance nor does he experience the sad horror of the crime.

The author draws from a collection of documents concurrent with the times, and demonstrates total familiarity with the material. His bibliography is superior and he has a very good index. In fact, this is a definitive sourcebook on the crime.

One intimate fact the author does impart to the interested reader is that Sarah Cornell’s hasty grave on the Durfee land was eventually relocated to Fall River’s Oak Grove cemetery. “The cemetery, like Fall River, has neighborhoods, and Sarah’s is not of particularly high status . . . Her humble station and anonymity, however, have at last come to her aid, for the vandals that delight in mutilating the elaborate stones of Fall River’s elite have left her completely alone” (254).