Lizzie Borden Society Forum

Check out the lecture By Karen Chaney on the Borden case on Mondo. It's a 42 minute video with Q&A at the end. There are some factual errors but still interesting. Its always fun to try and spot them. Thanks Stef!

http://lizzieandrewborden.com/MondoLizzie/

I ran across that the other evening, downloaded the mp3 of it. Being a sucker for a good lecture, I must admit I rather enjoyed it. It's interesting the tack she takes in her presentation despite the errors - which are there indeed.

Can we use this thread to itemize the errors? I'd be curious to know them myself.

I haven't listened to it yet.
And it's a good question Richard.
But: Ms. Cheney has already been raked over the coals here on this Forum and some of us feel sorry about it- it was not a pretty sight.

If & when my own book comes out, I expect to be "raked" here.

One thing I discovered is that it's extremely difficult to compose something (esp literary non-fiction) about the case. It took me years just to get a base theory that satisfied me. There is just so much info & the mis-info is so rampant. You have to nail down what you believe and run with it.

Still, there is fun in the raking & debating. After all, that's what we're here for, right?

OK, but maybe ya'll can go read the topic about her?

One thing I discovered is that it's extremely difficult to compose something (esp literary non-fiction) about the case. It took me years just to get a base theory that satisfied me.

Bless your heart, TK. I have the same trouble myself three or four times a year - and that's with fiction. Just yesterday I wrote - and chucked in the can - a scene something between 500 and 800 words. Personally I thought it was rather cute (maybe it was, if you can imagine someone having a flat-out blubbering fit after a lecture by a famous author then living at Hartford because someone asked him about the Borden case during a Q&A session.)

That bit of work got tossed out - because the "famous author living at Hartford" was so far as I could find out in Europe during the time the "lecture" was meant to happen. So, out with yesterday's fish went that. Even though the author went un-named, two minutes of thought would have revealed exactly who the lecturer was.

Facts are sometimes the cruelest things.

Keene was exactly right: Dying is easy - comedy is hard!

I haven't read her book, but I get the idea from the lecture that her priorities, arranged in order, are: a) Book, b) Facts. She seems to argue in favor of Lizzie's innocence and she is perfectly entitled to her viewpoint.

I agree. The thing that struck me abuot the lecture was that she seems to be using the same tactics employed by some press organs of the day: A wee bit fast and loose with facts - which in fairness to her she may well have relied on newspapers for rather than any officially recorded statements. It amounts to a little of this and some of that and in the end comes up with a theory that really isn't particularly new. High marks though as enetrtainment.

I guess my memoirs will be entitled He Had a Sharp Rake. I stand by what I wrote about and to Ms. Chaney.

Bob Gutowski @ Wed Sep 19, 2007 4:23 pm wrote:I guess my memoirs will be entitled He Had a Sharp Rake.

That's OK, Bob. I've always claimed mine will be: The Road to Hell is Paved With Good Intentions.

Where'd she get these?

Lizzie a playwright? (Or did I hear that wrong?)

There was a cow mooing throughout the trial?

?????????

There is actually a newspaper account that was published during the trial, which can be found in The Lizzie Borden Sourcebook, stating that there was a cow that could be heard mooing during the proceedings, which granted a little levity to the situation. I'll have to go back and find it.

Allen @ Thu Sep 20, 2007 9:51 pm wrote:There is actually a newspaper account that was published during the trial, which can be found in The Lizzie Borden Sourcebook, stating that there was a cow that could be heard mooing during the proceedings, which granted a little levity to the situation. I'll have to go back and find it.

I find that suspect. I just searched through the entire transcript for the word "cow" and find that it only occurs in Prof. Wood's testimony regarding the hair found on the hatchet, subsequent allusions to it and Gov. Robinson's story about Prof. Pierce's greeting a cow after failing to recognize his wife. There is apparently no allusion to any cow in hearing. Why not?

The referrals to the cow in back of the court house are contained in the columns of Joe Howard who was the hired correspondent for the Boston Globe and other newspapers. Look also for singing birds, and the men's croquet club next door, and what the ladies were wearing, etc.

He was, along with Julian Ralph, the most famous reporter covering the trial. His column was also carried in the Chicago Tribune.

Bearded, highly perfumed, wearing a white suit and usually accompanied by a fair lady, to say the least he was conspicuous.

He didn't concentrate on recording the formal testimonies going on during the trial but was what we would call today a "color commentator".

He was an advocate of Lizzie's innocence and she thanked him after the trial.

Joe Howard sounds almost like the Cholly Knickerbocker of his day.

The Lizzie Borden Sourcebook page 203-204.

"But to return to Lizzie. Outside in a neighboring field was a most demonstrative cow, whose mooing was almost continuous, frequently interrupting the learned judge, often drowning the responses of the mild mannered witnesses, and causing as far as eye could see the one and only smile that changed the impassiveness of the Borden countenance from morning until night. Precisely why Sheriff Wright did not order the cow removed or rapped her bellowing into silence are matters of his own conscience to determine. "

Okay. I stand corrected. (Actually, I'm sitting just now.)

Howard was in effect the replacement for Henry Trickey in the coverage of the trial for the Boston Globe. Howard was not a employee of the Globe though. He wrote for many papers. Trickey had done the coverage through the Preliminary hearing and then was caught up in that mess with McHenry. He then fled to Canada and was killed boarding a train.

Most of the article in the second half of the Source book are from the Boston Globe and by Howard. The article that Allen posted above is by him.

Kent in his 40 Whacks had this to say about Howard (p106):

"Of the great entourage of newsmen gathered for the sensational trial, the stand-out performer was easily Joe Howard, a voluble, robust writer who self-styled himself as journalism's first syndicated columnist. His comings and goings were attended with almost as much zeal as were those of the principals of the trial. His daily recounts were spirited, bombastic, opinionated, and avidly read by hundreds of thousands of subscribers to dozens of Eastern newspapers."

Ever see these Harry? This page has what are apparently transcriptions of some of Joe Howard's dispatches from New Bedford - they're labeled as such. If I counted right there's about half a dozen. http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/project ... icles.html

Yes, I have, thank you Doug. It's a good sampling of Howard's writing.

Howard did a lot of Civil War reporting in his younger days. He was once arrested for making up a false Lincoln proclamation. He was released by the kindness of Lincoln. See:

http://www.civilwarhome.com/fakeproclamation.htm

He also covered the trial of the conspirators in the Lincoln assassination.

Quite an interesting character.

Oh good grief - that's the same Joe Howard???!!!:lol: I've heard of this intrepid devil, but never connected him as one and the same til now.

Harry @ Fri Sep 21, 2007 12:34 am wrote:He was once arrested for making up a false Lincoln proclamation.

AH HAH!!!

Constantine @ Thu Sep 20, 2007 9:25 pm wrote:
I find that suspect. I just searched through the entire transcript for the word "cow" and find that it only occurs in Prof. Wood's testimony regarding the hair found on the hatchet, subsequent allusions to it and Gov. Robinson's story about Prof. Pierce's greeting a cow after failing to recognize his wife. There is apparently no allusion to any cow in hearing. Why not?

I'm not quite sure that a cow mooing in a nearby field would've necessarily made it into the court transcript? Is this what you are referring to? Unless the cow was giving testimony. I'm not making light of your post at all, and I apologize if it comes off that way. But what keeps popping into my head whenever I try to picture why they would've included the sound of a cow mooing in the transcript I hear a See n' Say version in my head "The cow says...mooo."

Boy Harry sure knows his newspapers!
Missy, you sound like a parent!

Watched the Cheney thing. She held up a picture of Lizzie leaving the courthouse. I don't think I've ever seen that one. Does anyone know where to find it so I can take a closer look? I could hardly see it on the tape.