A copy of the new book by A. Cheree Carlson, published by the University of Illinois Press that includes a chapter on the Lizzie Borden case of 1892, arrived on Friday and I read the Borden chapter.
The book is titled The Crimes of Womanhood: Defining Femininity in a Court of Law.
The chapter in question is titled: “Womanhood An Asset and Liability: Lizzie Andrew Bordenâ€
This book is a work of scholarship, yet it is not dense or full of academic jargon. It is immensely readable, and I look forward to reading the other chapters as well (Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard, Mary Harris, Mary Todd Lincoln, and Madame Restell).
Carlson’s take on the Borden case is well reasoned. She investigates the use of gender in the trial itself, used by both the prosecution and defense, to argue their case for and against the guilt of the accused, one Lizzie Andrew Borden.
A few of the facts of the case are incorrect, but that rehash does not affect the overall argument posed by Carlson.
The author posits that the prosecution tried to use Lizzie’s gender against her. Lizzie’s lousy relationship with her stepmother, her seeming stoic behavior after the discovery of the bodies, her unfeeling response, now famous, that Abby was not her mother, but her stepmother (her true mother having died when Lizzie was 2), all work to make Lizzie less than the ideal woman, a person who, instead, has an unnatural mother/daughter connection, and thus, perhaps, is then capable of the crimes since she is so unfeeling about Abby.
Carlson then shows how the defense turned that argument on its ear and proved, or presented evidence to the fact, that Lizzie had a warm and close relationship to her father. In her daughterly duty to her dad, her charity and church work, Lizzie exemplified the ideal of womanhood, and thus was incapable of such heinous actions.
Carlson also delves into class as well as gender and, without giving away the story, makes an interesting argument for a way of reading the Lizzie Borden case in a new light.
I recommend this book.
