Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America

Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America
ISBN-10
0190860014
ISBN-13
9780190860011
Category
History
Pages
231
Language
English
Published
2018
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Author
Kali N. Gross

Description

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.

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