![]() When Mary Alice left jail in the rain the next day (she chose to stay overnight to spare her youngest child the cold night air) she retreated to New Jersey. The acquittal was front-page news for both the New York Herald and New York World. After five hours of deliberation, the jury handed down a verdict of not guilty. Scheele’s credibility, going as far as to charge that for reasons of his own professional reputation, he might have planted the arsenic. Finally, the defense attempted to undermine Dr. Brooke even posited that Bliss was an “arsenic eater,” like many at the time that used it to improve their skin tone. Although only fifty-three years old, she had a bad heart and weak kidneys. They also blamed Evelina’s rather poor health. Her death might have been the result of suicide. Undeniably, Bliss died shortly after ingesting the clam chowder, but Brooke and his colleagues took the opportunity to suggest other alternatives. Brooke, needed only to cast “reasonable doubt” in the minds of jurors. For their part, the defense, led by Mary Alice’s attorney Charles W. Henry Mott, also concluded the contents of Evelina’s stomach contained three times the fatal amount of arsenic (101). Bullman, who confirmed the culprit as an “irritant poison.” Another chemist testifying for the prosecution, Columbia University’s Dr. Arsenic, he claimed, was at levels well beyond the lethal amount, which reinforced the testimony of Dr. Scheele emerged as one of the crucial witnesses for their case. Mary Alice, the team contented, longed for and stood to benefit from the significant Livingston family inheritance. The two focused their case on a number of arguments and key witnesses. At the head of the prosecution stood New York City’s Assistant District Attorney, John McIntyre, and his Deputy Book Reviews 285 Assistant District Attorney Seaman Miller. The ensuing trial of the daughter who killed her mother was highly anticipated and widely followed. Bullman’s suspicions: that some kind of contaminant, probably arsenic, may have caused gastritis and was the key factor leading to Evelina’s death. Newspapers quickly recounted the fascinating tale and the equally captivating character at its center, the suspicious daughter of the victim, who always dressed in mourning black. Authorities arrested Mary Alice and she spent the following months in custody at New York City’s notorious prison, the Tombs. William Bullman, noticed a residue in the soup bowl and suspected foul play. Evelina suffered much of the day and eventually died that evening. Bliss’s daughter Mary Alice Fleming, staying six blocks away at the Colonial Hotel, sent the two girls to deliver the leftover chowder. On that fateful summer day, Bliss had a bowl of clam chowder delivered to her by a pair of ten-year-olds: granddaughter Gracie and her friend Florence King. The tale centers on the events of August 30, 1895, and Evelina Bliss, the heir to a notable New York family fortune built on generations of land acquisition around the state. attitudes toward among other things, wealth, gender, and justice. Livingston frames a very specific moment- the acts of accused murderer Mary Alice Fleming-as part of a much broader story of late-nineteenth-century U.S. Johnson, Providence College James Livingston’s Arsenic and Clam Chowder offers a helpful glimpse into Gilded Age America. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010, pages, $19.95 Cloth. Arsenic and Clam Chowder: Murder in Gilded Age New York By James D. Overall, Making New York Dominican is an excellent read for those interested in New York City, the history and ethnography of business, labor and labor rights, and gender and ethnic and identity studies. ![]() In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ģ84 ■ NEW YORK HISTORY voice to the experiences of Dominican women as bodegas, supermarkets, and car services are all largely the domains of men.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |