What do you think?
Rate this book
The Murder of Helen Jewett: The Life and Death of a Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century New York
In 1836, the murder of a young prostitute made headlines in New York City and around the country, inaugurating a sex-and-death sensationalism in news reporting that haunts us today. Patricia Cline Cohen goes behind these first lurid accounts to reconstruct the story of the mysterious victim, Helen Jewett.
From her beginnings as a servant girl in Maine, Helen Jewett refashioned herself, using four successive aliases, into a highly paid courtesan. She invented life stories for herself that helped her build a sympathetic clientele among New York City's elite, and she further captivated her customers through her seductive letters, which mixed elements of traditional feminine demureness with sexual boldness.
But she was to meet her match--and her nemesis--in a youth called Richard Robinson. He was one of an unprecedented number of young men who flooded into America's burgeoning cities in the 1830s to satisfy the new business society's seemingly infinite need for clerks. The son of an established Connecticut family, he was intense, arrogant, and given to posturing. He became Helen Jewett's lover in a tempestuous affair and ten months later was arrested for her murder. He stood trial in a five-day courtroom drama that ended with his acquittal amid the cheers of hundreds of fellow clerks and other spectators.
With no conviction for murder, nor closure of any sort, the case continued to tantalize the public, even though Richard Robinson disappeared from view. Through the Erie Canal, down the Ohio and the Mississippi, and by way of New Orleans, he reached the wilds of Texas and a new life under a new name. Through her meticulous and ingenious research, Patricia Cline Cohen traces his life there and the many twists and turns of the lingering mystery of the murder. Her stunning portrayals of Helen Jewett, Robinson, and their raffish, colorful nineteenth-century world make vivid a frenetic city life and sexual morality whose complexities, contradictions, and concerns resonate with those of our own time.
From her beginnings as a servant girl in Maine, Helen Jewett refashioned herself, using four successive aliases, into a highly paid courtesan. She invented life stories for herself that helped her build a sympathetic clientele among New York City's elite, and she further captivated her customers through her seductive letters, which mixed elements of traditional feminine demureness with sexual boldness.
But she was to meet her match--and her nemesis--in a youth called Richard Robinson. He was one of an unprecedented number of young men who flooded into America's burgeoning cities in the 1830s to satisfy the new business society's seemingly infinite need for clerks. The son of an established Connecticut family, he was intense, arrogant, and given to posturing. He became Helen Jewett's lover in a tempestuous affair and ten months later was arrested for her murder. He stood trial in a five-day courtroom drama that ended with his acquittal amid the cheers of hundreds of fellow clerks and other spectators.
With no conviction for murder, nor closure of any sort, the case continued to tantalize the public, even though Richard Robinson disappeared from view. Through the Erie Canal, down the Ohio and the Mississippi, and by way of New Orleans, he reached the wilds of Texas and a new life under a new name. Through her meticulous and ingenious research, Patricia Cline Cohen traces his life there and the many twists and turns of the lingering mystery of the murder. Her stunning portrayals of Helen Jewett, Robinson, and their raffish, colorful nineteenth-century world make vivid a frenetic city life and sexual morality whose complexities, contradictions, and concerns resonate with those of our own time.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1998
90 people are currently reading
2995 people want to read
About the author
Patricia Cline Cohen
453 books14 followersPatricia Cline Cohen is Professor of History and Acting Dean of the Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of California, Santa Barbara. From 1991 to 1996 she chaired the Women's Studies Program there. She is the author of A Calculating People: The Spread of Numeracy in Early America (1985) and of numerous articles and reviews, and a coauthor of The American Promise (1997).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 117 reviews
April 29, 2023
“For the next several minutes, pandemonium prevailed. Rosina [Townshend] recalled going down to her own bedroom window to shout ‘Fire!’ into the street. The call was heard by a watchman stationed at a sentry post about sixty feet away, at the corner of Thomas and Chapel…He came running, joined quickly by a second watchman whose post was three short blocks away at Franklin and Chapel. In the meantime, Rosina and Maria Stevens braved the smoke to try to rescue Helen and her overnight guest. What they found sent them out of the room in horror. The bed was smoldering rather than blazing; Helen was dead, her nightclothes reduced to ashes and one side of her body charred a crusty brown. More shocking still, three bloody gashes marked her brow, and blood had pooled on the pillow beneath her body. Helen Jewett had been murdered, and her companion of the previous evening was nowhere in sight…”
- Patricia Cline Cohen, The Murder of Helen Jewett: The Life and Death of a Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century New York
All of us have had the experience of picking up a book expecting one thing, and then getting another thing entirely once we start reading. It’s a common occurrence, and not entirely surprising. After all, a book’s cover, title, subtitle, and description are marketing. The whole purpose is to draw us in, even if that requires a bit of clever copy and a certain amount of overpromising.
When this happens to me, my responses vary. I’ve come to expect a certain amount of puffery – which is a true legal term, by the way – and make allowances for that. Most of the time, if the content is good, I don’t really care what brought me there.
Sometimes, though, when I pick up a book for a very specific reason, I expect that specific reason to be the focus.
For example, if I choose a murder mystery, I’m doing so for two very particular reasons, reasons that cannot be compromised: (1) a murder; and (2) a mystery.
That brings us to Patricia Cline Cohen’s The Murder of Helen Jewett.
***
In 1836, a beautiful prostitute named Helen Jewett was killed in her sleep. The suspect came from a respectable family, and had been involved in an affair with Jewett, though he maintained his innocence. The crime turned into something very familiar in the twenty-first century: a tabloid-fueled carnival in which the inquiry into truth and justice took a distant second to the media’s relentless need to monetize the story.
This is what drew me here, and in the first couple chapters – describing the discovery of Helen’s body, the initial investigation, and the goggle-eyed response of New York City’s newspapers – that’s what I got.
That’s when Cohen takes a very large detour.
***
The Murder of Helen Jewett is not nearly as interested in Helen’s death as in her life. Cohen goes to incredible lengths to bring this forgotten woman back into the world, to remake her as something other than a victim, and to give us a big heap of nineteenth century trivia.
Leaving aside the identity of the killer, the true detective work Cohen does is unearthing Helen’s backstory. She follows Dorcas Doyen, aka Helen Jewett, as she is raised by her single father, sent to work as a servant for a wealthy Maine judge, and later travels to New York City where she becomes a somewhat-high-class prostitute.
The early life of persons far more famous than Helen/Dorcas have eluded historians, and Cohen deserves credit for the enormous amount of research that went into this. There are nearly seventy pages of annotated endnotes, some of the annotations fascinating in their own right. Whatever else I say, it cannot be said that Cohen phoned this in. Beyond that, her goals are laudable, rising above the salacious for a deeper meaning.
Nevertheless, not everything Cohen unearthed is strictly relevant.
***
The issue of “padding” or “filler” in a nonfiction work has become an ongoing philosophical debate that I am continuously having with myself. Sometimes I like the extra stuff, because it adds texture, context, and vibrancy. Sometimes I don’t like it, because it feels like sawdust in bread, used as a last resort to save an unsalvageable meal.
There is a lot of padding in The Murder of Helen Jewett. Some of it is admittedly quite interesting. There are asides about nineteenth century reading habits and “wicked” novels that were feared because they inflamed the passions. There is a factoid about the position of “hog reeve,” wherein New England towns would appoint a newly-married man to catch stray pigs and return them to their owners. There is a lot of time spent on the press, and we learn that the media then is the same as it is now: hell-bent on stirring the pot for profit.
Other digressions are not as stimulating. There is, for instance, an extended section on the tax assessments of certain brothels. All I really took from this is the realization that not even a brothel can make taxation exciting. Meanwhile, Cohen is quite reticent about the everyday details of living as a New York City prostitute, such as birth control, sexually-transmitted diseases, and price structures.
***
I’m an avowed big-book fan, and to me, four-hundred pages of text is not a length I’d generally find excessive. Here, though, the long biographical portions, combined with the generous filler, gums the mechanics of what should have been a much-crisper true crime story. This is one of those instances where I wanted a precise thing, but had a hard time finding it within the book.
Beyond that, despite Cohen’s strong effort, and her always-readable prose, there is only so much she can do to bring this distant case back to life. Unable to interview participants herself, and relying on whatever documents still exist, we get an incomplete picture. Having finished this, I know that Helen’s brothel was assessed at $6,000, but I have very little idea of what Helen herself was like before her death transformed her into a national morality tale.
- Patricia Cline Cohen, The Murder of Helen Jewett: The Life and Death of a Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century New York
All of us have had the experience of picking up a book expecting one thing, and then getting another thing entirely once we start reading. It’s a common occurrence, and not entirely surprising. After all, a book’s cover, title, subtitle, and description are marketing. The whole purpose is to draw us in, even if that requires a bit of clever copy and a certain amount of overpromising.
When this happens to me, my responses vary. I’ve come to expect a certain amount of puffery – which is a true legal term, by the way – and make allowances for that. Most of the time, if the content is good, I don’t really care what brought me there.
Sometimes, though, when I pick up a book for a very specific reason, I expect that specific reason to be the focus.
For example, if I choose a murder mystery, I’m doing so for two very particular reasons, reasons that cannot be compromised: (1) a murder; and (2) a mystery.
That brings us to Patricia Cline Cohen’s The Murder of Helen Jewett.
***
In 1836, a beautiful prostitute named Helen Jewett was killed in her sleep. The suspect came from a respectable family, and had been involved in an affair with Jewett, though he maintained his innocence. The crime turned into something very familiar in the twenty-first century: a tabloid-fueled carnival in which the inquiry into truth and justice took a distant second to the media’s relentless need to monetize the story.
This is what drew me here, and in the first couple chapters – describing the discovery of Helen’s body, the initial investigation, and the goggle-eyed response of New York City’s newspapers – that’s what I got.
That’s when Cohen takes a very large detour.
***
The Murder of Helen Jewett is not nearly as interested in Helen’s death as in her life. Cohen goes to incredible lengths to bring this forgotten woman back into the world, to remake her as something other than a victim, and to give us a big heap of nineteenth century trivia.
Leaving aside the identity of the killer, the true detective work Cohen does is unearthing Helen’s backstory. She follows Dorcas Doyen, aka Helen Jewett, as she is raised by her single father, sent to work as a servant for a wealthy Maine judge, and later travels to New York City where she becomes a somewhat-high-class prostitute.
The early life of persons far more famous than Helen/Dorcas have eluded historians, and Cohen deserves credit for the enormous amount of research that went into this. There are nearly seventy pages of annotated endnotes, some of the annotations fascinating in their own right. Whatever else I say, it cannot be said that Cohen phoned this in. Beyond that, her goals are laudable, rising above the salacious for a deeper meaning.
Nevertheless, not everything Cohen unearthed is strictly relevant.
***
The issue of “padding” or “filler” in a nonfiction work has become an ongoing philosophical debate that I am continuously having with myself. Sometimes I like the extra stuff, because it adds texture, context, and vibrancy. Sometimes I don’t like it, because it feels like sawdust in bread, used as a last resort to save an unsalvageable meal.
There is a lot of padding in The Murder of Helen Jewett. Some of it is admittedly quite interesting. There are asides about nineteenth century reading habits and “wicked” novels that were feared because they inflamed the passions. There is a factoid about the position of “hog reeve,” wherein New England towns would appoint a newly-married man to catch stray pigs and return them to their owners. There is a lot of time spent on the press, and we learn that the media then is the same as it is now: hell-bent on stirring the pot for profit.
Other digressions are not as stimulating. There is, for instance, an extended section on the tax assessments of certain brothels. All I really took from this is the realization that not even a brothel can make taxation exciting. Meanwhile, Cohen is quite reticent about the everyday details of living as a New York City prostitute, such as birth control, sexually-transmitted diseases, and price structures.
***
I’m an avowed big-book fan, and to me, four-hundred pages of text is not a length I’d generally find excessive. Here, though, the long biographical portions, combined with the generous filler, gums the mechanics of what should have been a much-crisper true crime story. This is one of those instances where I wanted a precise thing, but had a hard time finding it within the book.
Beyond that, despite Cohen’s strong effort, and her always-readable prose, there is only so much she can do to bring this distant case back to life. Unable to interview participants herself, and relying on whatever documents still exist, we get an incomplete picture. Having finished this, I know that Helen’s brothel was assessed at $6,000, but I have very little idea of what Helen herself was like before her death transformed her into a national morality tale.
February 6, 2020
The story, at least for historian Patricia Cline Cohen, does not begin in 1837 with the grisly murder of a captivating 23-year old prostitute named Helen Jewett. Nor does it begin in 1813 when the prostitute was born as Dorcas Dorrence in rural Maine. For Cohen, the watershed year was 1825, the year that the Erie Canal was completed.
Through commercial records, population estimates and city maps, Cohen documents the explosive growth of New York City precipitated by the canal's completion. A flood of young men found employment there as clerks, bookkeepers, and novice tradesmen. Unlike the “Mill Girls” of New England, they lived in unsupervised boardinghouses, free to sample the pleasures of the city, a primary one being the elegantly furnished brothels that catered to gentlemen such as themselves, gentlemen with generous allowances from their families and promising prospects. (Cohen calls it a “masculine youth culture” (p.11)) Here, an enterprising woman with wit and polish like Dorcas Dorrence could reinvent herself into a highly sought-after courtesan. Dorcas, a “fallen woman” in Maine evolved into Helen Jewett, an “Aspasia” of the city.
Cohen draws a startling portrait of New York in the 1830's. Prostitution, discreetly practiced in brothels, was accepted; prostitution itself was not against the law. The brothels were situated in fashionable neighborhoods convenient to their clientele, not sketchy red light districts. Before 1800 pre-marital sex appeared to correlate with the rarity of male mobility. By 1820 that changed. In the 1830's New York did not have a professionally trained police force. Instead, moonlighting laborers comprised a citizen night watch focused on checking incidents of random violence and not on investigating the rare instance of premeditated murder.
The prostitutes of the brothels were a fixture in the numerous theaters and opera houses. “Drummers” funneled out of town businessmen and facilitated introductions. Meetings with regular clients were seamlessly blended with an evening of cultural elevation.
Cohen analyzes misogyny in this era. Brothels were often targeted by gangs of men – the sort who could neither afford nor be welcome in these brothels. She attributes the attacks as much to class animosity as to misogyny. Such hooligans could not attack well-connected gentlemen, but they could attach the women with relative impunity.
Cohen also teases out the ambivalent attitudes toward prostitution. Of course religious moralists complained about these dens of sin which enticed innocent young men. However, these arguments were not taken as seriously as one might imagine. Others defended the women as unfortunate victims. However, Cohen notes: “there was no real play for pity here. The seduction story's subtext engaged a male fantasy that placed masculine desire at the core of sexual interaction and endowed it with the magical potency to unlock a slumbering female sexuality....Such a scenario positioned Jewett as a passive participant in sexual surrender. It removed agency from her actions and absolved her from responsibility for losing her virginity.” (p.47) Obviously, such a narrative left the door open for candid and lurid sexual flirtation between the parties involved.
Cohen has conducted meticulous research, combing through city directories, newspapers, “penny papers”, Police Office files, diaries, correspondence, and other primary sources. “Everyone lies” might be her mantra. She questions the veracity of each report and uncovers convincing motives for equivocation and unreliability. In particular, she scrutinizes the contents of diaries and letters. Are they self-deluding fantasies? Do they reflect an alter-ego from the daytime propriety? As for the newspaper accounts, anonymous sources, just as today, might well have had personal motives for the information they disclosed. Cohen even delves into genealogies to uncover family connections not immediately obvious to the casual reader.
This type of scrutiny is supported by a hefty “Notes” section for those not sated by the dense text of the book. It is a model for any aspiring historian. Unfortunately, I am not of that inclination and this was a long and difficult book for me to read. It is, however, a significant book. It highlights how the “Jacksonian Democracy” narrative we all learned in school was a male narrative, excluding the convulsions of a society confronting tumultuous changes in gender, class and economics.
Through commercial records, population estimates and city maps, Cohen documents the explosive growth of New York City precipitated by the canal's completion. A flood of young men found employment there as clerks, bookkeepers, and novice tradesmen. Unlike the “Mill Girls” of New England, they lived in unsupervised boardinghouses, free to sample the pleasures of the city, a primary one being the elegantly furnished brothels that catered to gentlemen such as themselves, gentlemen with generous allowances from their families and promising prospects. (Cohen calls it a “masculine youth culture” (p.11)) Here, an enterprising woman with wit and polish like Dorcas Dorrence could reinvent herself into a highly sought-after courtesan. Dorcas, a “fallen woman” in Maine evolved into Helen Jewett, an “Aspasia” of the city.
Cohen draws a startling portrait of New York in the 1830's. Prostitution, discreetly practiced in brothels, was accepted; prostitution itself was not against the law. The brothels were situated in fashionable neighborhoods convenient to their clientele, not sketchy red light districts. Before 1800 pre-marital sex appeared to correlate with the rarity of male mobility. By 1820 that changed. In the 1830's New York did not have a professionally trained police force. Instead, moonlighting laborers comprised a citizen night watch focused on checking incidents of random violence and not on investigating the rare instance of premeditated murder.
The prostitutes of the brothels were a fixture in the numerous theaters and opera houses. “Drummers” funneled out of town businessmen and facilitated introductions. Meetings with regular clients were seamlessly blended with an evening of cultural elevation.
Cohen analyzes misogyny in this era. Brothels were often targeted by gangs of men – the sort who could neither afford nor be welcome in these brothels. She attributes the attacks as much to class animosity as to misogyny. Such hooligans could not attack well-connected gentlemen, but they could attach the women with relative impunity.
Cohen also teases out the ambivalent attitudes toward prostitution. Of course religious moralists complained about these dens of sin which enticed innocent young men. However, these arguments were not taken as seriously as one might imagine. Others defended the women as unfortunate victims. However, Cohen notes: “there was no real play for pity here. The seduction story's subtext engaged a male fantasy that placed masculine desire at the core of sexual interaction and endowed it with the magical potency to unlock a slumbering female sexuality....Such a scenario positioned Jewett as a passive participant in sexual surrender. It removed agency from her actions and absolved her from responsibility for losing her virginity.” (p.47) Obviously, such a narrative left the door open for candid and lurid sexual flirtation between the parties involved.
Cohen has conducted meticulous research, combing through city directories, newspapers, “penny papers”, Police Office files, diaries, correspondence, and other primary sources. “Everyone lies” might be her mantra. She questions the veracity of each report and uncovers convincing motives for equivocation and unreliability. In particular, she scrutinizes the contents of diaries and letters. Are they self-deluding fantasies? Do they reflect an alter-ego from the daytime propriety? As for the newspaper accounts, anonymous sources, just as today, might well have had personal motives for the information they disclosed. Cohen even delves into genealogies to uncover family connections not immediately obvious to the casual reader.
This type of scrutiny is supported by a hefty “Notes” section for those not sated by the dense text of the book. It is a model for any aspiring historian. Unfortunately, I am not of that inclination and this was a long and difficult book for me to read. It is, however, a significant book. It highlights how the “Jacksonian Democracy” narrative we all learned in school was a male narrative, excluding the convulsions of a society confronting tumultuous changes in gender, class and economics.
January 2, 2016
This is the book I wanted The Mysterious Death of Mary Rogers: Sex and Culture in Nineteenth-Century New York to be. If Helen Jewett had been published first, I would assume that Mary Rogers was an attempt to imitate it, but in fact, Mary Rogers was published in 1995, three years before Helen Jewett.
It's clear that Srebnick and Cohen are attempting to do the same thing: to take a cause celebre murder of New York in the mid-nineteenth century and use it to explore the ways in which class and gender roles were being re-formed, and to talk about the rise of sensationalism in both journalism and fiction and its relationship to the naked female corpse.
And it's odd that the book about Mary Rogers was written first, because Helen Jewett is in every way a better fit. All Rogers has going for her, in this context, is Poe's story, "The Murder of Marie Roget." One of the things I complained about when I read Mary Rogers was the lack of primary evidence to back up Srebnick's speculations about Mary Rogers' life and death. Jewett, on the other hand, through a combination of character, circumstance, and coincidence, left a paper trail that is a historian's wet dream. She was a prolific letter writer, and many of her letters were published by the penny press after her murder. The trial got extensive coverage. The fact that her murderer was a young man of good family (nineteen year old Richard P. Robinson, the son of a Connecticut state legislator) and the fact that she had been, before embarking on her career as a prostitute, a maid in the house of a prominent Maine judge (who had sons of the same age as her murderer), meant that a great many men wrote about her (self-servingly, and Cohen does a lovely job deconstructing their defensive rhetoric). And as it happens, as the judge's precocious and charming maid, she was mentioned in Anne Royall's Black Book. So it is possible to trace her from her birth as Dorcas Doyen through a series of self-chosen aliases: Maria Stanley, Maria Benson, Helen Mar, and finally, the name she died under at the age of twenty-three, Helen Jewett.
Jewett was murdered in 1836; Rogers in 1841. The treatment of Rogers in the press probably owes a good deal to the sensation surrounding the trial of Jewett's murderer and the way her naked body was described. (Cohen also has a much better sense of how to use her primary sources; when she says a source demonstrates something--such as the creepy eroticism with which the newspaper editor James Gordon Bennett described Jewett's corpse--she quotes evidence.) Finally, Mary Rogers' death is so mysterious as to be inconclusive, as least as it's presented by Srebnick. Cline, on the other hand, has a murderer and a murder trial--and the grotesque miscarriage of justice by which that murderer was acquitted. (Even aside from the hash the D.A. made of the prosecution . . . since Jewett was murdered in a brothel, the witnesses who place the murderer at the scene, witnesses who corroborate each other's stories, are two white prostitutes, a white brothel owner, and an African-American servant. The D.A. didn't call any of the women's clients as witnesses because those gentlemen begged him not to. The vague and unconvincing testimony that gave Robinson an alibi came from professional-class white men. In his closing remarks, the judge instructed the jury that they had to discount the prostitutes' testimony on the basis that prostitutes "are not to be entitled to credit unless their testimony is corroborated from others, drawn from better sources" (317).)
Cohen is a comprehensive and exhaustive researcher; her endnotes contain everything from information on how time was reckoned in 1836 New York to the life and eventual fate of one of Helen's other clients. She explains why she accepts some documents in the case as authentic and discards others as frauds, and her reasons are logical and convincing, and do not rely on "because I want them to be." She is very good at reading against texts, necessary when up to one's chin in the inflated rhetoric of the 1830s, and she uses her evidence to present the best portrait she can of Helen Jewett and her world.
The whole thing is full of fascinating details--Cohen is a geek for the history of New York City, which makes the book doubly awesome as far as I'm concerned--but the one I want to offer is about the fate of Helen Jewett's body:
On Monday, Helen Jewett was buried in St. John's Burying Ground, about a mile north of Thomas Street. Bounded by Leroy, Clarkson, Hudson, and Varick (now Seventh Avenue) Streets, the cemetery was associated with St. John's Episcopal Church to the south on Varick. It was the only Episcopal burying ground in active use in the city since an 1831 edict closing off new interments in the overfilled churchyards of Trinity and St. Paul's. Someone [...] approached the rector of St. John's on Sunday or Monday to arrange a plot for the murdered prostitute, paying six dollars for the privilege of Christian burial. [...]
St. John's Burying Ground became Hudson Park in the 1890s, and in turning the land over to the city, the parish advertised widely for anyone with loved ones to reclaim and rebury the bodies interred there; few did. The remaining thousands of bodies and hundreds of monuments were turned under the soil, covered by a formal French park graced with a belvedere overlooking a reflecting pool. The park was renamed James J. Walker Park in the 1940s, in honor of a beloved New York mayor who lived in an 1860s brownstone on Leroy Street across from the site. In 1972, a backhoe transforming the park into a playground ripped into underground crypts that had long been forgotten.
But Helen Jewett did not meet that backhoe. She was not in Walker Park, nor Hudson Park, nor St. John's Burying Ground, not for long anyway. Four nights after her burial, medical students went at her grave with spades and pickaxes, removed her body in a bag, and carted it off for dissection at the College of Physicians and Surgeons on Barclay Street. A short time later, the Herald reported, her "elegant and classic skeleton" hung in a cabinet at the medical school.
(264-65)
Unfortunately, an endnote tells us, if the medical school even still had Jewett's skeleton in the 1860s, it was destroyed in a fire. I love this tangent for what it tells us, both about the city's casual cannibalism of itself from the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, and about the very specific, ghoulish mise en scène of 1836. And it is typical of the book as a whole.
It's clear that Srebnick and Cohen are attempting to do the same thing: to take a cause celebre murder of New York in the mid-nineteenth century and use it to explore the ways in which class and gender roles were being re-formed, and to talk about the rise of sensationalism in both journalism and fiction and its relationship to the naked female corpse.
And it's odd that the book about Mary Rogers was written first, because Helen Jewett is in every way a better fit. All Rogers has going for her, in this context, is Poe's story, "The Murder of Marie Roget." One of the things I complained about when I read Mary Rogers was the lack of primary evidence to back up Srebnick's speculations about Mary Rogers' life and death. Jewett, on the other hand, through a combination of character, circumstance, and coincidence, left a paper trail that is a historian's wet dream. She was a prolific letter writer, and many of her letters were published by the penny press after her murder. The trial got extensive coverage. The fact that her murderer was a young man of good family (nineteen year old Richard P. Robinson, the son of a Connecticut state legislator) and the fact that she had been, before embarking on her career as a prostitute, a maid in the house of a prominent Maine judge (who had sons of the same age as her murderer), meant that a great many men wrote about her (self-servingly, and Cohen does a lovely job deconstructing their defensive rhetoric). And as it happens, as the judge's precocious and charming maid, she was mentioned in Anne Royall's Black Book. So it is possible to trace her from her birth as Dorcas Doyen through a series of self-chosen aliases: Maria Stanley, Maria Benson, Helen Mar, and finally, the name she died under at the age of twenty-three, Helen Jewett.
Jewett was murdered in 1836; Rogers in 1841. The treatment of Rogers in the press probably owes a good deal to the sensation surrounding the trial of Jewett's murderer and the way her naked body was described. (Cohen also has a much better sense of how to use her primary sources; when she says a source demonstrates something--such as the creepy eroticism with which the newspaper editor James Gordon Bennett described Jewett's corpse--she quotes evidence.) Finally, Mary Rogers' death is so mysterious as to be inconclusive, as least as it's presented by Srebnick. Cline, on the other hand, has a murderer and a murder trial--and the grotesque miscarriage of justice by which that murderer was acquitted. (Even aside from the hash the D.A. made of the prosecution . . . since Jewett was murdered in a brothel, the witnesses who place the murderer at the scene, witnesses who corroborate each other's stories, are two white prostitutes, a white brothel owner, and an African-American servant. The D.A. didn't call any of the women's clients as witnesses because those gentlemen begged him not to. The vague and unconvincing testimony that gave Robinson an alibi came from professional-class white men. In his closing remarks, the judge instructed the jury that they had to discount the prostitutes' testimony on the basis that prostitutes "are not to be entitled to credit unless their testimony is corroborated from others, drawn from better sources" (317).)
Cohen is a comprehensive and exhaustive researcher; her endnotes contain everything from information on how time was reckoned in 1836 New York to the life and eventual fate of one of Helen's other clients. She explains why she accepts some documents in the case as authentic and discards others as frauds, and her reasons are logical and convincing, and do not rely on "because I want them to be." She is very good at reading against texts, necessary when up to one's chin in the inflated rhetoric of the 1830s, and she uses her evidence to present the best portrait she can of Helen Jewett and her world.
The whole thing is full of fascinating details--Cohen is a geek for the history of New York City, which makes the book doubly awesome as far as I'm concerned--but the one I want to offer is about the fate of Helen Jewett's body:
On Monday, Helen Jewett was buried in St. John's Burying Ground, about a mile north of Thomas Street. Bounded by Leroy, Clarkson, Hudson, and Varick (now Seventh Avenue) Streets, the cemetery was associated with St. John's Episcopal Church to the south on Varick. It was the only Episcopal burying ground in active use in the city since an 1831 edict closing off new interments in the overfilled churchyards of Trinity and St. Paul's. Someone [...] approached the rector of St. John's on Sunday or Monday to arrange a plot for the murdered prostitute, paying six dollars for the privilege of Christian burial. [...]
St. John's Burying Ground became Hudson Park in the 1890s, and in turning the land over to the city, the parish advertised widely for anyone with loved ones to reclaim and rebury the bodies interred there; few did. The remaining thousands of bodies and hundreds of monuments were turned under the soil, covered by a formal French park graced with a belvedere overlooking a reflecting pool. The park was renamed James J. Walker Park in the 1940s, in honor of a beloved New York mayor who lived in an 1860s brownstone on Leroy Street across from the site. In 1972, a backhoe transforming the park into a playground ripped into underground crypts that had long been forgotten.
But Helen Jewett did not meet that backhoe. She was not in Walker Park, nor Hudson Park, nor St. John's Burying Ground, not for long anyway. Four nights after her burial, medical students went at her grave with spades and pickaxes, removed her body in a bag, and carted it off for dissection at the College of Physicians and Surgeons on Barclay Street. A short time later, the Herald reported, her "elegant and classic skeleton" hung in a cabinet at the medical school.
(264-65)
Unfortunately, an endnote tells us, if the medical school even still had Jewett's skeleton in the 1860s, it was destroyed in a fire. I love this tangent for what it tells us, both about the city's casual cannibalism of itself from the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, and about the very specific, ghoulish mise en scène of 1836. And it is typical of the book as a whole.
December 8, 2019
History, not mystery. Historical and sociological research of 1830’s New York; it’s brothels, boarding houses, business practices, justice system, newspaper coverage and the prominent families of the times, particularly those involved with or related to Helen Jewett and Richard Robinson. The book is written around the murder of a prostitute called Helen Jewett in a NY city brothel on April 9, 1836.
The murderer most likely is a young man from a prominent family in Connecticut who is working as a clerk in NY city. He certainly seems the sociopath and has a sticky, volatile and entangled relationship with Helen Jewett. He goes to trial for her murder but is acquitted. The evidence would point to his guilt. But for a smart boy, and he was exceedingly intelligent, it seems so overt to oops, accidently drop the murder weapon in the yard and the cloak in the next yard. He did do stupid things sometimes though. Writing to WDG in jail certainly fell under the heading of stupid. But this was a guy who supposedly carried a small dagger with him always. Why hit the head of Helen with a hatchet and then drop it in the yard? All things considered he was probably guilty. The trial was a complete farce.
Helen Jewett was a bit of a mystery herself. I wasn't so sure that she chose this lifestyle. I was very suspicious of her father's one and only land deal. He didn't have anything of value except his daughter (Dorcas later known as Helen Jewett) I think it was Dorcas for sale, not land. She was probably sold to the Dillingham family and for the large amount of money involved I distrust the motives of the buyers. I think she may have been set on her path at as young as 9 years old. All those supposed seducers may have been "clients". She was a very clever girl, smarter than many around her, but at 23 and in the business for years already, the romantic innocent game was probably wearing thin. I felt sorry for her. And the men who patronized the brothels were certainly willing to turn on the prostitutes like vicious dogs.
This was an interesting book all around. It was kind of hard to get into as it reads more like research, which it is, rather than like a novel. But once I got used to that and knew I was reading historical research then it became more palatable and I remained quite interested.
The murderer most likely is a young man from a prominent family in Connecticut who is working as a clerk in NY city. He certainly seems the sociopath and has a sticky, volatile and entangled relationship with Helen Jewett. He goes to trial for her murder but is acquitted. The evidence would point to his guilt. But for a smart boy, and he was exceedingly intelligent, it seems so overt to oops, accidently drop the murder weapon in the yard and the cloak in the next yard. He did do stupid things sometimes though. Writing to WDG in jail certainly fell under the heading of stupid. But this was a guy who supposedly carried a small dagger with him always. Why hit the head of Helen with a hatchet and then drop it in the yard? All things considered he was probably guilty. The trial was a complete farce.
Helen Jewett was a bit of a mystery herself. I wasn't so sure that she chose this lifestyle. I was very suspicious of her father's one and only land deal. He didn't have anything of value except his daughter (Dorcas later known as Helen Jewett) I think it was Dorcas for sale, not land. She was probably sold to the Dillingham family and for the large amount of money involved I distrust the motives of the buyers. I think she may have been set on her path at as young as 9 years old. All those supposed seducers may have been "clients". She was a very clever girl, smarter than many around her, but at 23 and in the business for years already, the romantic innocent game was probably wearing thin. I felt sorry for her. And the men who patronized the brothels were certainly willing to turn on the prostitutes like vicious dogs.
This was an interesting book all around. It was kind of hard to get into as it reads more like research, which it is, rather than like a novel. But once I got used to that and knew I was reading historical research then it became more palatable and I remained quite interested.
December 31, 2020
At first this was a little hard to get into because it is a little bit dry and somewhat repetitive. It is also hard to keep track of the names and all the specific pieces of evidence because there were so many conflicting versions. However, by the end I was a lot more interested as I saw some parallels to more recent "Crimes of the Century" like Robert Chambers ("The Preppie Killer") and later, O.J. Simpson.
The whole trial was deeply flawed because the most damning and consistent evidence was given by prostitutes who were automatically deemed untrustworthy. Meanwhile, Richard Robinson, the defendant, was a "respectable" young clerk from a good family. The defense literally won their case by insisting, "you can't possibly believe such a nice boy would jeopardize all his prospects by killing a lowlife hooker." Of course the prosecution did not try very hard to convict because entire legal system at that time was comprised of prominent white men who were all personally connected in some way, who would never convict one of their own.
The case was apparently as famous in the 1830s as the O.J. trial (they were still talking about it 20 years later), and the evidence of guilt just as overwhelming. At first everyone applauded the verdict. But later, as private letters to male friends surfaced, the "nice boy" was regarded as a "monster." Those letters sounded strangely modern, unlike the verbose and flowery love letters common at the time. Today, he would be labeled a sociopath.
Robinson also did some of the same stupid things O.J. did like giving bizarre interviews where he almost admits to the crime. Unlike O.J., he was able to move to Texas and reinvent himself under a different name (even though most of his close friends knew who he was and even visited his family back in Connecticut....so they had to know!).
But fortunately for Robinson, Texas in the wake of the Alamo and the drive for statehood attracted hundreds of "adventurers" with criminal pasts, meaning it was a more forgiving place for an obviously guilty man than New York and New England.
The whole trial was deeply flawed because the most damning and consistent evidence was given by prostitutes who were automatically deemed untrustworthy. Meanwhile, Richard Robinson, the defendant, was a "respectable" young clerk from a good family. The defense literally won their case by insisting, "you can't possibly believe such a nice boy would jeopardize all his prospects by killing a lowlife hooker." Of course the prosecution did not try very hard to convict because entire legal system at that time was comprised of prominent white men who were all personally connected in some way, who would never convict one of their own.
The case was apparently as famous in the 1830s as the O.J. trial (they were still talking about it 20 years later), and the evidence of guilt just as overwhelming. At first everyone applauded the verdict. But later, as private letters to male friends surfaced, the "nice boy" was regarded as a "monster." Those letters sounded strangely modern, unlike the verbose and flowery love letters common at the time. Today, he would be labeled a sociopath.
Robinson also did some of the same stupid things O.J. did like giving bizarre interviews where he almost admits to the crime. Unlike O.J., he was able to move to Texas and reinvent himself under a different name (even though most of his close friends knew who he was and even visited his family back in Connecticut....so they had to know!).
But fortunately for Robinson, Texas in the wake of the Alamo and the drive for statehood attracted hundreds of "adventurers" with criminal pasts, meaning it was a more forgiving place for an obviously guilty man than New York and New England.
April 26, 2014
Sometimes a good cast isn’t enough to get me to continue to watch a show. Copper was such a show. I tried. I really did. I tried again when I heard that new actors were being added to the second season. I mean, Alfre Woodard. But no, couldn’t get into it. I was always left with a feeling that the show, if not the staff, really didn’t like women. Granted, it took place in Five Corners during the Civil War, but in terms of female characters you had the evil whore (she killed one of her girls out of jealously), the spy (the upper class woman who becomes addicted to opium as well), the vamp (the child prostitute), the one who killed her daughter (it is a long story, and it was accident), and the other one with mental issues (who say her brothers killed, and this character actually got much better in the second season).
It seems, after reading this book, Copper was far more accurate than it intended to be. Helen Jewett was a whore. She lived and worked in a brothel. She was not a street walker, but it she was whore. A nice and educated whore, who sold more than just intercourse, but the whole idea of a relationship.
One of her clients killed her and got away with it because she was a whore.
Cline looks at Jewett’s past, as much as she possibly could, as well as the factors that went into working as a whore at that time as well as how society would have viewed such women. Additionally, there is a look at how the newspapers reported the killing.
What’s the saying? The more things change, the more they stay the same.
It ties into Copper, even though there is at least 30 years difference because of the portrayal and buddy system between the cops and whores in that series. In fact, you could also go argue that Copper showcased the male privilege that allowed for such an environment – for instance, get rid of that wife who accidently killed her daughter and then two male heroes can be buddies again.
Okay, maybe not that bit because sharing women, at least those who sold favors, was one of the ways that men seemed to bond. Homoerotic doesn’t begin to describe it.
An interesting look at a criminal case that still is, sadly, relevant today.
It seems, after reading this book, Copper was far more accurate than it intended to be. Helen Jewett was a whore. She lived and worked in a brothel. She was not a street walker, but it she was whore. A nice and educated whore, who sold more than just intercourse, but the whole idea of a relationship.
One of her clients killed her and got away with it because she was a whore.
Cline looks at Jewett’s past, as much as she possibly could, as well as the factors that went into working as a whore at that time as well as how society would have viewed such women. Additionally, there is a look at how the newspapers reported the killing.
What’s the saying? The more things change, the more they stay the same.
It ties into Copper, even though there is at least 30 years difference because of the portrayal and buddy system between the cops and whores in that series. In fact, you could also go argue that Copper showcased the male privilege that allowed for such an environment – for instance, get rid of that wife who accidently killed her daughter and then two male heroes can be buddies again.
Okay, maybe not that bit because sharing women, at least those who sold favors, was one of the ways that men seemed to bond. Homoerotic doesn’t begin to describe it.
An interesting look at a criminal case that still is, sadly, relevant today.
January 26, 2014
Patricia Cline Cohen is a good writer, in the sense that she displays mastery of the language (a rich vocabulary and the like). But she's not a good editor. The subject matter here is terribly interesting - from the story of the murder itself to the time in which it took place. Cohen delves into the cultural elements of 1830s New York and the back stories of the main characters. Of course it's a good instinct to provide context to a murder trial, especially one that took place so long ago. She simply gives the context too much airtime and consequently loses momentum.
This is a great story and a fascinating piece of history of my adopted hometown, and I finished it for those reasons. I skimmed a lot of source material - Cohen has seemingly reprinted every relevant letter, diary entry, and newspaper item bearing some relevance to the case. Those who want to read this book for what it's about - and in the end, it was worth it to know what happened - should realize it's a history book, not a novelized treatment so common in the genre of true crime. Two stars for the misleading title/packaging and the lack of a good editor.
This is a great story and a fascinating piece of history of my adopted hometown, and I finished it for those reasons. I skimmed a lot of source material - Cohen has seemingly reprinted every relevant letter, diary entry, and newspaper item bearing some relevance to the case. Those who want to read this book for what it's about - and in the end, it was worth it to know what happened - should realize it's a history book, not a novelized treatment so common in the genre of true crime. Two stars for the misleading title/packaging and the lack of a good editor.
November 4, 2011
I think I have never before read a book and thought "whoooooooeee, this could use some serious editing." The story of Helen Jewett's actual murder is fascinating and bizarre, no doubt. There's all sorts of stuff going on here that is all sorts of fascinating. We've got prostitution, cover-ups (maybe), small-town girls going off to the big city, all that.
And it's really, really meticulously researched -- heavily footnoted, tons of minor stuff sourced back to letters, you name it.
And yet.
First, it may be almost TOO researched -- sure, it's great that Ms. Cohen found out about Helen Jewett's family going back 3, 4, 5 generations. But we don't need to see entire sections devoted to whether her great-grandfather could pay his debts, and when we're confronted with sections about how her family had *always* been poor and shiftless, well, it's either irrelevant (which is IS), or it's easy to get the sense that Ms. Cohen is indicating that Ms. Jewett deserved no better/no more than a life of prostitution (Note: I don't think she actually thought that. But it was weird.)
Second, we see certain of Helen and Richard's letters reprinted in full two, three, four times throughout the book. There is no reason.
Third, the order in which information is presented is sometimes confusing. When we learn that a scandalous newspaper article referenced a H***** B***** with a carefully chosen number of asterisks replacing letters, and about how shocked a huge number of people were by it, why do we then wait more than 100 pages to learn who Horace Bridge WAS and why it was a scandal? It was just poorly organized.
And it's really, really meticulously researched -- heavily footnoted, tons of minor stuff sourced back to letters, you name it.
And yet.
First, it may be almost TOO researched -- sure, it's great that Ms. Cohen found out about Helen Jewett's family going back 3, 4, 5 generations. But we don't need to see entire sections devoted to whether her great-grandfather could pay his debts, and when we're confronted with sections about how her family had *always* been poor and shiftless, well, it's either irrelevant (which is IS), or it's easy to get the sense that Ms. Cohen is indicating that Ms. Jewett deserved no better/no more than a life of prostitution (Note: I don't think she actually thought that. But it was weird.)
Second, we see certain of Helen and Richard's letters reprinted in full two, three, four times throughout the book. There is no reason.
Third, the order in which information is presented is sometimes confusing. When we learn that a scandalous newspaper article referenced a H***** B***** with a carefully chosen number of asterisks replacing letters, and about how shocked a huge number of people were by it, why do we then wait more than 100 pages to learn who Horace Bridge WAS and why it was a scandal? It was just poorly organized.
July 21, 2009
A wonderful book, not always easy to bear but always captivating. Patricia Cline Cohen tells the story of a notorious 1836 New York murder trial, using it to immerse us in Jacksonian urban society and reveal some of the anxieties the case brought to the surface of public discussion. She relates the life stories of two mysterious city dwellers, first the charismatic 22-year-old prostitute calling herself Helen Jewett and then the 19-year-old clerk accused of her murder, the well-spoken but moody Richard P. Robinson. Both stories illustrate a tremendous displacement in American life, a deracination that meant different things to different observers but above all seemed frought with moral danger. Cohen's research is impressive, and her analysis is sensitive and persuasive.
A note to prospective readers: as some other reviewers here have noted, the title of this book may be misleading, although I think the subtitle helps balance the impression it leaves. The Murder of Helen Jewett is gripping, but at times it is more like a gripping encyclopedia than a gripping novel. If "gripping encyclopedia" strikes you as a contradiction in terms, you may want to avoid this book. That said, there is some impressive detective work on display here, and half the fun is watching Cohen connect innocuous dots in spectacular patterns.
A note to prospective readers: as some other reviewers here have noted, the title of this book may be misleading, although I think the subtitle helps balance the impression it leaves. The Murder of Helen Jewett is gripping, but at times it is more like a gripping encyclopedia than a gripping novel. If "gripping encyclopedia" strikes you as a contradiction in terms, you may want to avoid this book. That said, there is some impressive detective work on display here, and half the fun is watching Cohen connect innocuous dots in spectacular patterns.
August 6, 2008
Cohen knows EVERYTHING about this case. It's an in-depth study of so many facets of early 19th century history: gender roles, prostitution, the justice system, the caste system, and Manhattan itself. It's exactly the kind of history book I love - when the author introduces a peripheral character, she starts with his grandfather. If you're not into that kind of storytelling and are looking for a juicier read, I recommend "Sin in the Second City" - it's a little fluffier, and reads more like a novel.
November 15, 2019
This book is just fascinating. It is one of the most thoroughly researched books I've ever read, but it never veers into dullness. The way that Patricia Cline Cohen unravels the murder mystery keeps the reader spellbound. It is vivid examination of life in 1830s NYC including the world of prostitution, trade, theatre, gender politics, news coverage, movement, and the changing culture. This history is a deeply satisfying read.
December 20, 2016
In April of 1836, a young prostitute who called herself Helen Jewett was found murdered in her bed. Her bedclothes had been set on fire.
In The Murder of Helen Jewett, Patricia Cline Cohen minutely examines the history of this murder. She goes into great depth, looking at the newspaper coverage of the time (the murder provided a lot of material for several papers of New York’s so-called ‘penny press’, the forerunners of today’s tabloids, and got them off to a roaring start), the early lives of the victim and the accused murderer, life in an upscale brothel of the period, and the lives of shop clerks. The somewhat perfunctory efforts of the police and the progress of the trial are also covered, as well as the life of the accused murderer after he was acquitted.
It appears we will never know beyond the shadow of a doubt who killed Helen Jewett, but there seems to be pretty strong evidence that Richard P. Robinson, the man arrested for the murder, was likely the culprit. Possibly, if someone had taken the murder of a prostitute a little more seriously and investigated a little more thoroughly, or if more modern techniques of criminology had been available in 1836, the case could have been solved to everyone’s satisfaction. As it was, the questions left open when Robinson was acquitted prompted a number of novels and pamphlets based on the case.
This book offers a good look at life in one corner of early 19th century New York, and in Augusta, Maine, where Helen Jewett came from. A compelling read.
In The Murder of Helen Jewett, Patricia Cline Cohen minutely examines the history of this murder. She goes into great depth, looking at the newspaper coverage of the time (the murder provided a lot of material for several papers of New York’s so-called ‘penny press’, the forerunners of today’s tabloids, and got them off to a roaring start), the early lives of the victim and the accused murderer, life in an upscale brothel of the period, and the lives of shop clerks. The somewhat perfunctory efforts of the police and the progress of the trial are also covered, as well as the life of the accused murderer after he was acquitted.
It appears we will never know beyond the shadow of a doubt who killed Helen Jewett, but there seems to be pretty strong evidence that Richard P. Robinson, the man arrested for the murder, was likely the culprit. Possibly, if someone had taken the murder of a prostitute a little more seriously and investigated a little more thoroughly, or if more modern techniques of criminology had been available in 1836, the case could have been solved to everyone’s satisfaction. As it was, the questions left open when Robinson was acquitted prompted a number of novels and pamphlets based on the case.
This book offers a good look at life in one corner of early 19th century New York, and in Augusta, Maine, where Helen Jewett came from. A compelling read.
February 4, 2012
This is exactly what narrative historical nonfiction should be, in my opinion. The story of the murder of prostitute Helen Jewett in 1830s New York City is a fascinating panorama of a time & place that is so engrossing, the reader finds it almost more real than the world currently around them. Plus, it's so much more than just a book about a sensational murder & trial of days past: the birth of modern journalism, particularly of the investigative stripe, is here, as well as a look at the general sociological history of northern New England, & the sexual mores & gender politics of Jacksonian America. Cohen's portrayal of the trial itself is also fascinating in the way it highlights judicial procedures of the time, many of which seem completely shocking to a current reader. Cohen does reach a verdict for the officially unsolved mystery based on her research, & I thought her arguments were very convincing. I quite literally had difficulty putting this one down.
October 6, 2014
If I was more of a fan of mystery, I probably would have absolutely loved this book. This book goes into amazing detail of everyone and everything that had even the slightest involvement with the story. I will say this was probably the most intensively researched book I ever read and my hats off to the author. The reading was hit and miss for me. A lot more details than I cared for in some areas. But overall I would say I liked it. In my opinion, Robinson did it. And I believe there was definitely some underlying cause. Ms. Jewett knew something. And Robinson didn't want anyone else to know. That's my opinion. This is a book that depends heavily on a persons personal preference as to how they like a story written. If you like incredibly researched and detailed crime/mystery books, you would probably enjoy it more than I. But even though it wasn't my style(even though I'm a true crime fan) I still thought it was a good read.
April 5, 2011
When I first started this book I couldn't put it down. It opened up with Helen's murder and then started opening up 19th century New York and Helen (born Dorcas Doyen)'s life. I could just feel the author digging around in archives to get to understand Helen (and her murderer's life).
I wanted to give this book four stars. I really did. But about 2/3 of the way in it was starting to repeat itself too much and its tangents were no longer relevant. I think I started losing my enthusiasm when there was a chapter that talked about books that Helen maybe possibly could have read. Overall great and well written, but it should have been cut about 100 pages.
Still, I will recommend it to people who take an interest in it.
I wanted to give this book four stars. I really did. But about 2/3 of the way in it was starting to repeat itself too much and its tangents were no longer relevant. I think I started losing my enthusiasm when there was a chapter that talked about books that Helen maybe possibly could have read. Overall great and well written, but it should have been cut about 100 pages.
Still, I will recommend it to people who take an interest in it.
October 5, 2011
I found this book absolutely fascinating. I agree with reviewers who have stated that this book reads more as a history book vs. a true crime story, but I think that is why I have enjoyed it so much. The author went much deeper in her writing and research of this "story" versus your "average" true crime book. If you are looking for a book written in the style of such authors as Gregg Olsen's nonfiction work, Phelps, M. William or Ann Rule, you are going to be really disappointed.
October 10, 2017
This was a required reading for one of my graduate classes in history, and I must say, it was one of the best ones to read. Cohen uses the research from newspapers, journals, and letters to bring the murder of the time to life. She shows how life was for the women during that time period, and how the newspapers embellished the crime. She writes the story in a prose format, and with intriquite detail to the crime. However, I do wish she would have given more information on the man who committed the murder, supposedly. Either way, this is a good book for those who want to study gender history or murder.
November 12, 2024
This book covers a case from 1836 in which a sex worker was murdered. While sex workers have been a staple in societies for centuries, as well as murder, this case was particularly shocking for its time. The author of this book did a tremendous job on the research of this case, and the way that the reader is able to get to know the victim as a human being and not just as a victim. I really enjoy learning about these older crime cases. It is really interesting to see how far investigative tactics and science has come along through the years.
May 2, 2019
The murder of Helen Jewett in April 1836 provides a springboard for a rich social history of the period, including policing, family, gender, sex work, urban life, law. There’s hardly a sideroad that the author doesn’t find interesting enough to venture down, at least for a while.
February 28, 2025
several long stretches of tedious detail but kudos for the meticulous research
November 18, 2025
read this for class. the way a man from a “good family” was able to get away with MURDER because his word was considered more important that the DESCRIPTIVE testimonies of women of “ill repute” i hate it here man
January 8, 2019
I like non-fiction. I like well-researched books. However, not every detail found in research needs to make it into the book. That's how it felt when I tried to read this one. I think the story and time period would have been an interesting read, something I would have enjoyed, but I just couldn't make it through the heavy detail. The flow of the story was bogged down in facts about which I had to ask "Do I really care to know this?" I made it through the first couple of chapters and then scanned ahead to see if the terrain changed any; it didn't and I bowed out.
August 6, 2019
It's not a "who-done-it". The alleged murderer was arrested within a day of the discovery of Helen Jewett's body in April 1836, in a brothel in New York. The axe was traced to him. The cloak was traced to him. Helen was a prostitute and he was one of her clients. He had been seen in her room that night. He was tried in June, 1836 -- and was acquitted.
I liked this book because it showed not all young people were angels back in 1836. Helen was "a girl on the town" in New York, Boston and Philadelphia since she was seventeen. She was twenty-two and she must've been good at her work, since she had good jewelry, stylish clothes and money. Not bad for a maid-of-all-work from age twelve to her leaving her employer's home in Maine. Richard was a nineteen year old clerk from a middle-class family in Connecticut. He lived in a boarding house with other youth who came to seek their fortune in the Big Bad City, and they were wild and wicked when off the leash on evenings and weekends. The sons of Helen's former employer were little more than covering their respectability at college and the kids in the New York gangs raided the high-class brothels like Helen's because these hoity-toity dames charged so much that only the swells and the out-of-towners could afford them. "What right have they to look down on manly and strong Irish lads from Five-Points and the Bowery?"
I got the feeling that the characters of guys (and girls) on their own hasn't changed much in nearly two-hundred years.
I liked this book because it showed not all young people were angels back in 1836. Helen was "a girl on the town" in New York, Boston and Philadelphia since she was seventeen. She was twenty-two and she must've been good at her work, since she had good jewelry, stylish clothes and money. Not bad for a maid-of-all-work from age twelve to her leaving her employer's home in Maine. Richard was a nineteen year old clerk from a middle-class family in Connecticut. He lived in a boarding house with other youth who came to seek their fortune in the Big Bad City, and they were wild and wicked when off the leash on evenings and weekends. The sons of Helen's former employer were little more than covering their respectability at college and the kids in the New York gangs raided the high-class brothels like Helen's because these hoity-toity dames charged so much that only the swells and the out-of-towners could afford them. "What right have they to look down on manly and strong Irish lads from Five-Points and the Bowery?"
I got the feeling that the characters of guys (and girls) on their own hasn't changed much in nearly two-hundred years.
September 7, 2017
Finished book ages ago. Thought I reviewed at that time. Great book. Very prescient in light of Poe's story. Would recommend to all who would prefer fact to fiction, especially those who have an interest in the historical time period covered here, and the stark sililarities and differences in procedurals as compared to today's investigative processes.
Read
October 5, 2011This is a non-fiction book about a prostitute's murder in New York City in the 1830s and the subsequent trial that followed.
The story was sort of interesting but it felt more like I was reading a historian's college thesis rather than a mysterious story about murder and prostitution.
I think the problem was that I picked the book up thinking that it was going to be more of a fictional retelling. It just wasn't what I was expecting. Sort of like when you go to take a sip of water and realize that it's actually sprite instead.
This genre isn't really my thing so it's hard to judge it properly as I don't have much to compare it to. I'm sure that readers that enjoy this type of book would find this story extremely compelling and the research and detail interesting.
The story was sort of interesting but it felt more like I was reading a historian's college thesis rather than a mysterious story about murder and prostitution.
I think the problem was that I picked the book up thinking that it was going to be more of a fictional retelling. It just wasn't what I was expecting. Sort of like when you go to take a sip of water and realize that it's actually sprite instead.
This genre isn't really my thing so it's hard to judge it properly as I don't have much to compare it to. I'm sure that readers that enjoy this type of book would find this story extremely compelling and the research and detail interesting.
December 29, 2017
Brain Food: Steak and Potatoes
Scandal Level: Historial discussion of prostitution
Violence: Descriptions of 19th century murder scene
Must be ___ old to read: 14
Read if you liked: The Devil in the White City or The Great Train Robbery
Re-readability: Worth reading a Second time
Thoughts: I was assigned this book in my History 601 class and absolutely loved it. Historical true crime does an amazing job at crossing the divide between pop and academic histories. Cohen tell an facinating story of a murder trial, while adhering to high levels of research and writing standards. Cohen's discussion of the newspaper of the day is especially fascinating. Worth the read for scholars and homegrown history buffs alike.
Scandal Level: Historial discussion of prostitution
Violence: Descriptions of 19th century murder scene
Must be ___ old to read: 14
Read if you liked: The Devil in the White City or The Great Train Robbery
Re-readability: Worth reading a Second time
Thoughts: I was assigned this book in my History 601 class and absolutely loved it. Historical true crime does an amazing job at crossing the divide between pop and academic histories. Cohen tell an facinating story of a murder trial, while adhering to high levels of research and writing standards. Cohen's discussion of the newspaper of the day is especially fascinating. Worth the read for scholars and homegrown history buffs alike.
July 18, 2019
This book reads more like a thesis than a general interest nonfiction book. It captures an intriguing cast of characters and does an excellent job detailing various aspects of the early nineteenth century, including social mores, growth of New York City and the newspapers of the day. But it is this vast detailing of everything that contributed to the life story of the two main characters that may bog many readers down. As another reviewer pointed out, it's not really about the murder of Helen Jewett. While I did enjoy reading the book and found the scholarship quite good, I believe editing the book to focus more on the murder and two main characters would widen the story's appeal to a more general audience.
October 31, 2012
I gave up on this book. The writing is very poorly done. She goes back and forth with the dates of the story, which is really confusing. I thought it was going to be more about the murder case itself, and how it had an impact on mid-nineteenth century New York City; instead, the book is mainly about building up the character of the prostitute Helen Jewett, who she was as a child in Maine, how she came to be a prostitute in New York City, and her love affairs leading up to her murder. When I stopped reading it, Cohen was hashing through Jewett's love letters from clients, which to me didn't have much to do with the murder at all. I was just very disappointed in the whole thing.
September 13, 2007
Helen Jewett was a prostitute in 19th Century New York. One day, a man a step or two above her on the class ladder, murdered her. Then he was tried for the crime. And he got off. The Murder of Helen Jewett recounts this otherwise unsurprising case with suspense and a rare talent for social commentary. As well, the case's presence in the new tabloid industry caused it to reach from coast to coast. The temporary effect it had on the country as a whole is ably covered in this fun true crime read.
NC
NC
September 5, 2012
Meh. This was an interesting subject matter but it was sooooo dry. I feel like the author was trying to cram in too many official documented proofs. It read too text booky. Which is unfortunate because a lot of the topics were really interesting. How the newspapers treated the story. The legal process in the 1830s. How prostitution worked in the 1830s. Etc. But man, I just could NOT get through it. I ended up skipping ahead to the last two chapters to find out if the accused murdered was found guilty or not and what ended up happening.
Wah wah.
Wah wah.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 117 reviews