Pillars of Salt, Monuments of Grace: New England Crime Literature and the Origins of American Popular Culture, 1674-1860

by Daniel A. Cohen

In this innovative study, Daniel A. Cohen explores a major cultural shift embodied in hundreds of early New England crime publications. Tracing the declining authority of Puritan ministers, he shows how the arbiters of an increasingly pluralistic literary marketplace gradually supplanted pious execution sermons with last-speech broadsides, gallows verses, criminal autobiographies, trial reports, newspaper stories, and romantic docudramas. Pillars of Salt, Monuments of Grace probes the forgotten origins of our modern mass media's preoccupation with crime and punishment.

Genres: Crime, History

368 pages, Paperback

First published March 4, 1993

About the author

Daniel A. Cohen is associate professor of history at Case Western Reserve University.

Reviews

[Bill Sleeman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Daniel A. Cohen’s excellent academic study on the origins of crime publishing in America - Pillars of Salt, Monuments of Grace: New England Crime Literature and the Origins of American Popular Culture, 1674-1860(2006)is an important read for anyone interested in the scholarly side of true crime. The junction between the genre and early publishing is a close one and Cohen does a fine job of explaining how this one topic came to play such an important role in book history. A little slow at times but a worthy effort overall.