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The trials of Laura Fair : sex, murder, and insanity in the Victorian West / Carole Haber.

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, (c)2013.Description: 1 online resource (xii, 310 pages) : illustrationsContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • computer
Carrier type:
  • online resource
ISBN:
  • 9781469612539
  • 9781469626468
Subject(s): Genre/Form: LOC classification:
  • KF223 .T753 2013
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
Contents:
The she-devil known as Mrs. Laura D. Fair -- The case for the prosecution -- The defense responds -- The Appeal -- The Second Trial -- The Fair Lunatic -- Epilogue: The Many Faces of Laura D. Fair.
Subject: On November 3, 1870, on a San Francisco ferry, Laura Fair shot a bullet into the heart of her married lover, A.P. Crittenden. Throughout her two murder trials, Fair's lawyers, supported by expert testimony from physicians, claimed that the shooting was the result of temporary insanity caused by a severely painful menstrual cycle. The first jury disregarded such testimony, choosing instead to focus on Fair's disreputable character. In the second trial, however, an effective defense built on contemporary medical beliefs and gendered stereotypes led to a verdict that shocked Americans across the country. In this rousing history, Carole Haber probes changing ideas about morality and immorality, masculinity and femininity, love and marriage, health and disease, and mental illness to show that all these concepts were reinvented in the Victorian West. Haber's book examines the era's most controversial issues, including suffrage, the gendered courts, women's physiology, and free love. This notorious story enriches our understanding of Victorian society, opening the door to a discussion about the ways in which reputation, especially female reputation, is shaped.
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Includes bibliographies and index.

Introduction : Laura D. Fair and the unwritten law -- The she-devil known as Mrs. Laura D. Fair -- The case for the prosecution -- The defense responds -- The Appeal -- The Second Trial -- The Fair Lunatic -- Epilogue: The Many Faces of Laura D. Fair.

On November 3, 1870, on a San Francisco ferry, Laura Fair shot a bullet into the heart of her married lover, A.P. Crittenden. Throughout her two murder trials, Fair's lawyers, supported by expert testimony from physicians, claimed that the shooting was the result of temporary insanity caused by a severely painful menstrual cycle. The first jury disregarded such testimony, choosing instead to focus on Fair's disreputable character. In the second trial, however, an effective defense built on contemporary medical beliefs and gendered stereotypes led to a verdict that shocked Americans across the country. In this rousing history, Carole Haber probes changing ideas about morality and immorality, masculinity and femininity, love and marriage, health and disease, and mental illness to show that all these concepts were reinvented in the Victorian West. Haber's book examines the era's most controversial issues, including suffrage, the gendered courts, women's physiology, and free love. This notorious story enriches our understanding of Victorian society, opening the door to a discussion about the ways in which reputation, especially female reputation, is shaped.

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