About the Book:
Mary Alice Livingston Fleming, member of one of the most prestigious families in New York, was defendant in a sensational 1896 Manhattan murder trial in which she was accused of murdering her mother with a pail of poisoned clam chowder. Her alleged motive was to gain a substantial inheritance. That the defendant was arrested in her mourning clothes immediately after attending her mother's burial added extra interest, as did the fact that the fatal chowder had been delivered to the victim by her ten-year-old granddaughter. An especially scandalous factor was that Mary Alice was the mother of four illegitimate children, the youngest of whom was born in prison while Mary Alice awaited trial. If convicted, she would become the first female victim executed in the newfangled electric chair. All these details became the central focus of an all-out circulation war then underway, particularly between Joseph Pulitzer's
World and William Randolph Hearst's
Journal.
This murder trial, an intense courtroom battle between combative attorneys, is set against the electric backdrop of Gilded Age Manhattan. The arrival of skyscrapers, automobiles, motion pictures, and other modern marvels in the 1890s was transforming urban life with breath-taking speed just as the battles of reformers against vice, police corruption, and Tammany Hall were transforming the city's political life. Among the legal and social issues raised in
Arsenic and Clam Chowder are capital punishment, particularly of women, inheritance by murder, society's different standards for unwed mothers and unwed fathers, gender bias of juries, and the precise meaning of "beyond a reasonable doubt." The aspiring politician Teddy Roosevelt, the prolific inventor Thomas Edison, bon vivant Diamond Jim Brady, anti-vice crusaders Charles Parkhurst and Anthony Comstock, and others among Gotham's larger-than-life personalities play cameo roles in the dramatic story of Mary Alice and her trial for matricide. And the whole remarkable story revolved around a pail of clam chowder.
About the Author:
Born June 23, 1930, in Brooklyn, New York. Jim Livingston studied engineering physics at Cornell University, and received a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Harvard University in 1956. After retiring from General Electric after a lengthy career as a research physicist, he taught for 20 years in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT before retiring again. Although a physicist by profession, he has long had a strong interest in American history, and today much of his time is focused on writing (and reading) in history and in science.
In addition to an engineering text and other technical writing, Livingston is author of a popular-science book,
Driving Force: The Natural Magic of Magnets, a town history,
Glenville:Past and Present, and several articles on New York State history. He married Sherry H. Penney in 1985, and they have collaborated on several writing projects in American history, including three publications based on Martha Coffin Wright, an early feminist and abolitionist: “Expectant at Seneca Falls,” (
New York History, Winter 2003); “Hints for Wives-and Husbands” (
Journal of Women’s History, Summer 2003); and “How Did Abolitionist Women and Their Slaveholding Relatives Negotiate Their Differences Over the Issue of Slavery?”
http://womhist.binghamton.edu/mcw/doclist.htm.
Their biography,
A Very Dangerous Woman: Martha Wright and Women’s Rights, was published by University of Massachusetts Press in July 2004.
His latest book,
Arsenic and Clam Chowder: Murder in Gilded Age New York, was published in July 2010 by SUNY Press. It attempts to answer the question: "Who Put the Arsenic in Mrs. Bliss's Chowder?" At the murder trial on which the book is based, at the time the longest trial in the history of New York City, the prosecution and defense had very different answers to that question.
My Opinion:
I was drawn to this book for its time period. Turn of the century New York promised to be an exciting place. I also found the topic fascinating and macabre all at the same time. As they say - truth is stranger than fiction. Imagine sending an arsenic laced pail of clam chowder to one's mother by way of one's 10 year old daughter. No novelist could come up with a better plot!
I did enjoy the book but it wasn't a page turner. I enjoyed all of the descriptions of life in New York at the time. Reading about the invention of the electric chair was especially intriguing; I did not realize that Mr. Edison and Mr. Westinghouse were so much in competition. Much of the material in the book is drawn from newspaper reports. Newspapers were THE source back then. Imagine no 24 hour access to "BREAKING NEWS." Hmmm, that might be nice...
The book is set up like a murder mystery and indeed it is one in a way. I have to admit to severe disappointment when the result was revealed in the photographs and illustrations sections midway through the book. As I was reading the captions of said the verdict was told. This was just before the chapter where the prosecution starts it's case. I almost didn't want to finish the book. While I recognize that the information is readily available if I googled it was still disappointing while in the middle of the book.
The debate presented over capital punishment in the late 19th century is much the same as the debate over capital punishment now. As they say - the more things change, the more things stay the same.
Overall this was an interesting tidbit from New York's long history of fascinating people.
Arsenic and Clam Chowder
is available at Amazon.com
Disclosure: I received a gratis copy of Arsenic and Clam Chowder from Pump Up Your Book Promotions. Any opinions expressed are my honest opinions and were not impacted by my receipt of the free book. I received no monetary compensation for this post.
is available at Amazon.com
is available at Amazon.com
is available at Amazon.com
