Arsenic and Clam Chowder: Murder in Gilded Age New York by James D. Livingston

Arsenic and Clam Chowder recounts the sensational 1896 homicide trial of Mary Alice Livingston, a member of 1 of the main prestigious households in manhattan, who used to be accused of murdering her personal mom, Evelina Bliss. the unusual software of demise, an arsenic-laced pail of clam chowder, have been dropped at the sufferer by way of her ten-year-old granddaughter, and Livingston used to be arrested in her mourning outfits instantly after attending her mother’s funeral. as well as being the mum of 4 out-of-wedlock little ones, the final born in legal whereas she was once anticipating trial, Livingston confronted the potential for being the 1st lady to be completed in New York’s new-fangled electrical chair, and these kind of lurid information made her arrest and trial the significant concentration of an all-out stream battle then underway among Joseph Pulitzer’s World and Randolph Hearst’s Journal.

The tale is determined opposed to the electrical backdrop of Gilded Age ny. the arriving of skyscrapers, vehicles, movies, and different glossy marvels within the Nineties used to be reworking city existence with breathtaking pace, simply because the battles of reformers opposed to vice, police corruption, and Tammany corridor have been remodeling the city’s political lifestyles. The aspiring flesh presser Teddy Roosevelt, the prolific inventor Thomas Edison, bon vivant Diamond Jim Brady, and his significant other Lillian Russell have been between Gotham’s larger-than-life personalities, and so they all performed cameo roles within the dramatic tale of Mary Alice Livingston and her arsenic-laced clam chowder. as well as telling a ripping strong tale, the ebook addresses a few social and criminal matters, between them capital punishment, equivalent rights for ladies, societal sexual criteria, inheritance legislation in regard to homicide, gender bias of juries, and the which means of “beyond a cheap doubt.”

Born June 23, 1930, in Brooklyn, big apple, James D. Livingston studied engineering physics at Cornell collage and obtained a PhD in utilized physics from Harvard collage in 1956. on account that retiring from normal electrical after a long profession as a learn physicist, he has been instructing within the division of fabrics technology and Engineering at MIT. even supposing a physicist by means of career, he has lengthy had a robust curiosity in American historical past, and is the coauthor, with Sherry H. Penney, of A Very risky girl: Martha Wright and Women’s Rights.