Butchery on Bond Street - Sexual Politics and The Burdell-Cunningham Case in Ante-bellum New York [Hardcover]

Benjamin Feldman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 28, 2007

On the morning of January 31, 1857, Harvey Burdell's lifeless corpse was found in a pool of gore on the floor of his dentistry office in his home at 31 Bond Street in New York City. His ex-lover and landlady of the house was immediately accused of his murder in a case that filled the headlines for months on end. Emma Cunningham's desperate attempts to force the playboy bachelor to marry her and provide a home for the widow and her five children captured the attention of New Yorkers and people across America, just as OJ Simpson has in our times. The murder of an upper-middle class professional in the sanctity of his own home, coupled with the accused murderess' unceasing efforts to wreak vengeance and gain recompense for her rape and an involuntary abortion suffered at the hands of the murder victim form an unbelievable tale, infamous in its day and for decades thereafter, but now long forgotten.

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

In January, 1857, Harvey Burdell, a dentist with a taste for lowlife, was found stabbed to death in his quarters, on Bond Street, igniting one of the most famous murder scandals in New York City’s history. Suspicion immediately fell upon Burdell’s mistress (and landlady), Emma Cunningham, with whom he had been arguing violently over his ongoing refusal to marry her. The newspapers covered the case in salacious detail, and, at Cunningham’s trial, more than twelve times the usual number of prospective jurors were summoned, so that the case could be heard without prejudice. Feldman collates popular accounts with archival research-—the coroner, he finds, brought witnesses to the murder site and interrogated them in Burdell’s dentist’s chair—and tells the story like a gaslight-era episode of "Law & Order."
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Review

Ben Feldman vividly recreates New York City in the 1850s as the setting for a brutal and bloody murder which still has the power to shock. His meticulous historical research goes beyond the headlines of the day and brings to life a memorable cast of characters with their ambitions and desperations laid bare. A widow with overwhelming emotional and financial needs, a dentist with a successful practice and a shady private life: these and others lived and died in a Bond Street townhouse on a block that looks much the same today as it did 150 years ago. Feldman navigates the gender politics of the case and offers expert guidance on the legal complexities of murder and money. It's a splendid and gripping read. --Patricia Cline Cohen, author of The Murder of Helen Jewett

On a walk through Greenwood Cemetery, Ben Feldman fell down the rabbit hole of history. He landed in 1857, the year Dr. Harvey Burdell was murdered. With a historian s accuracy and a writer s flair he has unraveled a murder mystery as torrid and intriguing as anything Agatha Christie or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle could have conceived. In Butchery on Bond Street Feldman reveals the human interplay of good (and mostly bad) intentions as he fleshes out the story of Burdell and Emma Hempstead Cunningham s deadly affair. The book reads with the pulsing drive of a mystery story that unravels secrets of the human soul while it paints a rich and unforgettable portrait of nineteenth century New York. --Steve Zeitlin, Executive Director of City Lore, Inc.

The cost of staying middle class in New York City could be murder, mayhem and fraud in the mid-19th century. Mix in sex, slander and lawsuits and the result is a combination of Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives on Bond Street. Ben Feldman has mined the newspapers, court records and dozens of other primary sources to give us a vibrant portrait of Emma Cunningham s struggle to stay respectable and keep herself and her children out of the poorhouse and off the streets. Emma s ill-fated choice of Dr. Harvey Burdell, a cad and misogynist, as her gallant knight, led to his subsequent murder and her trial which was the subject of headlines for months. Feldman s brilliant use of primary sources and the rich secondary literature of the era illuminate the context of this battle of the sexes, the inequalities between men and women, the stress of accelerating social change on all groups in society, and the increasing role of new wealth in shaking up the traditional social structure. Alternating between the voices of the main protagonists and his description of the wider forces at work, the author offers us a vividly detailed and compelling narrative of a city where prostitution was a major source of employment for poor women, bankruptcy and failure were commonplace, and a widowed mother of five challenged every norm to secure a future for her children. --Deborah Gardner, Managing Editor of The Encyclopedia of New York City

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 299 pages
• Publisher: New York Wanderer Press in association with The Green-Wood Cemetery Historic Fund (May 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0979517508
• ISBN-13: 978-0979517501
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,717,769 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pre-Civil War New York City, August 27, 2007

By 

David L. Birch (NY, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Butchery on Bond Street - Sexual Politics and The Burdell-Cunningham Case in Ante-bellum New York (Hardcover)

Fascinating social history of New York City in the pre-Civil War era and an intriguing portrait of a woman's tribulations in maintaing not only social class but the basic means of survival. The book is also an excellent portrayal of the criminal "justice" system of that era.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Domesticity could be murder, January 22, 2009

By 

Rose Keefe "author" (Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Butchery on Bond Street - Sexual Politics and The Burdell-Cunningham Case in Ante-bellum New York (Hardcover)

As far as Emma Cunningham was concerned, Dr. Harvey Burdell could not have been murdered at a worse time. When the affluent dentist's mangled corpse was found in his study in January 1857, New York was in a state of displacement. Dignified and benevolent Old Money was being trampled under by the brash Nouveau Riche, and violent crime was on the rise if you believed what you read in James Gordon Bennett's `New York Herald'. Mrs. Cunningham was therefore a public nightmare come to life when she was arrested for Burdell's murder. She was a mistress who schemed to become his wife and acquire both money and respectability. When he rebuffed her plans, the prosecution charged, she and a male confederate killed him.

Although the Burdell-Cunningham case has been covered in other crime tomes, "Butchery on Bond Street" is the first thorough examination of the murder and the social factors that contributed to it. This is not a book to be read quickly: it's not just a whodunit but a `whydunit' too. It's well-rounded in the manner of Patricia Cline Cohen's `The Murder of Helen Jewett' and Albert Borowitz's `The Thurtell-Hunt Murder Case'.

Benjamin Feldman is to be commended. He has done a masterful job of recreating 1850s New York City and resurrecting this forgotten but significant murder case. I agree with a previous reviewer who described `Butchery on Bond Street' as being like a gaslight-era episode of `Law and Order'.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars bodies in Brooklyn, August 6, 2007

By 

Charles Sexton (Floral Park, New York United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Butchery on Bond Street - Sexual Politics and The Burdell-Cunningham Case in Ante-bellum New York (Hardcover)

An excellent historical review of a sensational murder in the early/mid 19th century. Well written and will hold your attention as well as most novels. Also, for this story, you can see where the bodies are buried in Greenwood Cemetery.