The Great Trials Of The Twenties: The Watershed Decade In America's Courtrooms [Hardcover]

Robert Grant (Author), Joseph Katz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 22, 1998

1920s America was at peace at home and abroad but issues facing the nation were highlighted by a series of trials including baseball's Black Sox, Al Capone, John T. Scopes, Sacco and Vanzetti, Leopold and Loeb, and the court martial of Billy Mitchell. Americans will find this book on trials of the “Roaring Twenties” provocative. Great Trials begins with an extensive introduction describing “the setting” of that tumultuous decade, and follows with an in-depth examination of 10 trials, touching on nearly every facet of American life. Each case is a fascinating story, and the fierce jousts in these courtrooms impart to the reader both how different things once were, and how much the nature of argumentative individuals has remained exactly the same.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the scandal-prone 1920s, celebrity athletes, gangsters, politicians, movie stars and magnates found themselves defendants in marquee trials that fascinated the American public. Here Grant and Katz, historians at, respectively, Framingham College (Massachusetts) and Long Island University, analyze 10 high-profile criminal trials from that tumultuous period, expanding beyond the decade to include the 1919 Chicago "Black Sox" scandal and the 1930s trials of Al Capone and holding-company "super-titan" Samuel Insull. The authors dwell on the factual background of the cases and the social forces that swirled around them, glossing over the actual courtroom proceedings. (Predictably, the only attorney whose performance is noted at length is Clarence Darrow, in both the Leopold-Loeb trial and in the Scopes trial.) Sometimes the intricate background information makes for tedious reading, as when the authors attempt to trace the payola in the Teapot Dome conspiracy or to untangle the corporate structure of Insull's electric companies. More compelling is their examination of the brouhaha surrounding the decade's more sensational cases, such as the rape and murder trial of KKK leader David Stephenson and the trumped-up rape and murder charges against cinema giant Fatty Arbuckle. Although this collection of essays offers no surprises (the authors concede, for example, that key elements of the Sacco and Vanzetti and "Black Sox" cases remain mysterious), it gives a general impression of the period and foreshadows infamous trials to come. 16 pages of photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

History professors Grant (Framingham Coll.) and Katz (Long Island Univ.) have written a detailed, lively, and even-handed account of ten major trials from the 1920s. What distinguishes the book are excerpts from trial testimony and the authors' discussions of historical developments such as sex in the cinema, teaching evolution in schools, and xenophobia. The book shows how each trial, such as the fiercely divisive Sacco and Vanzetti case, still has significance in American culture, though, as the authors show, it is impossible to know what really happened during the robbery for which Sacco and Vanzetti were executed. Other trials include those of the 1919 Chicago "Black Sox," Al Capone, and Leopold and Loeb. The characterizations of major and minor figures, including Clarence Darrow and Fatty Arbuckle, are fascinating. The authors have done their research, and the book deserves a wide audience.?Harry Charles, Attorney at Law, St. Louis
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 308 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (December 22, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885119526
• ISBN-13: 978-1885119520
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,639,508 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining and illuminating, June 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Great Trials Of The Twenties: The Watershed Decade In America's Courtrooms (Hardcover)

An enjoyable book, nicely illustrated, which gives concise and interesting insights into some of the topics that exercised Americans in the 1920s and early 1930s: immigration, political radicalism, prohibition, crime and delinquent social behavior, the debate between creationism and science, and so on. I would have welcomed, in one or two chapters, slightly more detail from the trials themselves, and sometimes the overall historical context is a little thinly sketched. However, this is popular history, not some bone-dry academic thesis, and it works very well at that level.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Long on the 1920s, A Little Short on the Trials, October 21, 2004

By 

Brooke Presta - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Great Trials Of The Twenties: The Watershed Decade In America's Courtrooms (Hardcover)

The Great Trials of the Twenties: The Watershed Decade in America's Courtrooms, by Robert Grant and Joseph Katz, guides the reader through the 1920s via such scandalous court-room trials as that of Al Capone, the Ku Klux Klan's David C. Stephenson, the Chicago "Black Sox", Loeb-Leopold, and more. The authors spent a great deal of time each chapter delving into the background information (what was going on in the country prior to the trial). They "set up" the scandal at length before the reader learns about it. I think this is beneficial if the reader is looking to understand more about the 1920s, but I think it is also a little unnecessary at times. I would like it if just as many pages covered the trials themselves, so I didn't feel like I had just "scratched the surface". Some excerpts of testimony and proceedings are included, which are effective, but I also think more are needed to help the reader grasp every angle of the scandal, the accused, the actual proceedings, etc.

What I really like about this book is how it sums up each account in the end, with either what it meant for the United States and its people in the 1920s or what happened to the defendant later on. When reading, it's obvious that Grant and Katz "know their stuff" when it comes to history. The inclusion of a section of photographs adds a great deal and makes the information hit home better when a face is put to a name. The authors highlight the ten most interesting, controversial, and exciting trials of the 1920s; not one trivial or disappointing trial was included. In covering all of these, the book runs like ten mini-stories, which, in my opinion, also keeps the interest factor up more than if the book were devoted to one single trial.

Each trial is analyzed, but the authors offer up these accounts in an objective and non-biased way. On the whole, it makes for a good read on the decade that ushered America into the modern age. The book attempts to connect the after-math and influence of the trials to America today. It does a fine job of this, and is easy to understand even if one is not a history buff. If readers are looking for a book only on trial proceedings they might be a little disappointed, but if they're looking for insight into the 1920s, The Great Trials of the Twenties: The Watershed Decade in America's Courtrooms is a nice choice.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating glimpse into the legal landscape of the 1920s, March 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Great Trials Of The Twenties: The Watershed Decade In America's Courtrooms (Hardcover)

This book manages to stay lively while giving both the social and historical context and details of the trials themselves. The narrative is informed but not ponderous, in fact, at times it almost conversational in tone. The trials selected encompass a broad array of issues from those times, ranging from sports scandles to organized crime to military heroes to xenophobia to science and creation. Each entry is long enough to give the reader a real good feel for the issues surrounding the case, but short enough to keep the pacing fast and enjoyable. I recommend it highly.