Customer Reviews

The Murder of Helen Jewett

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is a terrific book, a previously obscure but fascinating incident brought to light and examined in appropriate detail. The author's style is smooth and transparent, and this book really is a great pleasure to read and most enlightening about many aspects of 1830's life in New York City and America. The author does have an irritating habit of attributing everything to feminist theory, often without any justification in fact other than her pet theories. For example, at one point a gang breaks into a brothel, breaks some glasses, lights some fires, insults the madam and the prostitutes. The author insists "They were not robbers...they were contemptuous vandals, there to remind the women of the ultimate power men have over them by sheer physical force and intimidation." Well, perhaps. But it seems equally likely that they were sent as revenge by an angry customer, to intimidate by a rival brothel keeper, to frighten the madam into paying a debt...or a dozen other reasons. I don't know. Neither does the author of this book. But she leaps to this conclusion and allows of no other possibility, as she does in perhaps a dozen other places in this book. "To the man with a new hammer, everything looks like a nail" runs the old proverb, and one sees it at work here in these dogmatic assertions based on nothing but the author's late 20th century feminist theories. Fortunately these passages are few and far between in this fine book. Just ignore them when they pop up, and you will enjoy this excellent work of history written in a refreshingly jargon-free style.

On one level, Professor Cohen's thorough investigation into one of 19th Century New York's most shocking murder cases doesn't tell us much that we don't already know: the society was sexist, accommodating toward the privileged, and hypocritical in its attitude toward sexual behavior (...and nothing has changed much since then). Whenever Ms. Cohen hammers these points home, and she does pretty often, the effect isn't very... well... effective. And the flow of the book suffers a little from this. Two other things hurt the story: one is the long, distracting section on the histories of the Weston and Jewett/Dorcas families in Maine; and the other is the constant need on Ms. Cohen's part to track the lineage of each and every participant in the case. But for the most part, Professor Cohen's telling of the event is engaging, chilling, and compelling. The participants are brought back to life in a way that most historical writers should envy. To me, the most rewarding part of the book was realizing how much the Jacksonian era in New York and America represented a turning point from the colonial to the modern era. This was the dawn of modern journalism and mass media--the pivotal point where newspaper publishers realized that the public wanted more than just shipping and business reports: where publishers realized there was a public at all. And the media circus--a national media circus--which surrounded this case was the first in a long line that goes on to this day. It was also the first time in western history when people no longer lived in the same place they worked, and when the entire apprenticeship culture was being replaced by the more indifferent employer/employee system. All these important factors do figure into the crime. But the most admirable aspect of the book, for me, was that while all this socio/political analysis went on (sometimes at the expense of the pacing) Ms. Cohen never leaves sight of the young girl at the center of it all. Jewett/Dorcas was by no means a pathetic babe-in-the-woods, and the author is very careful to avoid this perception. But Ms. Cohen makes clear that Jewett, like any crime victim, didn't deserve the end she met. And like any other human being, Jewett was worthy of justice.

This is a fascinating and truly extraordinary work of history, a window on all sorts of early 19th century Americana: the complex social and economic fabric of small but burgeoning New York City; respectable (and hardscrabble) society in Maine; prostitution; the news media; the legal system; the postal system -- virtually every aspect of then-contemporary American institutions and manners up to and including nose-tweaking. In many respects, the world Professor Cohen describes is utterly unlike our own (for example, prostitution in NYC was more than merely tolerated, men did not run the business, and at least until the Jewett case, the prostitutes felt comfortable invoking the protections of police and courts). The book is naturally provocative as well as informative as an account of relations among early 19th century men and women generally, yet always balanced and never strident or didactic (which is rather surprising, considering the subject and the circumstances). It is also a satisfying detective story -- you will be eager to know whodunnit -- and includes a murder trial with some uncanny parallels to that of O.J. Simpson. Finally, though, in bringing so fully to life across a gap of so many years both Helen Jewett and her client/lover, the young Mr. Robinson, Professor Cohen has introduced us to two characters who, once discovered, simply refuse to go away and be forgotten. (These two were contemporaries of Andrew Jackson and Davey Crockett, for example, but this book makes them seem much fresher and more readily accessible.) The book is filled with detail, which may not be for everyone. But for those who find details satisfying, this book is very likely to surprise and delight you.

On one level, Professor Cohen's thorough investigation into one of 19th Century New York's most shocking murder cases doesn't tell us much that we don't already know: the society was sexist, accommodating toward the privileged, and hypocritical in its attitude toward sexual behavior (...and nothing has changed much since then). Whenever Ms. Cohen hammers these points home, and she does pretty often, the effect isn't very... well... effective. And the flow of the book suffers a little from this. Two other things hurt the story: one is the long, distracting section on the histories of the Weston and Jewett/Dorcas families in Maine; and the other is the constant need on Ms. Cohen's part to track the lineage of each and every participant in the case. But for the most part, Professor Cohen's telling of the event is engaging, chilling, and compelling. The participants are brought back to life in a way that most historical writers should envy. To me, the most rewarding part of the book was realizing how much the Jacksonian era in New York and America represented a turning point from the colonial to the modern era. This was the dawn of modern journalism and mass media--the pivotal point where newspaper publishers realized that the public wanted more than just shipping and business reports: where publishers realized there was a public at all. And the media circus--a national media circus--which surrounded this case was the first in a long line that goes on to this day. It was also the first time in western history when people no longer lived in the same place they worked, and when the entire apprenticeship culture was being replaced by the more indifferent employer/employee system. All these important factors do figure into the crime. But the most admirable aspect of the book, for me, was that while all this socio/political analysis went on (sometimes at the expense of the pacing) Ms. Cohen never leaves sight of the young girl at the center of it all. Jewett/Dorcas was by no means a pathetic babe-in-the-woods, and the author is very careful to avoid this perception. But Ms. Cohen makes clear that Jewett, like any crime victim, didn't deserve the end she met. And like any other human being, Jewett was worthy of justice.

I agree with the reader from Maine. Although the story is itself interesting, I felt like I was reading an incredibily long research paper. Did anyone else get tired of the redundency of facts? Some incidents or facts were restated over and over again. All right already. In addition, all the extraneous information not really related to the story drove me crazy. For instance, the history and ownership of all the other houses in the vicinity of the brothel. I gave it two stars rather than one because I did find the parallels between the morals of 160 years ago and our own period fascinating.

This book is an ideal mixture of scholarly inquiry and popular history. Too often books are one, or the other. Popular history, so popular in recent years in the realm of the Pulitzers and National Book Award, has little scholarly merit. It is usually tendentious and shallow. While purely scholarly work is impossible to get through. This book is a star of the historian's art. The reader gets to understand what it was like to live in 1830s America -- in Maine upper class & NY underclass, along with tastes of Connecticut middle-brow and the life of clerks in the early industrial revolution in US cities. Cline Cohen lets the reader see the seams of the historian's method, which is interesting in & of itself & also gives the reader greater confidence that she isn't just making all this up.

We shouldn't like murder mysteries, but we usually do.

While there's a real tragedy going on -- someone killed, families in disarray, a killer on trial -- we hang on for the gory details.

Folks were no different in New York City in 1836, which is the setting for the real life, true story of the murder of Helen Jewett, a lady of negotiable virtue, who plied her trade at an upscale brothel. It's the story of Jewett's life, and how she came to be who she was, and how she came to do what she did for a living.

And about Richard Robinson, her accused killer, and how a mild-mannered store clerk from rural New England came to New York, and was arrested for Jewett's murder.

And about the trial, and about the crowds there (mostly young -- the defendant was 18 -- clerks like the accused), and about how long the trial lasted, and about the speculation that the judge might have been bribed.

But this is more than a murder mystery. Because the author tells us vivid details about life in New York City during that time, and how prostitutes lived in that era (I didn't know that prostitution was legal in New York at that time), and how young Americans grew up during that time, and what was expected of them as far as behavior and decorum.

This is a scholarly book. It's labeled "history/women's studies," and I wouldn't take that away Patricia Cline Cohen, the historian who wrote the book. But if you just want a better-than-average read that will entertain you as well as teach you, you can do no better than this. I might even suggest -- since I'm writing this review on May 8 -- it wouldn't be a bad beach book. The cover and title are just trashy enough that the people on the next towel won't think you're a nerd on the beach. It'll have to be a secret between you and me and the author that while you're busy turning pages, you're also having your mind expanded.

The Murder of Helen Jewett by Patricia Cline Cohen is an interesting look at a sensational case that touches on many aspects of life in Victorian era New York City. Helen Jewett is the centre of the story and the author gives as much information as she can so that Jewett becomes a living character in history rather than as the symbol she became at the time of her murder. This book is much more than a sensational murder and trial as it becomes a thoroughly researched and wonderfully readable look into the growing pains of a big city. This story is about men and women, clerks and prostitues, legal codes and tabloid journalism, politics and capitilism. Ms. Cohen does a superb job of taking all of these pieces and truly bringing the 1830's Manhattan alive for the reader. A true find and a great pleasure.

Those readers in search of a true crime novel or broad history of prostitution in old New York will be disappointed with this book. It more closely resembles an anthropologic study which explores the lives and social values of the people involved in the life and death of Helen Jewett. I found the author's repetitive comments about male/female power relationships to be somewhat distracting and detrimental to her otherwise balanced treatment of the subject. This book is generously detailed and a very interesting (although not light) read.

The Murder of Helen Jewett by Patricia Cline Cohen. was recommended by an academic friend as a true crime effort with historical weight. She couldn't have been more correct about the weight business. The story of the murder of a New York City prostitute in 1836 generally interested me.

I spent hours with Cline's work and, at the outset, felt well rewarded for the time spent. If detail and context were enough to make a great book, this would qualify. Few books that I have read contain as much detail as carefully analyzed as this one. Much of it illustrates the business of newspapers directed at the common person during the 1830s, something that I have a passing interest in, but it was all too much. By the time I had reached Chapter 4 on "The New York Sex Trade," I knew the basic story and most of the key characters in some detail, and I knew Cline's approach would be to analyze, reanalyze and again reanalyze each aspect of the murder so thoroughly that I couldn't stay with the repetition. I skipped to the end, found out what happened with the likely murderer and moved on to another book.

Personally, I'd have liked it more if she had found an editor determined to serve the reader. Close, research-based document analysis makes good academic work, but it loses a reader looking for the true-crime counterpart of P.D. James.