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Not Simply Black and White

Jury Power and the Law in Late Nineteenth-Century Chicago

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Elizabeth Dale
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Extract

On 6 February 1888, Mathias Busch was arrested in Chicago for the murder of his wife, Katherine. About four that afternoon, Busch, a beer peddler, walked in to the kitchen of their home, picked up a butcher knife, and, after repeatedly slashing at his wife, cut her throat. Several people were in and about the house at the time; some grabbed and restrained Busch until the police arrived.

Busch's crime made the front pages of Chicago's evening papers the day of the murder, and coverage continued until his trial in April. City papers competed to condemn both crime and criminal; one local socialist paper, the Chicago Labor Enquirer, offered the most novel interpretation of the crime, arguing that those who scabbed( as Busch apparently had in a recent strike) could be expected to murder their wives.

Type
Special Issue: Bloody Murder
Information
Social Science History , Volume 25 , Issue 1: Special Issue: Bloody Murder , spring 2001 , pp. 7 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2001 

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