John Wood Sweet. (2022). The Sewing Girl's Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America. Henry Holt and Co.

John Wood Sweet. 2022. The Sewing Girl's Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America. Henry Holt and Co.

John Wood Sweet, The Sewing Girl's Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America. Henry Holt and Co, 2022.

John Wood Sweet. The Sewing Girl's Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America. Henry Holt and Co, 2022.

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The Sewing Girl's Tale

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Sewing Girls Tale A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America

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A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America

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1. • value: us history
2. • value: True Crime
3. • value: books on tape
4. • value: rapist
5. • value: womens studies
6. • value: rape
7. • value: Nonfiction
8. • value: audiobooks
9. • value: female empowerment
10. • value: audio books
11. • value: feminists
12. • value: Prostitution
13. • value: sexual abuse
14. • value: feminism
15. • value: brothels
16. • value: New York
17. • value: Social Justice
18. • value: seamstress
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20. • value: historical biographies
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22. • value: court room
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creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Sweet, John Wood
   • bioText: John Wood Sweet is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the former director of UNC's Program in Sexuality Studies. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, the National Humanities Center, the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at UNC, and the Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale, among others. His first book, Bodies Politic: Negotiating Race in the American North, 1730–1830, was a finalist for the Frederick Douglass Prize. He was named a Top Young Historian by the History News Network and has served as an Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer. He lives in Chapel Hill with his husband, son, and daughter.
   • name: John Wood Sweet

publishDate

2022-07-19T00:00:00-04:00

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title

The Sewing Girl's Tale

fullDescription

New York Times Editors' Choice
Winner of the Bancroft Prize
Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize
Winner of the Gotham Book Prize
Winner of the New York Society Library's New York City Book Award
Journal of the American Revolution Book of the Year
Winner of the David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Legal History
Winner of the James Bradford Best Biography Prize
A riveting Revolutionary Era drama of the first published rape trial in American history and its long, shattering aftermath, revealing how much has changed over two centuries—and how much has not
On a moonless night in the summer of 1793 a crime was committed in the back room of a New York brothel—the kind of crime that even victims usually kept secret. Instead, seventeen-year-old seamstress Lanah Sawyer did what virtually no one in US history had done before: she charged a gentleman with rape.
Her accusation sparked a raw courtroom drama and a relentless struggle for vindication that threatened both Lanah's and her assailant's lives. The trial exposed a predatory sexual underworld, sparked riots in the streets, and ignited a vigorous debate about class privilege and sexual double standards. The ongoing conflict attracted the nation's top lawyers, including Alexander Hamilton, and shaped the development of American law. The crime and its consequences became a kind of parable about the power of seduction and the limits of justice. Eventually, Lanah Sawyer did succeed in holding her assailant accountable—but at a terrible cost to herself.
Based on rigorous historical detective work, this book takes us from a chance encounter in the street into the sanctuaries of the city's elite, the shadows of its brothels, and the despair of its debtors' prison. The Sewing Girl's Tale shows that if our laws and our culture were changed by a persistent young woman and the power of words two hundred years ago, they can be changed again.
Includes photographs

reviews

1. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     April 4, 2022
     The story behind the 1793 rape trial of Harry Bedlow, the scion of two “prosperous, old Dutch families” in New York City, is untangled in this immersive chronicle. Sweet (Bodies Politic), history professor at the University of North Carolina, details how 26-year-old Bedlow, who had a reputation as a “very great rake,” lied about his identity to 17-year-old seamstress Lanah Sawyer before abducting and assaulting her in a “bawdy house.” Lanah struggled to convince her family about the truth of her ordeal, yet Bedlow was eventually charged with rape and brought to trial, where prosecutors cast him “as a symbol of the debauchery and luxury of an aristocratic order overthrown by the revolution, and Lanah Sawyer and her peers—hardworking, modest, and unpretentious—as the true representatives of republican virtue.” The jury acquitted Bedlow of the crime, and even though Lanah’s stepfather eventually won a “seduction lawsuit” against him, collecting the settlement proved difficult. Embellishing the thin historical record with lengthy discussions about Revolutionary era politics, contemporaneous romance novels, the development of Manhattan, Alexander Hamilton’s alleged affair with Maria Reynolds, and other matters, Sweet paints an evocative portrait of 18th-century New York. The result is a vivid addition to the history of sexual politics in America.

2. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from June 1, 2022
     

     An engrossing, historical, true crime narrative that reconstructs the 1793 rape of Lanah Sawyer. The subsequent trial of Henry "Harry" Bedlow and the societal consequences of the crime are still relevant today. Sweet (Bodies Politic) provides an exhaustively researched and detailed reconstruction of a lesser known but extremely important case in American legal history. The book not only provides a masterful view of the criminal case, but it also places the narrative in the context of 18th century New York City, with a searing portrait of sexual politics and the limits of justice for women and those in low-income areas. The well-documented work includes a variety of primary sources including newspaper accounts, legal documents, and diaries. It also includes numerous illustrations, maps, an extensive bibliography, and an index. VERDICT An important and highly readable addition to the history of crime and sexual politics in America that will be of interest to historians, women-focused history researchers, sociologists, and fans of true crime. --Theresa Muraski

     Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

3. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     July 1, 2022
     A history professor examines a woman's court fight to restore her violated sexual honor in 1790s America. In 1793, a seamstress named Lanah Sawyer was raped by Harry Bedlow, "an elite sexual predator" who posed as a lawyer to gain her trust. In this incisive historical investigation, Sweet, a history professor at the University of North Carolina and former director of its program in sexuality studies, reconstructs a memorable story that reveals the virulent anti-feminism embedded in American democracy. Sawyer had the spotless reputation society required of all "decent" women; Sweet notes that any fall from grace would plunge her into "a world of scandal and shame from which she might never emerge." Despite her lower status as a working-class woman, Sawyer sought legal reparations. "Even if others couldn't see past her social station, her work as a sewing girl, Lanah Sawyer could," writes Sweet. "She felt she had a right to a revolutionary dream of human equality. Other dreamers, too, were crushed in these years. Some of them, like her, had the courage to fight back." In the contentious trial that followed, Bedlow was cast as the victim of Sawyer's wiles. Newspapers debates begun by elite women emphasized the sexual double standard, but a male backlash against "disorderly women"--e.g., the owner of the bawdy house where Bedlow raped Sawyer--overwhelmed those voices. Ultimately, Sawyer's stepfather successfully sued Bedlow for seduction--i.e., for breaching his right to give consent to intercourse with his daughter. "In seduction suits," writes Sweet, "the question of consent was hardly mentioned, much less disputed. Jurors--and everyone else involved--generally took the woman's father at his word." This carefully researched book will appeal to historians, feminist scholars, and anyone with an interest in narratives that chronicle female erasure in a social system created by and for the benefit of (White) men. A thoughtful and engaging history lesson.

     COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

4. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     June 30, 2022
     Sweet (Bodies Politic, 2003) unravels the politics, social history, and trial surrounding the rape of Lanah Sawyer. The 17-year-old seamstress met Harry Bedlow, a man nearly 10 years her senior widely known around New York City as a rake, in the summer of 1793. After being sexually assaulted in a back room of a brothel, Lanah did something that very few women in Revolutionary-era America did: she brought Bedlow to trial. The ensuing trial and not-guilty verdict rocked the city, leading to everything from Lanah's stepfather filing additional lawsuits to riots in the city, where protesters tore down the site of the assault. The history of Manhattan, Revolutionary-era politics, class differences, and the social history of sex, marriage, and assault in the times bolster the tale, creating an incredibly immersive, highly readable exploration of an important moment in American history, perfect for readers of true crime, history, women's history, and narrative nonfiction alike.

     COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

popularity

1169

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1. • value: History
2. • value: Law
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shortDescription

New York Times Editors' Choice
Winner of the Bancroft Prize
Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize
Winner of the Gotham Book Prize
Winner of the New York Society Library's New York City Book Award
Journal of the American Revolution Book of the Year
Winner of the David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Legal History
Winner of the James Bradford Best Biography Prize
A riveting Revolutionary Era drama of the first published rape trial in American history and its long, shattering aftermath, revealing how much has changed over two centuries—and how much has not
On a moonless night in the summer of 1793 a crime was committed in the back room of a New York brothel—the kind of crime that even victims usually kept secret. Instead, seventeen-year-old seamstress Lanah Sawyer did what virtually no one in US history had done before: she charged a gentleman with rape.
Her...

sortTitle

Sewing Girls Tale A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America

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A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America

publisher

Henry Holt and Co.

bisacCodes

1. • code: HIS036030
   • description: History / United States / Revolutionary Period (1775-1800)
2. • code: LAW060000
   • description: Law / Legal History
3. • code: SOC028000
   • description: Social Science / Women's Studies