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First in Violence, Deepest in Dirt: Homicide in Chicago, 1875-1920 / Edition 1 - Hardcover | Diverse Reads

First in Violence, Deepest in Dirt: Homicide in Chicago, 1875-1920 / Edition 1

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Between 1875 and 1920, Chicago's homicide rate more than quadrupled, making it the most violent major urban center in the United States--or, in the words of Lincoln Steffens, "first in violence, deepest in dirt." In many ways, however, Chicago became more orderly as it grew. Hundreds of thousands of newcomers poured into the city, yet levels of disorder fell and rates of drunkenness, brawling, and accidental death dropped. But if Chicagoans became less volatile and less impulsive, they also became more homicidal.

Based on an analysis of nearly six thousand homicide cases, First in Violence, Deepest in Dirt examines the ways in which industrialization, immigration, poverty, ethnic and racial conflict, and powerful cultural forces reshaped city life and generated soaring levels of lethal violence. Drawing on suicide notes, deathbed declarations, courtroom testimony, and commutation petitions, Jeffrey Adler reveals the pressures fueling murders in turn-of-the-century Chicago. During this era Chicagoans confronted social and cultural pressures powerful enough to trigger surging levels of spouse killing and fatal robberies. Homicide shifted from the swaggering rituals of plebeian masculinity into family life and then into street life.

From rage killers to the "Baby Bandit Quartet," Adler offers a dramatic portrait of Chicago during a period in which the characteristic elements of modern homicide in America emerged.

ISBN-13: 9780674021495

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Publication Date: 04-15-2006

Pages: 384

Product Dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

Jeffrey S. Adler is Professor of History and Criminology, University of Florida.

What People are Saying About This

First in Violence, Deepest in Dirt is outstanding. In Adler's skilled hands, what could be just a litany of urban chaos becomes understandable. Distraught moms, angry bar brawlers, cold-blooded robbers, and careless drivers draw the reader into a city being transformed by migration, immigration, industrial growth and changing family life. I could not put the book down.

Eric H. Monkkonen

First in Violence, Deepest in Dirt is outstanding. In Adler's skilled hands, what could be just a litany of urban chaos becomes understandable. Distraught moms, angry bar brawlers, cold-blooded robbers, and careless drivers draw the reader into a city being transformed by migration, immigration, industrial growth and changing family life. I could not put the book down.
— Eric H. Monkkonen, author of Murder in New York City

Roger Lane

The most important work in the growing field of homicide studies to be published in some time. The importance of the city, the nearly fifty-year time scale, the cogency and subtlety of the argument, the sources of unparalleled richness all make for an impressive whole. I learned a lot, much of it rather surprising, from this original book.

— Roger Lane, author of Violent Death in the City

Randolph A. Roth

I can't think of any book in any discipline that has done a better job of coming to grips with America's homicide problem. In a nicely written and beautifully organized work, Adler tells moving stories about the lives of Chicagoans and the ways in which their frustrations led to violence. I recommend it enthusiastically.

— Randolph A. Roth, author of The Democratic Dilemma

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. "So You Refuse to Drink with Me, Do You?"

2. "I Loved My Wife So I Killed Her"

3. "He Got What He Deserved"

4. "If Ever That Black Dog Crosses the Threshold of My House, I Will Kill Him"

5. "The Dead Man's Hand"

6. "A Good Place to Drown Babies"

7. "A Butcher at the Stockyard Killing Sheep"

Conclusion

Appendix: Methodology

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index