First in violence, deepest in dirt : homicide in Chicago, 1875-1920 /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Adler, Jeffrey S.
Imprint:	Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2006.
Description:	1 online resource (367 pages) : illustrations
Language:	English
Subject:	Homicide -- Illinois -- Chicago -- Case studies. Murder -- Illinois -- Chicago -- Case studies. Homicide. Murder. Social conditions Chicago (Ill.) -- Social conditions. Illinois -- Chicago. Electronic books. Case studies. Case studies.
Format:	E-Resource Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11227294

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9780674020085 0674020081 0674021495 9780674021495
Digital file characteristics:	text file PDF
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 285-357) and index. In English. Print version record.
Summary:	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.
Other form:	Print version: Adler, Jeffrey S. First in violence, deepest in dirt. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2006
Standard no.:	10.4159/9780674020085

Review by Choice Review

Through an examination of homicide rates in Chicago, Adler (Univ. of Florida) discusses society's changing nature, caused by industrialization, immigration, urbanization, and racial and ethnic tensions, which in turn changed the types and nature of murder. Although the thesis is sound and the research thorough, the book's fatal flaw is its sensationalism. Each chapter begins with a grisly murder described in intimate detail. The most egregious--a deranged mother's drowning of her infant son--begins the chapter titled "A Good Place to Drown Babies." The editor who permitted the use of the phrase "skilled family killers" is also to blame. While it is obvious what is meant, the mental image created is inappropriate. Further, the author uses terms without sufficient definition. He uses a surfeit of statistics, but they are frequently without comparison, thus rendered meaningless. There is little information on the fate of the killers. The book's concept might be good, but the execution is flawed. Readers interested in how murder was viewed and what its effect was on society are better served by Eric Rauchway, Murdering McKinley (CH, Apr'04, 41-4867), or Kevin Boyle, Arc of Justice (2005). ^BSumming Up: Not recommended. D. R. Jamieson Ashland University

Review by Choice Review

First in violence, deepest in dirt : homicide in Chicago, 1875-1920 /

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