Renowned historian John Sweet offers a riveting Revolutionary Era drama that tells the story of the first rape trial on record in American history, and the fault lines of class privilege and gender bias that it exposed, showing how much has changed over two centuries and how much has not. In September 1793, a crime was committed in the back room of a New York brothel on a moonless nightthe kind of crime that even victims usually kept secret. Instead, seventeen-year-old seamstress Lanah Sawyer did what virtually no one else had done: she charged a gentleman with rape. When Lanah raised her voice, she was dismissed as a mere sewing-girl, led astray by romantic delusions. But she refused to stay silent. Her accusation sparked a sensational courtroom drama and a relentless struggle for vindication that divided both Lanahs and her assailants families and threatened both of their lives. The legal battle exposed the citys predatory sexual underworld, shaped the development of American law, and ignited a vigorous, even violent, debate about citizenship and the rule of law, class, and gendered double standards. For a new nation rocked by the radicalism of the French Revolution and by pioneering feminists like Mary Wollstonecraft, the crime and its aftermath became a kind of parablea dark reflection of the power of seduction and the limits of justice, of the rights of men and the wrongs of women. Eventually, Lanah Sawyer did succeed in holding her assailant accountablebut at a terrible cost to herself. In The Sewing Girls Tale, the unique record of this courageous young womans testimonyin the first published report of a rape trial in American historymakes it possible to shed new light on her ordeal that will forever shape the stories we tell ourselves about sexual predation and romantic love. Ultimately, Lanah Sawyers tale reminds us that if our law 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
- | Author: John Wood Sweet
- | Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
- | Publication Date: Jul 19, 2022
- | Number of Pages: 384 pages
- | Language: English
- | Binding: Hardcover/History
- | ISBN-10: 1250761964
- | ISBN-13: 9781250761965