Langley-Adams Library (Groveland)

The murder of Mary Bean and other stories, Elizabeth A. De Wolfe

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

The murder of Mary Bean and other stories

bibliography

138340817

Elizabeth A. De Wolfe

"When the winter ice melted in April 1850, residents of Saco, Maine, made a gruesome discovery: the body of a young girl submerged in a stream. Thanks to evidence left at the scene, a local physician was arrested and tried for the death of Mary Bean, the name given to the unidentified young girl. The cause of death was failed abortion. Garnering extensive newspaper coverage, the trial revealed many secrets: a poorly trained doctor, connections to an unsolved murder in New Hampshire, and the true identity of "Mary Bean" - a young Canadian mill worker named Berengera Caswell, missing since the previous winter. This book examines the series of events that led Caswell to become Mary Bean and the intense curiosity and anxiety stimulated by this heavily watched trial." "In addition to the sensational murder accounts, Elizabeth A. DeWolfe looks back at these events through a wide-angle lens exploring such themes as the rapid social changes brought about by urbanization and industrialization in antebellum nineteenth-century society, factory work and the changing roles for women, unregulated sexuality and the specter of abortion, and the sentimental novel as a guide book. This book features two reprinted accounts of Caswell's death, both fictional and originally printed in the 1850s, as well as an introduction that places these salacious accounts in historical context."--BOOK JACKET

True crime history series

pt. 1. The Death of Berengera Caswell -- pt. 2. The Murder of Mary Bean -- Mary Bean, The Factory Girl -- Life of George Hamilton