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Lynching Beyond Dixie

Lynching Beyond Dixie

American Mob Violence Outside the South

Contributions by Jack S Blocker Jr, Brent M.S. Campney, William D. Carrigan, Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua, Dennis B Downey, Larry R. Gerlach, Kimberley Mangun, Helen McLure, Michael J. Pfeifer, Christopher Waldrep, Clive Webb and Dena Lynn Winslow

Published by: University of Illinois Press

Imprint: University of Illinois Press

1 table, 4 maps

Digital download
9780252094651
Published: March 2013

Description
Contents
Authors
Praise

In recent decades, scholars have explored much of the history of mob violence in the American South, especially in the years after Reconstruction. However, the lynching violence that occurred in American regions outside the South, where hundreds of persons, including Hispanics, whites, African Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans died at the hands of lynch mobs, has received less attention. This collection of essays by prominent and rising scholars fills this gap by illuminating the factors that distinguished lynching in the West, the Midwest, and the Mid-Atlantic. The volume adds to a more comprehensive history of American lynching and will be of interest to all readers interested in the history of violence across the varied regions of the United States.

Contributors are Jack S. Blocker Jr., Brent M. S. Campney, William D. Carrigan, Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua, Dennis B. Downey, Larry R. Gerlach, Kimberley Mangun, Helen McLure, Michael J. Pfeifer, Christopher Waldrep, Clive Webb, and Dena Lynn Winslow.

Cover

Title Page

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction Michael J. Pfeifer

Part I. The West

1. “Who Dares to Style This Female a Woman?”: Lynching, Gender, and Culture in the Nineteenth-Century U.S. West

2. The Popular Sources of Political Authority in 1856 San Francisco: Lynching, Vigilance, and the Difference between Politics and Constitutionalism

3. “Light Is Bursting upon the World!”: White Supremacy and Racist Violence against Blacks in Reconstruction Kansas

4. The Rise and Fall of Mob Violence against Mexicans in Arizona, 1859–1915 William D. Carrigan

5. Making Utah History: Press Coverage of the Robert Marshall Lynching, June 1925 Kimberley Mangun

Part II. The Midwest

6. “The cry of the Negro should not be remember the Maine, but remember the hanging of Bush”: African American Responses to Lynching in Decatur, Illinois, 1893

7. Race, Sex, and Riot: The Springfield, Ohio, Race Riots of 1904 and 1906 and the Sources of Antiblack Violence in the Lower Midwest

8. Lynching in Late-Nineteenth-Century Michigan Michael J. Pfeifer

Part III. The Northeast

9. “They Lynched Jim Cullen”: Story and Myth on the Northern Maine Frontier Dena Lynn Winslow

10. The “Delaware Horror”: Two Ministers, a Lynching, and the Crisis of Democracy Dennis B. Downey

Appendix: Lynchings in the Northeast, Midwest, and West

Contributors

Index

Michael J. Pfeifer is an associate professor of history at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, and at the CUNY Graduate Center and the author of Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1874-1947 and The Roots of Rough Justice: Origins of American Lynching.

"The essays collected in this volume remind us, no region of the country--and no ethnic group--was spared the spectacle of lynch mobs in the 19th or early-20th centuries."--Shepherd Express

“Each essay expands understanding of lynching and shows how deeply the practice was embedded in the cultural DNA of the nation. . . . Thought-provoking and impressively researched.”--The Journal of American History

"Theoretically sophisticated, well documented, and superbly written, this volume provides an in-depth examination of lynching outside the South and will stand out as a fresh and unique contribution to recent scholarship on lynching."
--Margaret Vandiver, author of Lethal Punishment: Lynchings and Legal Executions in the South

"Michael Pfeifer, the editor of Lynching Beyond Dixie, has emerged as one of the most important contributors to the scholarship on lynching. . . . Reminding us that lynching was a national phenomenon that reflected national, no less than regional, anxieties."--The Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society

"A must read for all historians who work on lynching and mob violence in American history."

--Manfred Berg, author of Popular Justice: A History of Lynching in America

"These perceptive case studies underscore Pfeifer's contention that lynching was a national phenomenon that disrupted the transition from 'rough justice' to 'due process.'--The Journal of Arizona History