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Against the gallows [electronic resource]

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In Against the Gallows, Paul Christian Jones explores the intriguing cooperation of America's writers-including major figures such as Walt Whitman, John Greenleaf Whittier, E. D. E. N. Southworth, and Herman Melville-with reformers, politicians, clergymen, and periodical editors who attempted to end the practice of capital punishment in the United States during the 1840's and 1850's. In an age of passionate reform efforts, the antigallows movement enjoyed broad popularity, waging its campaign in legislatures, pulpits, newspapers, and literary journals.

Title Against the gallows [electronic resource] : antebellum American writers and the movement to abolish capital punishment / Paul Christian Jones.
Edition 1st ed.
Publisher Iowa City : University of Iowa Press
Creation Date c2011
Notes Description based upon print version of record.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 183-222) and index.
English
Content Haunted by the gallows: Antebellum American literature and capital punishment -- The politics of poetry: The democratic review and anti-gallows verse in 1840s America -- The American Newgate novel: Antebellum crime fiction and anti- gallows sympathy -- Walt Whitman's anti-gallows writing: The appeal to Christian sympathy -- Women's anti-gallows writing: The sentimental strategy of E. D. E. N. Southworth -- Herman Melville's Billy Budd: The legacy of antebellum anti-gallows literature.
Extent 1 online resource (242 p.)
Language English
National Library system number 997010705933305171
MARC RECORDS
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