An American Tragedy, 100 years later

[Eve]

Today is the 100th anniversay of poor Grace Brown’s murder, which Theodore “ought to write nicer” Dreiser turned into one of his overstuffed books. Considerably cut down from the Times, for copyright reasons:

HERKIMER, N.Y., July 7 — Agnes Vona, a retired librarian from Highland, N.Y., has for years been fascinated by the murder of Grace Brown — so much so that on the anniversary of Miss Brown’s death, Ms. Vona and a friend will travel to the scene of the crime . . . Perhaps several thousand people from around the country will make a pilgrimage this year to a few tranquil Adirondack towns to mark the 100th anniversary of a real-life murder that became the basis for Theodore Dreiser’s classic 1925 novel, “An American Tragedy.”

On July 11, 1906, Miss Brown, 20, climbed into a boat with her boyfriend, Chester Gillette. They rowed onto Big Moose Lake in the Adirondacks, where Mr. Gillette bludgeoned Miss Brown with a tennis racket and pushed her overboard, knowing she could not swim. After her bruised body was plucked from the water the next day, an autopsy showed she was several months pregnant. The police also found her desperate letters to Mr. Gillette, 23, saying she knew he was dating other women, and was terrified he would run off. Mr. Gillette’s trial in the village of Herkimer, the county seat, was the biggest this region had ever known, drawing reporters from around the country and making front-page news. Historians said the 1996 guilty plea of the child murderer Lewis Lent Jr. in the same courthouse did not compare.

“The murder will never die,” said Susan R. Perkins, the executive director of the Herkimer County Historical Society, which receives dozens of requests for information each year. The anniversary of Miss Brown’s death will be marked on Tuesday with events including boat tours along Big Moose Lake and the dedication of a historical marker at her gravesite in South Otselic, a hamlet roughly 50 miles north of Binghamton by car. “I feel very sorry for her,” said Ms. Vona, 63. “She was misled.”

My parents briefly lived near there in the late 1940s and said the locals still talked of nothing else. (My mother was brave–or foolhardy–enough to let my father row her around Big Moose Lake). Interesting, how some murders “catch on”–odd that I didn’t read anything about the recent centenary of the Stanford White murder.

[teela_brown]

And without bothering to Google, I feel certain that this event was the basis for the movie A Place In The Sun?

Yep, that’s a classic crimelibrary.com murder: sex, betrayal, murder, cover-up. Or in other words, guy wants to get rid of inconvenient old girlfriend so he can get on with new ones. This type of murder always fascinates the public and keeps 'em talking for a long time.

[Eve]

And yet no one remembers poor Dot King (the attached link, by the way, is chockful of factual errors).

[David_Simmons]

As a sidelight, the best thing I know about Dreiser’s novel, An American Tragedy, is the parody of it by Robert Benchley.

[AHunter3]

Dang it, Eve, get out of my head! I just finished reading A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly.

"Sixteen-year-old Mattie Gokey has big dreams but little hope of seeing them come true. Desperate for money, she takes a job at the Glenmore, where hotel guest Grace Brown asks her to burn a bundle of secret letters…"

[David_Simmons]

I just found my copy of A Benchley Roundup, Dell books. For those who are unfamilliear with any of Dreiser’s writing, here is Benchley’s exaggerated (somewhat) version of it.

                    **Compiling An American Tragedy**

Suggestions as to how Theodore Dreiser Might Write His Next Human
                  Document And Save Five Years' Work.

                              Chapter I

Up East Division Street, on a hot day in late July, walked two men, one five feet
four, the other, the taller of the two, live feet six, the first being two inches
shorter than his more elongated companion, and consequently giving the
appearance to passers-by on East Division Street, or, whenever the two reached
a cross street, to the passersby on the cross street, of being at least a good 
inches shorter than the taller of the little group.

Walking up East Division Street they came, in two or three minutes, to Division
Street proper, which runs at right angles and a little to the left of East Division
Street, but not so much to the left as Marcellus Street, or Ransome Street, for
that matter. As the two continued strolling in that fashion in which two men of
their respective heights are likely to stroll, they came in succession to— 

*(Note to printer; Attached find copy of Thurston’s Street Guide. Print names 
of every street listed therein, beginning with East Division and up to, and 
including, Dawson.)*

[David_Simmons]

But I’ll bet Dreiser knew how to spell “unfamiliar.”