Winner of the Kemper and Leila Williams Prize of the Historic New Orleans Collection and the Louisiana Historical Association. Winner of the New Orleans Public Library Foundation Choice Award for Non-Fiction.In June 1870; the residents of the city of New Orleans were already on edge when two African American women kidnapped seventeen-month-old Mollie Digby from in front of her New Orleans home. It was the height of Radical Reconstruction; and the old racial order had been turned upside down: black men now voted; held office; sat on juries; and served as policemen. Nervous white residents; certain that the end of slavery and resulting "Africanization" of the city would bring chaos; pointed to the Digby abduction as proof that no white child was safe. Louisiana's twenty-eight-year old Reconstruction governor; Henry Clay Warmoth; hoping to use the investigation of the kidnapping to validate his newly integrated police force to the highly suspicious white population of New Orleans; saw to it that the city's best Afro-Creole detective; John Baptiste Jourdain; was put on the case; and offered a huge reward for the return of Mollie Digby and the capture of her kidnappers. When the Associated Press sent the story out on the wire; newspaper readers around the country began to follow the New Orleans mystery. Eventually; police and prosecutors put two strikingly beautiful Afro-Creole women on trial for the crime; and interest in the case exploded as a tense courtroom drama unfolded.In The Great New Orleans Kidnapping Case; Michael Ross offers the first full account of this event that electrified the South at one of the most critical moments in the history of American race relations. Tracing the crime from the moment it was committed through the highly publicized investigation and sensationalized trial that followed; all the while chronicling the public outcry and escalating hysteria as news and rumors surrounding the crime spread; Ross paints a vivid picture of the Reconstruction-era South and the complexities and possibilities that faced the newly integrated society. Leading readers into smoke-filled concert saloons; Garden District drawing rooms; sweltering courthouses; and squalid prisons; Ross brings this fascinating era back to life. A stunning work of historical recreation; The Great New Orleans Kidnapping Case is sure to captivate anyone interested in true crime; the Civil War and its aftermath; and the history of New Orleans and the American South.
#1126845 in Books 2011-08-04Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 6.50 x 1.60 x 9.30l; 1.74 #File Name: 0199753598520 pages
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Ties together and suggests a framework for understanding some of mankind's most inexplicable mass movements.By Alex F StopAn excellent study; from an unconventional viewpoint; of times the masses are caught up in the expectation of Heaven on Earth finally here; and the pattern of disappointment and denial that inevitably follows. A pleasure to read and a great deal of food for thought about the future.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Apocalypse now? or the Strange Attractor at the End of History?By WILLIAM W. REYMONDThis is the seminal account of millenarianism - desire for the thousand years of perfection after the apocalyptic upheaval - as an enduring and universal manifestation of cultural; political; and psychological upheaval that transcends the usual descriptor of Judeo-Christian vision of the eschaton at the end of the world; written by one of the eminent scholars in the field. If you want a fresh understanding of just about any period in history or a better set of intellectual tools to grasp what is going across the political landscape today; this account is well worth the trouble to read. This isn't really an exciting read; but an accessible and scholarly pulling back of the curtain from some of history's most important events; you won't look at history in quite the same way again. One could argue that Prof. Landes' account is simply fitting his thesis to the curves of history - he sees millenarianism everywhere he looks - but I would argue that once you start looking at historical events in this way you may well find the boundaries between 'apocalyptic time' and ordinary time blurring and start asking yourself if millenarian thinking is one of the default failure modes of human psychology's drive to apprehend the future.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Hard read but well worth it if you are interested in why societies can sometimes implodeBy Leo T. HoganI have read this book more than once. The author has taken on an ambitious subject. At times it is very hard going to read because of his use of words unfamiliar to the layman - eg: demotic and semiotic etc (or is it just my lack of education) - and metaphors (Roosters!) that I think may not really be necessary. However; for all these shortfalls I think the author is onto something profound about societies. It is because of this that I rate the book very highly. Read in conjunction with a book on the French Revolution; such as Simon Schama's 'Citizens' or Ruth Scurr's 'A fatal purity' is well worth it as these books tend to complement the arguments made by Landes in 'Heaven on Earth'.
