A narrow slice of local history that opens, unexpectedly, onto the present.
A historian chronicles an 1883 trial concerning the sale of pornographic materials.
Kammen, who “fell into doing local history” by virtue of being the wife of a new hire in the History Department at Cornell University, describes the trial of a married couple, Jefferson and Helen Beardsley, for disseminating explicit images in the “village” of Ithaca, New York (it was not yet a city). Founded in 1865, Cornell was headed by a scholar rather than a preacher and had no religious affiliation, earning it the epithet “Godless Cornell.” Kammen argues that the trial of the Beardsleys, who had sold photographic negatives of nude men and women in sexual congress, came about because of collective anxiety that without god at Cornell, community morals would have to be policed through other channels. Thus, the Society for the Prevention of Crime came into being, ostensibly to “defend the new university’s shaky early reputation.” The society, comprised of “one hundred fine men”—white community leaders bent on preserving a moral code—took its cues from Anthony Comstock, whose efforts got the Comstock Laws enacted, prohibiting obscene materials, including information about birth control, from passing through the U.S. postal system. Those laws, Kammen pointedly notes, were cited in Project 2025 as rendering a federal abortion ban unnecessary—since abortion pills and related medical supplies travel through the mail, Comstock’s reach, if enforced, would effectively function as one. The author observes that those who deemed certain material disagreeable in 1883 sound “tremendously like groups and politicians who work today to regulate women’s lives.” The trial transcript is not the most gripping of historical documents, but Kammen’s writing is engaging throughout, and her argument connecting 1883 to the present day is persuasive.
A narrow slice of local history that opens, unexpectedly, onto the present.Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2026
ISBN: 9781589882140
Page Count: 217
Publisher: Paul Dry Books
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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