Text

theses

This dissertation analyzes three specific American trials, each taking place between 1921 and 1926: the State of Tennessee v. John T. Scopes; the murder trial of Frances Stevens Hall; and the murder trial(s) of silent film star Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. Despite the trials’ disparate facts, each became prominent nationally, covered by a variety of media and heavily attended by live audiences. This was not unprecedented. Throughout American history, trials have often been subjects of public fascination. At times, individual cases have become cultural phenomena, followed and discussed by onlookers across the country, reaching a point of national cultural relevance. I call these types of trials “performance trials” and argue that they are valuable and overlooked resources for historians. The three trials analyzed in this dissertation are especially instructive. The 1920s are a fertile time for performance trials, evidenced in part by this cluster of three such trials taking place within five years of each other. In the wake of World War I and the culmination of reform efforts such as Prohibition and the woman’s suffrage movement, the early 1920s were a time of cultural fragmentation and reorganization. Various groups—including Protestants, moral reformers, women, scientists, “modernists,” businesspeople, and “laypeople” alike—were struggling to find their place in the shifting culture and preserve their power within it. These three trials became phenomena because they captured one part of that cultural negotiation: the argument over the moral future of American culture and where moral authority should rest. Through the use of newspaper reports, trial transcripts, audience reactions, and other sources, this dissertation presents the narratives of these trials and analyzes them in order to illuminate these cultural skirmishes over moral authority. The dissertation presents and breaks down the competing versions of modernity offered by the various groups, including both those who embraced the new culture and those who argued that a new moral reform movement was needed in order to rein it in. Viewing the trials through the eyes of Americans responding to an early version of the “culture wars,” the dissertation provides insight into the cultural turmoil of the early 1920s.

ETD_6783

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Kristoffer M. Shields

doi:10.7282/T3QV3PHC

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.