The Epistemology of American Detective Fiction, 1841-1914

City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2014 Clue, Code, Conjure: The Epistemology of American Detective Fiction, 1841-1914 Jennifer Weiss Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/126 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] CLUE, CODE, CONJURE: THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF AMERICAN DETECTIVE FICTION, 1841–1914 by JENNIFER R. WEISS A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of English, The City University of New York 2014 © 2014 JENNIFER R. WEISS All Rights Reserved ii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in English in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Professor Marc Dolan Date Chair of Examining Committee Professor Mario DiGangi Date Executive Officer Professor Marc Dolan Professor Anne Humpherys Professor David S. Reynolds Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii Abstract CLUE, CODE, CONJURE: THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF AMERICAN DETECTIVE FICTION, 1841–1914 by Jennifer R. Weiss Adviser: Professor Marc Dolan This dissertation posits American detective fiction between 1841 and 1914 as a meaningful category and interrogates forms of knowledge used in this genre. The conventional wisdom on detective fiction creates a dichotomy of British and American production, with British detective fiction in a rational style dominating in importance into the 1920s, and American detective fiction dominating in importance with the “hard-boiled” style of the 1930s and ’40s (as described by Raymond Chandler). This dissertation argues that American detective fiction is a meaningful category before and beyond the hard-boiled style. Abductive reasoning, a form of logic based on observation, hypothesis, and confirmation, is the characteristic mode of detection in fiction. Abductive reasoning requires the use of background knowledge to draw conclusions. Therefore, cultural context and beliefs become part of the interpretive process. Works by Edgar Allan Poe, Metta Victor, Anna Katharine Green, Mark Twain, Pauline Hopkins, Edwin Balmer and William MacHarg, and Arthur B. Reeve are used in this study to demonstrate the wide variety of knowledge sources considered relevant in this period. The clearest unit of information in detective fiction is the clue: an object or occurrence that provides critical information toward solving the mystery. The detective figure is iv the master interpreter of clues, with the observational skills, knowledge base, and imagination to identify and interpret information that others do not. The period of 1841 to 1914 saw extensive industrialization, geographic expansion, and racial turmoil in the United States. Forensic science advanced both technically and culturally as part of a larger movement toward scientific management. The transition to scientific thinking as depicted in detective fiction is, however, significantly complicated by continuing reliance on sentimental and sensational elements such as magic, religion, and intuition and on community- based ethics. v Acknowledgments This work is the result of several years of learning—both about my subject and about myself as a writer. Many people have assisted in tangible and less tangible ways. My dissertation adviser, Professor Marc Dolan, introduced me to many of the works discussed here and many more. I deeply appreciate his enthusiasm and generosity with both big ideas and concrete suggestions. Professor Anne Humpherys provided discerning feedback at the beginning and end of this project. Professor David Reynolds stepped in to complete my committee with grace and insight. Audrey Raden is a good friend and a true scholar–writer. Jaime Cleland, Cori Gabbard, Michelle Knudsen, and Caitlin Krowicki set aside their own pressing projects to review chapters. Madeline Belkin, Jared Danziger, Michael Faison, Karen Groff, Rachel Ihara, Tina Meyerhoff, Joshua Safran, and many others encouraged, advised, and tolerated me during important periods. Peg Boyle Single helped extensively with structure and process. My Aunt Mary set an example and issued nuggets of sanity from the other side. Aunt Mindy and Uncle Howie were there for me and never asked if I was done yet. My colleagues at Kaplan K-12 Learning Services and Scholastic Inc. motivated and supported me at every stage. In particular, Brett Crandall and Katie Levering gave me the gift of time, for which there is no substitute. Eve Sedgwick, in memory, continues to be a source of personal and scholarly inspiration—a genius in both the early and contemporary senses of the word. My parents provided love, support, and encouragement; this is a great understatement. I thank them. This project is dedicated to my grandmother Marjean Pettis Jondrow. vi Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1. The Clue, Epistemology, and American Detective Fiction ......................................................... 6 Chapter 2. American Parthenogenesis ........................................................................................................ 30 Chapter 3. A Modern Scientist in an Antebellum Court: Law and Knowledge in Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson ......................................................................................................................................................... 64 Chapter 4. “Unseen Forces”: Forms of Knowledge and Disrupted Identities in Pauline Hopkins’s Hagar’s Daughter ................................................................................................................................................... 104 Chapter 5. Scientific Detection ................................................................................................................. 135 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 170 Works Cited .............................................................................................................................................. 176 vii Introduction This dissertation looks at the development of American detective fiction through the lens of the clue; that is, information and epistemology. Questions considered include: What forms of knowledge are used in United States proto- and para-detective fiction before the conventions of the genre were established? What other genres and cultural movements engender these forms of knowledge? How are the forms of knowledge used and treated both within the texts (by characters) and by authors, and how do authors use them in relation to their thematic content? How do these forms of knowledge relate to the idea of the clue as it emerges in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? The idea of the clue in American detective fiction developed along with the genre and intersected with other themes in literature and culture. This dissertation questions the widely held belief that American detective fiction between Edgar Allan Poe and Dashiell Hammett was a wasteland and that the genre history progresses from Poe to Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation of Sherlock Holmes, to Hammett and Raymond Chandler, with voids of insignificance in between. It also undermines the idea that the most useful way to look at detective fiction is by dividing its elements into rational, classic, and semiotic on one side versus hard-boiled, realistic, and hermeneutic on the other. The overarching idea is the importance of the religious and sentimental ideas that are affirmed in these works in the most ostensibly positivist genre. Although detective fiction focuses on finding facts and solving problems, the social changes that lead to the development of the genre also bring increasing mechanization and depersonalization. Detective fiction 1 emphasizes scientific inquiry but also validates religion, family, and emotion as sources of ethics and information. In some ways, this dissertation is about science, broadly defined, and religion, even more broadly defined, as the basis of knowledge, and how the transition to scientific thinking as shown in American detective fiction is far from complete. Religion in this broad definition includes forms of magical and integrative thinking, and not only Christian evangelical belief, but also African American folk beliefs, superstition, and an underlying sense of mystery and order in things that cannot be fully seen. Science includes forensics as well as detective elements that are based on observation (i.e., inspired by scientific method, as described by Nancy Harrowitz and others in Umberto Eco and Thomas Sebeok’s collection The Sign of Three) and on signs, symptoms, and diagnoses. The clue is traditionally a thread: either the thread of life spun by the Fates, or the ball of thread that Ariadne gave Theseus to help him find his way out of the labyrinth in the myth of the Minotaur ("Clue, n"). Detective fiction explores what makes things happen in the universe, what traces those causes leave on the world, and how we read those traces.

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