Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso A Tale of Race Sex and Violence in America by Kali Nicol Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race Sex and Violence in America by Kali Nicole Gross. Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property. What can I do to prevent this in the future? If you are on a personal connection, like at home, you can run an anti-virus scan on your device to make sure it is not infected with malware. If you are at an office or shared network, you can ask the network administrator to run a scan across the network looking for misconfigured or infected devices. Another way to prevent getting this page in the future is to use Privacy Pass. You may need to download version 2.0 now from the Chrome Web Store. Cloudflare Ray ID: 66091766ffa8d6c9 • Your IP : 116.202.236.252 • Performance & security by Cloudflare. Kali Gross. Kali Nicole Gross earned her B.A. from in Africana Studies and her Ph.D. in History from the University of Pennsylvania. She is Acting Professor of African American Studies and also the Publications Director for the Association of Black Women Historians (2019-2021), and a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. Her primary research explores Black women’s experiences in the U.S. criminal justice system and her expertise and opinion pieces have been featured in press outlets such as Vanity Fair, TIME, The Root, BBC News, Ebony, HuffPo, Warscapes, The Washington Post, and Jet. She has appeared on venues such as ABC, C-Span, NBC, and NPR. Her award-winning books include, Colored Amazons: Crime, Violence and Black Women in the City of Brotherly Love, 1880-1910 , winner of the 2006 Leticia Woods Brown Memorial Book Prize, and, Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America , winner of the 2017 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Nonfiction. Her latest book, co-authored with Daina Ramey Berry, is A Black Women’s History of the (Beacon Press, 2020). Her numerous grants and fellowships include the prestigious Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Scholar-in-Residence, 2007 and 2000, the Ford Foundation, Postdoctoral Fellowship, hosted at , 2001 – 2002, and she was selected to be a Public Voices Fellow for The Op-Ed Project, 2014-2015. She is a dynamic educator and she has taught students in housing projects, correctional institutions, and at colleges and universities across the country. Copyright © 2019 Emory University - All Rights Reserved | 201 Dowman Drive, Atlanta, Georgia 30322 USA 404.727.6123. Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race Sex and Violence in America by Kali Nicole Gross. "Historian Kali Nicole Gross digs up the jaw-dropping case of Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso . Hollywood folks, if you're reading this, get the script ready for Viola Davis or Lynn Whitfield. This unsettling story of Tabbs, a married, working-class Black woman, who carries on a torrid affair, ends in a gruesome murder that rivals Lizzie Borden's legend."— Essence Magazine. "Gross examines the intersections of race and gender in 19th-century in this dynamic and powerfully rendered account of the 1887 trial of Hannah Mary Tabbs. Gross builds suspense through descriptions of gruesome crime scene and details of witness testimonies, all the while filling the reader in on the intricate racial politics surrounding the case. Gross's in-depth accounts of the police brutality, forced confessions, and science-based forensics involved in the case feel surprisingly modern."— Publishers Weekly. “Gross skillfully weaves in deeply informed historical context on the shifting standards of policing, the association of blackness with criminality, urban race relations, the deeply rooted violence of racism, and conceptions of black women’s sexuality.” —Journal of American History. "Gross delivers a narrative that informs the reader of the cultural mindset of the late 1880's. She explains that existing racial, gender and age presumptions of the time, as well as its law enforcement and judicial system leanings. Best of all the author produces a thought-provoking story."— Booksie. "Gross provides disturbing insight into the late 19th century, including the treatment and depiction of African Americans, issues of domestic violence, and the textured currents of race relations, while also providing a compelling story told through thoughtful and skilled narration."— Library Journal. "It's the type of tale you don't often hear during Black History Month: the biography of an antiheroine who made her way in the world through violence, deception, and adultery. It's also a true-crime story told nearly 130 years after the fact - culminating in the century-late exoneration of a man who, Gross argues, was framed for murder. In uncovering the story, [Gross] shed light on the tense race relations of the time: Tabbs' vulnerable place under the law as a black woman, and Wilson's still-more-tenuous status as a light-skinned interracial man."— Philadelphia Inquirer. " Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso is an engrossing whodunit and a gripping read with a suitably ambiguous ending that is not easy to forget."— New York Journal of Books. "In following this specific, enthralling case from a time after the Civil War and before current tensions between police departments and communities of color, Gross connects the criminal justice system of the with both its roots and where it ended up. Academic but accessible, this smart story is an absolute page-turner."— BUST Magazine. "Gross explores the life and crimes of this fascinating woman. Gross details this murder and dismemberment resulting from a love triangle gone wrong, and explores the lives of blacks and mulattoes in post-Reconstruction Philadelphia."— QRB: The Black Book Review. "Using this 1887 murder of a mixed race victim as a starting point, Kali Nicole Gross explores America's complicated history with race, sex and violence. Gross meticulously dissected the detective and trial notes to recount the story of a love triangle gone terribly wrong, with race and the aftermath of slavery playing a central role."— Metro. "In prose that demonstrates careful research and offers a realistic reconstruction of the crime, Gross comments on social standards for morality and relationships between races and genders. The case of the disembodied torso is not only a sensational piece of true crime, but an opportunity to reflect on these continuing complexities."— Shelf Awareness. "A sordid murder reveals beliefs about race, sex, and justice in post-Civil War Philadelphia. Historian Gross draws on police and prison records, witness testimony, newspapers, and other archival sources to produce a thorough, absorbing examination of the crime, its context, and the two people tried."— Kirkus Reviews. “This is a disturbing book, not only because the story swirls around a most gruesome murder, or because Hannah Mary Tabbs executed her crime with cold-blooded resolve and cinematic flair, or because its spellbinding narrative will leave you breathless at times. Rather, this is a disturbing book because Kali N. Gross disturbs all of our inherited categories, proving once again that woman, man, black, white, agency, evidence, truth, even justice, are too small for the historical subjects whose lives we wish to know. This is why Kali N. Gross is one of the most original and imaginative historians of her generation.”— Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. Set in the racially volatile world of post-Reconstruction Philadelphia, the story of accused murdered Hannah Mary Tabbs makes for a compelling narrative. By examining Tabbs’s murder trial, the author gives the crime context by analyzing it against broader evidence of police treatment of Black suspects and violence within the Black community.— Book Riot. Shortly after a dismembered torso was discovered by a pond outside Philadelphia in 1887, investigators homed in on two suspects: Hannah Mary Tabbs, a married, working-class, black woman, and George Wilson, a former neighbor whom Tabbs implicated after her arrest. As details surrounding the shocking case emerged, both the crime and ensuing trial--which spanned several months--were featured in the national press. The trial brought otherwise taboo subjects such as illicit sex, adultery, and domestic violence in the black community to public attention. At the same time, the mixed race of the victim and one of his assailants exacerbated anxieties over the purity of whiteness in the post-Reconstruction era. In Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso, historian Kali Nicole Gross uses detectives' notes, trial and prison records, local newspapers, and other archival documents to reconstruct this ghastly whodunit crime in all its scandalous detail. In doing so, she gives the crime context by analyzing it against broader evidence of police treatment of black suspects and violence within the black community. A fascinating work of historical recreation, Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso is sure to captivate anyone interested in true crime, adulterous love triangles gone wrong, and the racially volatile world of post-Reconstruction Philadelphia. More From Reviewers: “Kali Gross is one of the smartest historians around these days. And she’s the most uncompromising in her commitment to discovering and telling true stories about fierce and fascinating lives—stories that illuminate the flaws running right through the rock of American history. You’ll discover more than just the identity of the disembodied torso in the tale Gross spins about Hannah Mary Tabbs—but you’ll discover that, too.”— Edward E. Baptist, author of The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. “Kali Gross has written a riveting narrative of the crimes of an ordinary but notorious woman in late nineteenth-century urban America. She does not flinch from the harsh truths her subject forces her to face. She sketches a portrait with the complexity and sensitivity it deserves. The book bristles with lessons for understanding vulnerable communities and their engagement with the criminal justice system today.”— Tera Hunter, author of To 'Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors after the Civil War. “At times while reading the book, I had to remind myself that this was history, not fiction. Gross tells the story beautifully, dropping hints and suggestions to draw readers in and make us eager for more.”— American Historical Review. “ Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso is an excellent study. Gross simultaneously tells a riveting story and offers significant insights for our understanding of the history of race, gender, and criminality, analyzing how Tabbs turned the tables on Philadelphia’s criminal justice system and exploited invidious racial and gender stereotypes to her advantage. Thus, Gross explores an exceptional, atypical murder case in a way that unearths the marrow of embedded inequities in the late nineteenth-century American law enforcement and criminal justice.”— Journal of Family History. Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race Sex and Violence in America by Kali Nicole Gross. “I hope readers consider whether we need to reassess Black women’s relationship to violence.” In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Kali Nicole Gross. Gross is Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of History at . Her book is Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America. Roberto Sirvent: How can your book help BAR readers understand the current political and social climate? Kali Nicole Gross: Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso tells the tale of a vicious love triangle gone wrong in Philadelphia, at the same time that it maps the historical chasm between the city’s Black community and its law enforcement officers. Specifically, the book shows how violence and racial profiling were historically considered a routine part of policing; Black folks and newly arrived immigrants were disproportionately subject to unjust stops, arrests, and trumped-up criminal charges. The book also explores how these practices left the Black community especially vulnerable to violent and notorious offenders—or, put another way, my research shows that everyday Black people were caught between the proverbial rock and hard place when it came to dealing with crime. They could not expect unbiased police responses, so they tended not to rely on them, often choosing to handle matters themselves or to simply suffer crime and assaults without justice or protection because calling the police might result in even worse outcomes. All of these issues speak directly to ongoing discourses surrounding race, brutality, and the criminal justice system. What do you hope activists and community organizers will take away from reading your book? I am in awe of the work and enormous sacrifice that activists and community organizers make—socially, politically, and intellectually. Mainly, I want to be in conversation with them and also to help support efforts to halt violence and mass incarceration, as these issues adversely and disproportionately impact Black people. In service of that goal, I took pains to demonstrate the historical legacies of anti-black police violence but also to chart its connection to intraracial violence in Black communities; I hope going forward that whenever we protest racist police brutality we simultaneously call attention to the myriad ways that it harms individual victims and their families and spotlight its damaging repercussions for the Black community writ large. We know readers will learn a lot from your book, but what do you hope readers will un-learn ? In other words, is there a particular ideology you’re hoping to dismantle? I am hoping that readers continue to push back against the notion that Black people have to be complete saints in order to have their humanity acknowledged. In part, focusing on a black woman such as Hannah Mary Tabbs was my attempt to meet this goal. At a bare minimum, she engaged in adultery, domestic violence, and bullying. During the murder investigation, authorities encountered scores of Black people—including Hannah Mary Tabbs’s husband and niece—who offered evidence against her. They spoke of being physically brutalized by Hannah Mary Tabbs and routinely threatened and intimidated. By all accounts she was a neighborhood terror, and a number of folks were convinced that Gaines (the murdered man) was not her first victim. At the same time, Hannah Mary Tabbs grew up in a world where Black women’s bodies had never been their own—to borrow words from legendary Civil Rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. Tabbs was born in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, in the antebellum era and according to existing slave narratives, the area was home to a large and infamous slave-owning family—a family known for being exceptionally cruel and for starving enslaved Blacks. Tabbs also came into her teenage years during the nation’s bloody Civil War—a period where Black women and girls were raped with impunity. In Tabbs’s case there is significant evidence that her “niece,” a young mulatto, was actually her daughter, though the circumstances of the girl’s conception are murky. The point is not to excuse Hannah Mary Tabbs’s violence but rather to understand her as deeply flawed, boundlessly complicated, and thusly, utterly human and worthy of historical study. Who are the intellectual heroes that inspire your work? Of all of the questions, this is probably the hardest. There are so many scholars, writers, activists, and artists that have influenced my work. Some names that come to mind—folks who educate and inspire me are historians such as Mary Frances Berry, Deborah Gray White, Tera Hunter, Robin D. G. Kelley, Elizabeth Brooks Higginbotham, and Nell Painter. But also, I have been deeply affected by the lives and work of historical figures such as Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Frederick Douglass, and W. E. B. DuBois, as well as folks such as Gloria Richardson and Fannie Lou Hamer, and also women like Emmett Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Bradley, who took a mother’s worst nightmare and ignited a movement that changed the face of this nation. Believe it or not, Hannah Mary Tabbs has also been a kind of muse for me. That said, I have been enormously inspired by the work of literary critics and theorists like Saidiya Hartman, Hazel Carby, Barbara Christian, Michel Foucault, bell hooks, and Frantz Fanon—I find their writing really rich and generative. I have found work from Toni Morrison and Gayl Jones equally powerful and I have been profoundly moved by the poetry of DaMaris B. Hill. In what way does your book help us imagine new worlds? I hope that Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso also leads readers to consider whether we need to reassess Black women’s relationship to violence. Much of the existing historical scholarship, my own work included, has largely regarded violence as wholly negative— usually a mark of a Black woman’s undoing. There is without a doubt ample evidence to support this, but there are also records to show some Black women embraced violence and brutality and made it work for themselves. Admittedly, Hannah Mary Tabbs’s usage is largely nihilistic, but she nonetheless managed to use it to grant herself pleasures and a measure of social autonomy that was largely denied Black women in her era. For me, she exists as both an exception and a norm and also as a troublesome figure; she raises disturbing questions about what kind of access Black women can achieve for themselves when they throw mainstream notions of morality and righteousness aside. Mixed Race Studies. The future is mixed. Since its founding, Cornell [University] has served as a shining beacon in the fight for the inclusivity of women, POC, the LGBT+ community and people with disabilities in higher education. If Cornell truly believes in its motto, “Any Person, Any Study,” this new area of study and research into mixed-race individuals would fit like a glove into the ideals of this institution, and be a good step in developing future curricula as the United States’ demographic evolves. Kali Nicole Gross. Christine Lamberson , Assistant Professor of History Angelo State University, San Angelo, Texas. True crime is as popular as ever in our present moment. Both television and podcast series have gained critical praise and large audiences by exploring largely unknown individual crimes in depth and using them to consider broader questions surrounding the justice system, guilt and innocence, class and racial inequality, and evidence. Rarely do we get to think historically about these broader topics through the lens of individual, especially unknown, cases in light of the challenges posed by researching historical crimes. Kali Nicole Gross, Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of History at Rutgers University New Brunswick, has done incredible research to do just that in her new book, Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America (Oxford University Press, Hardcover 2016, Paperback 2018). The book won the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Nonfiction. The book tells the story of the discovery of a torso, the investigation of the murder, and the life of the accused—Hannah Mary Tabbs. The body was discovered in 1887 and drew an unusual amount of attention in the segregated areas in and around Philadelphia, especially given the victim and accused were black. In this episode of the podcast, Gross discusses why the case caught the eye of the public and investigators at the time. She also explains some of the broader context and insights of the case. Finally, she talks about her research process. We don’t give away the resolution of the case in our conversation, but will introduce you to Hannah Mary Tabbs and the world of post-Reconstruction Philadelphia in which she lived. Listen to the interview (00:56:48) here. Download the interview here. Comments Off on Kali Nicole Gross. What an 1887 murder and dismemberment tells us about race relations today. Samantha Melamed , Staff Writer. On the freezing-cold morning of Feb. 17, 1887, a Bensalem carpenter walking by an ice pond noticed a parcel wrapped in brown paper and marked “handle with care.” Inside, he found a male torso of indeterminate race. The limbs and head were nowhere in sight. So begins Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso , the new book by historian and African studies scholar Kali Nicole Gross. It’s the type of tale you don’t often hear during Black History Month: the biography of an antiheroine who made her way in the world through violence, deception, and adultery. It’s also a true-crime story told nearly 130 years after the fact—culminating in the century-late exoneration of a man who, Gross argues, was framed for murder. Most of all, the story of Tabbs, the Philadelphia woman who left the torso by the pond in the first place—and of Wakefield Gaines, her victim and much-younger lover, and George Wilson, the “weak-minded” 18-year-old she accused of the crime – is an encapsulation of issues that resonate today, of racial bias in policing, coerced confessions, and unreliable eyewitnesses. “Tabbs’ story sheds this unprecedented light,” Gross said, “into just how long these issues around urban crime and police brutality have been around in our society.” Gross, 43, a professor at the University of Texas-Austin, began the work eight years ago, while she was living in Philadelphia. (She attended graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania and taught at .)… …In uncovering the story, she shed light on the tense race relations of the time: Tabbs’ vulnerable place under the law as a black woman, and Wilson’s still-more-tenuous status as a light-skinned interracial man. “People were very concerned about black people infiltrating white society. Wilson is really the sum of all fears,” Gross said. “Police home in on him despite the fact he had no real motive.” Wilson, known to be “dim” and impressionable, was beaten in custody—until, Gross concludes, he made a false confession. (He was sentenced to 12 years in solitary confinement.)… Read the entire article here. Comments Off on What an 1887 murder and dismemberment tells us about race relations today. Ordinary Yet Infamous: Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso​ Kali Nicole Gross , Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies University of Texas, Austin. The discovery of a headless, limbless, racially ambiguous human torso near a pond outside of Philadelphia in 1887, horrified area residents and confounded local authorities. From what they could tell, a brutal homicide had taken place. At a minimum, the victim had been viciously dismembered. Based on the circumstances, it also seemed like the kind of case to go unsolved. Yet in an era lacking sophisticated forensic methods, the investigators from Bucks County and those from Philadelphia managed to identify two suspects: Hannah Mary Tabbs, a black southern migrant, and George Wilson, a young mulatto that Tabbs implicated shortly after her arrest. The ensuing trial would last months, itself something of a record given that most criminal hearings wrapped up in a week or so. The crime and its adjudication also took center stage in presses from Pennsylvania to Illinois to Missouri… Read the entire article here. Comments Off on Ordinary Yet Infamous: Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso​ Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America. Oxford University Press 2016-02-03 232 pages 10 illustrations 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 inches Hardcover ISBN: 9780190241216. Kali Nicole Gross , Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of History Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. A true crime account that offers a glimpse of the racially volatile world of post-ReconstructionPhiladelphia Unearths historical experiences of traditionally marginalized, taboo subjects Combines narrative prose with rigorous historical research. Shortly after a dismembered torso was discovered by a pond outside Philadelphia in 1887, investigators homed in on two suspects: Hannah Mary Tabbs, a married, working-class, black woman, and George Wilson, a former neighbor whom Tabbs implicated after her arrest. As details surrounding the shocking case emerged, both the crime and ensuing trial-which spanned several months-were featured in the national press. The trial brought otherwise taboo subjects such as illicit sex, adultery, and domestic violence in the black community to public attention. At the same time, the mixed race of the victim and one of his assailants exacerbated anxieties over the purity of whiteness in the post-Reconstruction era. In Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso , historian Kali Nicole Gross uses detectives’ notes, trial and prison records, local newspapers, and other archival documents to reconstruct this ghastly whodunit crime in all its scandalous detail. In doing so, she gives the crime context by analyzing it against broader evidence of police treatment of black suspects and violence within the black community. A fascinating work of historical recreation, Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso is sure to captivate anyone interested in true crime, adulterous love triangles gone wrong, and the racially volatile world of post-Reconstruction Philadelphia. Table of Contents. Prologue Chapter 1: “Handle With Care” Chapter 2: “The Woman Found” Chapter 3: “To Do Him Bodily Harm” Chapter 4: “Wavy Hair and Nearly White Skin” Chapter 5: “Held for Trial” Chapter 6: “The Defense Opens” Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index. Comments Off on Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America.