| Description |
ix, 280 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Contents |
Introduction: the hanging of George Woods -- "The right type of case": capital punishment, prisoners without capital, and public support for executions -- The worst of the worst: Puritans, punishment and political power -- "A vast circle of people": authority, public execution, and crowd control -- "Darkness, threatening, ruins, terror": the penitentiary and capital punishment -- The will of the people: early reactions against capital punishment -- Legacy of conquest: Civil War, slavery and the first Ku Klux Klan -- Shivaree: punishment by mob -- "Let each man be his own executioner": rise of San Francisco vigilantes -- Takeover: return of the San Francisco vigilantes -- Boots, bullets, and big bucks: the vigilante myth -- "Beaten all to smash": labor, the Robber Barons, and the law -- "Death and destruction of the system": labor on trial -- White on white terrorism after the Civil War -- "Serving your racial needs": Colonel Simmons's Ku Klux Klan -- "Foreigners and Negroes": discrimination, lynching, and the penalty of death -- A clean, well-lighted place: death penalty reform in the Progressive Era -- "Evolving standards of decency": civil rights and abolition of the death penalty -- The endless end of capital punishment. |
| Subject |
Capital punishment -- United States -- History.
|
|
Executions and executioners -- United States -- History.
|
| ISBN |
081334042X alkaline paper |
|
9780813340425 alkaline paper |
|
