The Sewing Girl's Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America
John Wood SweetOn a moonless night in the summer of 1793 a crime was committed in the back room of a New York brothel—the kind of crime that even victims usually kept secret. Instead, seventeen-year-old seamstress Lanah Sawyer did what virtually no one in US history had done before: she charged a gentleman with rape. Her accusation sparked a raw courtroom drama & a relentless struggle for vindication that threatened both Lanah’s & her assailant’s lives. The trial exposed a predatory sexual underworld, sparked riots in the streets, & ignited a vigorous debate about class privilege & sexual double standards.
The ongoing conflict attracted the nation’s top lawyers, including Alexander Hamilton, and shaped the development of American law. The crime & its consequences became a kind of parable about the power of seduction & the limits of justice. Eventually, Lanah Sawyer did succeed in holding her assailant accountable—but at a terrible cost to herself.
Based on rigorous historical detective work, this book takes us from a chance encounter in the street into the sanctuaries of the city’s elite, the shadows of its brothels, & the despair of its debtors’ prison. The Sewing Girl's Tale shows that if our laws & our culture were changed by a persistent young woman & the power of words two hundred years ago, they can be changed again.
Includes photographs
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John Wood Sweet's first book, Bodies Politic: Negotiating Race in the American North, 1730–1830, was a finalist for the Frederick Douglass Prize. He was named a Top Young Historian by the History News Network & has served as an Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer.