Book Review: Cry of Murder on Broadway

 

Cry of Murder on Broadway

A Woman’s Ruin and Revenge in Old New York

by Julie Miller

Cornell University Press

Three Hills

History | True Crime

Pub Date 15 Oct 2020

I am reviewing a copy of Cry of Murder on Broadway through Cornell University Press through Netgalley:

This book recounts a nineteenth century true crime story.

The date was November 1, 1843, a young household servant named Amelia Norman attacked Henry Ballard, a prosperous merchant, on the steps of the new and luxurious Astor House Hotel. Both agitated and distraught Amelia Norman had followed Ballard down Broadway before confronting him at the door to the hotel. She had taken out a folding knife, and stabbed him, barely missing his heart.

Ballard had survived the attack and the trial that followed created a sensation. The newspapers in New York. Lydia Marie Clark a prominent author and abolitionists championed Norman and later included her story in her fiction and her writing on women’s rights.

Norman, the would be murderer attracted the support of politicians journalists, and legal and moral reformers who saw her story as a vehicle to change the law as it related to “seduction” and to advocate for the rights of workers.

Cry of Murder on Broadway tells the reader how New Yorkers, besotted with the drama of the courtroom and the lurid stories of the penny press, followed the trial for entertainment. Throughout all this, Norman gained the sympathy of New Yorkers, in particular the jury, which acquitted her in less than ten minutes.

I give Cry of Murder on Broadway five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!