40 Whacks - The Lizzie Borden Story
...iting Lizzie’s dislike for her stepmother and her desire to inherit half of her father’s fortune. As part of the plot, the prosecutor alleged that Lizzie destroyed Andrew’s will, which left her only $25,000, so she and her sister Emma would share the estate. The prosecutor also give emphasis to opportunity, wondering how anyone else “could have got in there, remained an hour and a half, killed two people and then left without being observed” (Brown 234-235). He noted that the Borden’s house contained numerous locks inside and out and compared it to a fortress. Finally, the prosecutor emphasized that throughout this entire affair, Lizzie was the only person “not been seen to express emotion” (Brown 236). The jury deliberated for half and hour, agreed unanimously that Lizzie was innocent, but stayed in the room for another thirty minutes so as to look reasonably deliberative. They then returned a verdict of not guilty, apparently to the surprise of hardly everyone (Brown 280). Most contemporary observers agreed, and historians who have examined the case also have concluded that Lizzie did not kill her parents. Only the Globe, Fall River’s sensationalist newspaper, disagreed, and its outraged stories after the verdict helped create the myth of Lizzie Borden, axe murderer (Kent and Flynn 200). The brutality of the crime and the sensationalism that surrounded it obscured the role that Lizzie’s gender played in the verdict. Lizzie lived at a time when women did not enjoy basic rights such as voting. She was born on July 19, 1860, the daughter of Sarah and Andrew Borden of Fall River, Massachusetts. Sarah died in 1863, leaving Emma, ten years older that Lizzie, to serve as her surrogate mother (Brown 53-54). At the time, women were cared for by men at all stages of their lives – first their father, then their husband, and finally their son. For Lizzie, that meant Andrew Borden, a successful but cold man. Andrew Borden had risen from modest beginnings to become very prosperous. He earned his fortune as an undertaker, and then used that wealth to acquire real estate. He also became legendary as the Scrooge of Fall River, so stingy that on the day of his death, he brought home a broken lock that had been discarded on the street (Kent and Flynn 2). His tight – fisted ways left him with a fortune of more than $500,000 at the time of his death (Brown 53). In Lizzie’s social circles, those who did not marry were doomed to the awful life of a spinster, living in her father’s house. “Until the late nineteenth century, a young girl had only two possible reasons for leaving the home of her parents: marriage and the death of her parents” (Lerner 43). Even in death, women did not achieve equality: The Fall River police, upon discovering Abby’s body, closed the door to the room and returned downstairs to examine Andrew’s body first (Kent and Flynn 20). Women had few educational opportunities, so when Lizzie graduated from high school, college did not beckon. No doubt, her family expected her to become refined in the ways of a lady and marry an upstanding young man (Kent and Flynn16). Marriage and child rearing were the proper roles for women. “The predominant values of society held that the home was the proper sphere for women and domesticity and motherhood their occupations” (Lerner 43). So, Lizzie waited and waited, and not long after high school, it became apparent that marriage did not summon, either. Her father would immediately dismiss any man without independent means who called upon Lizzie as a fortune hunter. Conversely, any man of independent means would have more beautiful and more acceptable women to pursue because Borden enjoyed such low standing among Fall River’s elite. Lizzie was a “poor little rich girl” (Brown 54-55). Andrew Borden’s questionable business tactics, miserly way, and cold veneer made him many enemies. As one writer noted, “Andrew Borden had no socially redeeming qualities” (Brown 53). After his murder, crowds gathered outside the Borden house, but for every mourner there were ten people who cheered. Andrew collected rents personally, trudging around Fall River with his rent book and eggs, which he sold to his tenants for only one cent more than the local grocer. He refused to connect his house to gas mains, using kerosene instead, and then only sparingly. He limited running water to only the kitchen and the basement, and no hot water could be found in the Borden house (Brown 50-53). Andrew’s first wife died in 1863, but in 1865, the forty-two year old widower married Abby Dufee Gray, thirty-seven. Andrew apparently married for convenience, securing not only a wife but also a nursemaid and a housekeeper. For Gray, already considered old by the standards of that era, the marriage ensured that who would not be consigned to a life of spinsterhood (Brown 46). Andrew, Abby, Emma, and Lizzie lived together for twenty-seven years, and not very happily. Andrew worked fourteen days, always looking to make even more money, while the housekeeper took care of the chores. That left Abby, Emma...