Newspaper Research 2

Newspaper Research 2

Adam Tyler

Death in the 1860s

Murder in the United States in 1860-1880 is very high at about a level of 0.0031% of people being murdered each year. However, the rate of murders mostly stayed the same. Most murders of this time happened in New York, in fact, New York had one year where 45 people were murdered. Usually, the murderer was a man, but at some times the murderer was a woman, usually trying to kill her abusive husband. A man's reasons for murder were mostly family troubles that just got out of hand, but sometimes it was due to uncontrolled anger of jobs, confusion between friends, or they were just mentally ill. A murderer was usually sentenced to death by hanging, but some states outlawed this and they were rather sent to prison, like in Iowa. Unfortunately, a lot of them managed to escape by heading through the sewer system such as two murderers from Pennsylvania...until they were captured again a couple days after. Many women were found not guilty as the thought of them murdering someone would have seemed "impossible", while many men (especially black men) were found guilty. Some innocent men were put to death, proving they didn't have a very good way of telling who the murderer was back then. It was all based on stereotypes, so some of the murderers got away scot-free. So yeah, not a real good way to deal with murderers.