The Beecher-Tilton adultery scandal

363 Pages·2017·15.29 MB·English

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Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014
1-1-1980
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Altina L. Waller
University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Waller, Altina L., "The Beecher-Tilton adultery scandal : family, religion, and politics in Brooklyn,
1865-1875." (1980). Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014. 1381.
https://doi.org/10.7275/vdty-3744 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1/1381
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THE BEECHER-TILTON ADULTERY SCANDAL
FAMILY, RELIGION, AND POLITICS
IN BROOKLYN, 1865-1875
A Dissertation Presented
By
ALTINA LAURA WALLER
Submitted to the Graduate School of the
University of Massachusetts in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
February 1980
History
I
Altina Laura Waller 1980
All Rights Reserved
ii
THE BEECHER-TILTON ADULTERY SCANDAL:
FAMILY, RELIGION, AND POLITICS
IN BROOKLYN, 1865-1875
A Dissertation Presented
By
ALTINA LAURA WALLER
Paul Boyer, Chairpea^^on of Committee
S.
n
I,
la
Stephen Nissenbaum, Member
Gerald McFarland, Member
Howard Gadlin, Member
Paul S. Boyer, Departprent Head
Department of Histo;
111
For Laura and Andrew
iv
—
.
PREFACE
Beginning as early as 1873, when Mark Twain and
Charles Dudley Warner published the novel whose title.
The Gilded Age gave a name to their generation, attempts
,
to understand American life in the late nineteenth century
have been hampered by the dominance of powerful and usu-
ally negative stereotyped images. In the popular mind
and among many historians as well--the post-Civil War
generation was perceived as somehow fatally flawed- -by
crass materialism and greed, by political corruption and
—
scandal, and worst of all--by cloying sentimentality and
hypocritical moral pretentiousness
Significantly, the most extensive and probing
studies of the political, social, and cultural history of
the Gilded Age have focused on the minority who stood out-
side the mainstream or resisted its dominant currents:
critics and skeptics like Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, and
Henry Adams; quixotic political reformers like E. L. God-
kin; isolated creative figures like Albert Pinkham Ryder
and Kate Chopin; humanitarians like Jane Addams and Jacob
—
Riis; or--at the other end of the scale the anonymous
immigrant masses who struggled for survival and a decent
existence against heavy odds. In short, historians have
tried to "salvage" the Gilded Age for us by focusing on
its redeeming qualities and its leavening minority,
V
.
The fact is that twentieth-century
perceptions of
what makes important and worthwhile history have dulled
our sensitivity to the issues that arrested the attention
and concern of Americans living in the Gilded Age. His-
torians have chosen to study economic development and
political reform because these things seemed the most
significant to the scholars who were writing about them.
And, of course, these issues did capture the attention of
some segments of late nineteenth-century American society.
These matters certainly deserve careful historical inves-
tigation, but our exclusive concentration on them has
left us with a lopsided picture of the era. When it comes
to the social and cultural contours of the life of the
majority of this era, we have studied the fringes, the
atypical, the nay-sayers, but we have somehow not yet
penetrated to the core.
This dissertation is an effort to redress the bal-
ance somewhat: to explore--on their own terms and
through the medium of a single, traumatic event--some of
the central concerns of a segment of the American middle
class in the 1870s. Specifically, I propose to examine
the most sensational and highly publicized social scandal
of the era: the 1875 adultery trial of the most popular
American Protestant preacher of the day, Henry Ward
Beecher
vi
Almost as soon as it was over, this event was
relegated to the attic of the American consciousness.
Everyone knew about it, but few--certainly few
—
historians considered it worthy of serious historical
attention. For a period of several years while awareness
of the scandal was at its height, no other event was more
written or talked about. Some reacted with amusement,
some with outrage; others were convinced it presaged the
downfall of Christianity or heralded a social revolution--
but everyone knew about it, and everyone had something to
say on the subject I have proceeded on the assumption
.
that no event however me lodramatic which so engaged the
, ,
national attention can be without historical interest or
significance A careful consideration of the circum-
.
stances personalities and ramifications of this famous
, ,
scandal believe can help us understand some of the
I
, ,
fundamental issues confronting middle-class Americans in
the mid-Victorian era.
have approached the Beecher-Tilton scandal not as
I
narrative history, but as a study of institutional changes
and their personal psychological ramifications as they
were manifested in a single traumatic event. This means
that often touch only briefly on or neglect entirely the
I
details of complicated events and trial testimony so that
I can explore fully what I perceive to be the underlying
vii
. .
patterns. Conversely, this also means dealing with
a
few important events from several different perspectives.
To avoid possible confusion which might arise from this
sometimes non-chronological organization, have included
I
in Chapter I a brief synopsis of the main events in the
scandal and in Appendix I, a chronology. I hope that
these two will help reduce confusion concerning the fac-
tual sequence
Further, I have not been overly preoccupied with
the question of Beecher's guilt or innocence. Appendix II
consists of a discussion focused directly on this issue,
but the dissertation itself does not attempt to argue the
point. It will soon be clear to the reader what my con-
clusions are, but, nevertheless, I would be willing to
argue that whether the scandal is true or not, it unveils
the same fundamental social concerns The intense social
.
conflict it engendered in Brooklyn and the national
fascination with the affair are testimony to that
The scandal was first suggested to me by Profes-
sor Stephen Nissenbaum, not as a dissertation topic, but
as a possible teaching unit in a course at the University
of Massachusetts known as New Approaches to History.
After having successfully taught units such as Salem
Witchcraft, Shay's Rebellion, and Lizzie Borden, the staff
was looking for a new topic amenable to the
viii