Review: The Sewing Girl's Tale

Title: The Sewing Girl's Tale: A Story of the Rights of Men and the Wrongs of Women

Author: John Wood Sweet

Disclaimer: I won a copy via a Librarything giveaway.

 

               Why write about a centuries old rape case especially when everyone knows how the case is going to end?

               Because the case, to be more exact, the view of the law and the arguments in the case are still used today.  Take for instance, the recent decision about Roe v. Wade.

               In 1793’s New York, a young woman and  young, but older, man go for a walk, and it ended in the young woman’s rape.  That young woman, Lanah Sawyer, and her family eventually brought charges and even sued in the civil court.

               Sweet details the events leading up to the crime, the crime, trials, and aftermath.  Sawyer’s case wasn’t just a case that the society forgot.  The first verdict sparked mob violence, though it wasn’t directed at her rapist, a Harry Bedlow. 

               Sweet’s book is more than a look at what justice was in 1793; it is also offers a reason why or for how long we have viewed rape and even women though the lenses that Sawyer was viewed.  In part Sweet, details how rape and seduction cases made their ways though the New York City courts, and how those cases were intwined with racism, sexism, and classism.  It is also a look at the New York of the time, showing the interconnections between people, and perhaps how small New York was once.  Bedlow, for instance, employed Alexander Hamilton.

               In writing about a rape case where the voice the victim is silence in part by the culture and time in which she lived as well as because she seems to have left no record, there is always a danger that the focus will shift from the woman.  This danger is even greater here because Sawyer’s justice could only be gain by the actions of men.  The decision to bring charges against Bedlow wasn’t just in the hands of the magistrates, but the decision to do so rested in the hands of her stepfather.  The thing Sweet does, and consistently does throughout the book, is keep Lanah Sawyer front and center.  The crime was directed against her.  She is the one who was attacked.  Sweet does not let the reader forget that.  Sawyer and her possible reactions are kept front and center.  Sweet offers a variety of reason or reactions, so while her voice isn’t as present as that of the men who had control over her story, she is not forgotten.  Sweet also looks at the reactions of women, including the reaction of the wife of one of the defense attorneys.

               As I mention, Alexander Hamilton was employed by Bedlow, and Sweet takes a little time to talk about the Reynolds scandal for there is another connection besides Hamilton.  It does make me wish that Sweet would write a biography of Maria Reynolds.