Sewing Girl's Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America

Renowned historian John Sweet offers a riveting Revolutionary Era drama that tells the story of the first rape trial on record in American history, and the fault lines of class privilege and gender bias that it exposed, showing how much has changed over two centuries and how much has not. In September 1793, a crime was committed in the back room of a New York brothel on a moonless night--the kind of crime that even victims usually kept secret. Instead, seventeen-year-old seamstress Lanah Sawyer did what virtually no one else had done: she charged a gentleman with rape. When Lanah raised her voice, she was dismissed as a mere "sewing-girl," led astray by romantic delusions. But she refused to stay silent. Her accusation sparked a sensational courtroom drama and a relentless struggle for vindication that divided both Lanah's and her assailant's families and threatened both of their lives. The legal battle exposed the city's predatory sexual underworld, shaped the development of American