Hannah Mary Tabbs and the disembodied torso

By Kali N. Gross

Subjects: African Americans, African americans, pennsylvania, philadelphia, Case studies, African American women, Pennsylvania, social conditions, Murder, Racially mixed people, Social conditions, Murder, pennsylvania, Family violence, African american women, History, United states, race relations, Race relations

Description: Shortly after a dismembered torso was discovered by a pond outside Philadelphia in 1887, investigators homed in on two suspects: Hannah Mary Tabbs, a married, working-class, black woman, and George Wilson, a former neighbor whom Tabbs implicated after her arrest. As details surrounding the shocking case emerged, both the crime and ensuing trial brought otherwise taboo subjects such as illicit sex, adultery, and domestic violence in the black community to public attention. At the same time, the mixed race of the victim and one of his assailants exacerbated anxieties over the purity of whiteness in the post-Reconstruction era.