Examining the case that inspired a pop culture phenomenon In 1924
Beulah Annan was arrested and incarcerated for killing her lover,
Harry Kalsted. Six weeks later, a jury acquitted her of murder.
Inspired by the sordid event, trial, and acquittal, Maurine
Watkins, a reporter at the time, wrote the play Chicago, a Broadway
hit that was adapted several times. Through a fresh retelling of
the story of Annan and of Watkins’s play, Charles H. Cosgrove
provides the first critical examination of the criminal case, and
an initial exploration of the era’s social assumptions that made
the message of the play so plausible in its own time. His careful
historical research challenges the received portrait of Annan as a
killer who got away with murder, and of Watkins as a savvy cub
reporter and precocious playwright. In They Both Reached for the
Gun, Charles H. Cosgrove expertly combines inquest and police
records, and interviews with Annan’s relatives, to analyze the
participants, the trial, and the subsequent play. Although no one
will ever know what really happened in the Kenwood apartment on
Chicago’s south side one hundred years ago, Cosgrove’s
interrogation shows how sensationalized Watkins’s writing was.
Her reporting on the Annan case perpetuated falsehoods about
Annan’s so-called “confession,” and her play gave an
inaccurate portrayal of Chicago’s criminal justice system.
Despite Watkins’s insistence that her drama revealed the truth
about its subjects without any exaggeration, her play depicted
police, prosecutors, and judges as the only “good guys” in the
story, ignoring those who lied, misled, and used brutal methods to
obtain forced confessions.
General
Imprint: |
Southern Illinois University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
April 2024 |
Authors: |
Charles H. Cosgrove
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 16mm (L x W x T) |
Pages: |
248 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8093-3938-9 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-8093-3938-2 |
Barcode: |
9780809339389 |
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