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Articles by Ann Fabian
The Story the Torn Gown Told: Forensic Evidence and Lanah Sawyer’s Prosecution of Henry Bedlow for Rape, New York, 1793 - Commonplace
The morning after After ten years of work, I recently finished a book on Early America’s most sensational rape trial and its long aftermath. In the opening scene of The Sewing Girl’s Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America (2022), I evoke the image of seventeen-year-old Lanah Sawyer sitting in the back room of a New York brothel one morning in the summer of 1793, with a needle and thread, repairing her damaged gown.
Sullivan Ballou’s Body: Battlefield Relic Hunting and the Fate of Soldiers’ Remains - Commonplace
Confederates’ quest for bones thus connects to a bizarre history of the use, and misuse, of human remains. Bones from the Bull Run battlefield were taken as acts of domination and displayed as trophies of war. However macabre, human remains became part of the deeply variegated material culture of war. Major Sullivan Ballou’s last letter home has become something of a sacred text.
“We left all on the ground but the head”: J. J. Audubon’s Human Skulls - Commonplace
Morton and his skull measurements have long been part of the scholarship on American racism, but what happens when we draw Audubon into the racial drama? We usually think of the artist-ornithologist John James Audubon, gun on shoulder or pen in hand, as a man with his eyes on the sky. Audubon, after all, was the special chronicler of North American birds. But from time to time, Audubon looked at the ground.
Blogging Moby-Dick: An artist illustrates every page of The Whale - Commonplace
Save to PDFPrint Matt Kish’s Moby-Dick blog began with a sparse preamble: “Because I honestly consider Moby-Dick to be the greatest novel ever written, I am now going to create one illustration for every single one of the 552 pages in the Signet Classic paperback edition. I’ll try to do one a day, but we’ll see.” That same day, August 6, 2009, Kish posted his first illustration. “Call me Ishmael” was the preordained choice for Kish’s page one illustration.
Letter: Fabian says Maroney’s attack on Staneski is ‘disgusting’
James Maroney, in the midst of these corrosive, hyper-partisan times chose to play in that sandbox by sending out attack pieces on Pam Staneski, leading us to believe that she is anti woman. His message is disgusting and I believe that his attacks are a symptom of a broader problem with our political discourse. He feels enabled by a culture that treats women’s issues as political chips to cash in for empty victories. He is hoping that you will believe the sound bytes that he can fit into a mailer.
Letter: Fabian fights for Staneski
I am proud of Pam Staneski’s campaign running as the Republican candidate for the 14th senate district. With the current state senate tied 18-18 it is more important than ever that we elect Pam, a proven winner, to represent our party this November.
REVIEW: A Son's Memoir of the Golden Age of Cartoonists
January 26, 2018 Adam Cohen Cartoon Country: My Father and His Friends in the Golden Age of Make Believe by Cullen Murphy (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) By Ann Fabian Journalist Cullen Murphy grew up in “Cartoon Country,” in Fairfield County, Connecticut, where “a populous concentration of the country’s comic strip artists, gag cartoonists, and magazine illustrators” had come to settle in the 1950s. Lucky boy.
Letter: Fabian backs Staneski for second term | Milford Mirror
I have had the pleasure of knowing Pam Staneski for nearly 20 years. We met when I was president of the PTA at Calf Pen Meadow — her family had just moved to Milford. She immediately jumped in and became part of our CPM family. Twenty years later she continues to be a person committed to our community — running for Board of Education, stepping up to advocate for Boys & Girls Club, serving on various non-profit boards, and working to start the Milford Prevention Council.
Dream Reading | Ann Fabian
Early in the spring of 1894, New York State lawmakers set out to investigate New York City’s corrupt police force. Rockland County senator Clarence Lexow headed the committee, which spent the year hearing stories about seedy dealings in the city. The investigators found expected forms of graft—brothel keepers and saloon owners cutting the police a share of their profits, for instance—but also got a glimpse of smaller street-level payoffs, previously not much on their radar.
La Soledad | Robert Coover
We’re in Catalonia on a certain Friday during the celebration of the execution of an accused Middle East terrorist, one of millions over the centuries, though by chance one more famous than most. The mythologized story of his life and death is depicted in the heavy wooden statuary, called pasos, being ported or rolled through the lively square below our fifth-floor hotel balcony by teams of strong-backed men peering out of eyeholes in hooded gowns.
"Feed on Humane Flesh and Blood? Strang mess!": A Puritan Communion Cup - Commonplace
Although Puritans designed their service in direct opposition to the Catholic mass, its practitioners’ version of the Lord’s Supper had more in common with the mass than they wanted to admit. This silver communion cup, made around 1715 by English silversmith John Dixwell for the First Church of Deerfield, Massachusetts, was likely used in a Puritan communion service.
Come On, Lilgrim - Commonplace
Recent early American scholarship has worked to underscore the violence and privation that attended the English settlement of New England, in Plymouth and beyond, for settlers and native Americans alike. Outside of early American scholarship, it is a different story. If once we celebrated Thanksgiving because of the Pilgrims, we now celebrate the Pilgrims because of Thanksgiving.
Redeeming the Almanac: Learning to Appreciate the iPhone of Early America - Commonplace
With so many uses, the almanac, like an iPhone, was truly interactive. The almanac gets no respect. It’s the whipping boy of early American literature. Few Americans today would guess that an almanac was actually the second publication to come off the first American printing press. In 1639! Every year after that up through the American Revolution, the almanac enjoyed a readership unmatched but for the Bible. It was, year in and year out, a guaranteed bestseller.
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