Murder, Womanly Virtue, and Motherhood
The Case of Angelina Napolitano, 1911–1922
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20609376 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Karen Dubinsky, Franca Iacovetta (0000-0001-8556-2595) |
| Year | 1991 |
| Volume | 72 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 505-531 |
| Publication date | 1991-12-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Canadian Historical Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0008-3755 • E-ISSN: 1710-1093 |
| Publisher | University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.3138/chr-072-04-04 |
| OpenAlex | W2047242882 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 13 |
ON THE AFTERNOON OF EASTER SUNDAY, •6 April •9• •, Angelina Napolitano, a twenty-eight-year-old Italian mother of four, killed her husband with an axe as he lay asleep in the bedroom of the quarters they rented in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. The subsequent court case, during which Napolitano admitted to killing her husband in retaliation for prolonged physical abuse and his insistence that she become aprostitute, brought the soft-spoken immigrant woman international attention. Although her notoriety was short lived and few today are aware of the sensation it once caused, Napolitano's guilty verdict and the death sentence she received sparked one of the most impressive clemency campaigns ever launched on behalf of a Canadian murderer. • That voices were raised in protest against her impending execution is not altogether surprising: convicted murderers who faced the gallows customarily evoked the sympathies of at least a handful of concerned individuals or groups. 'What distinguished this clemency campaign from the others was its exceptionally wide scope and its international character. In Canada and elsewhere, religious people, feminists, radicals, and others participated in letter-writing and petition-signing campaigns. Within weeks of the trial, tens of thousands of men and women had denounced the Canadian criminal justice system for con
Archaeology · Bedroom · Character (mathematics) · Criminology · Economic Justice · Political science · Sociology · Stalking · Virtue · Canadian Identity and History · Gender Studies · History · Law
Cheap Amusements
Strangers in the Land Patterns of American Nativism 1800-1925
Iron cages
Manliness and morality
Essays in the History of Canadian Law
Feminism and Suffrage
Working in Steel
Wop
Melodrama, Hysteria and Feminine Crimes of passion in the Fin-de-Siècle
Imperialism and Motherhood
Gender Conflicts
Patterns of Prejudice
Sex and Secrets
| Citations per year | 0.23 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1995 - 2024 (30) |
| Highly cited | No |