Böcker av Cynthia A. Kierner

In the early 1790s Richard Randolph was accused of fathering a child by his sister-in-law Nancy and murdering the baby shortly after its birth. Rumors about the incident, which occurred during a visit to the plantation of close family friends, spread like wildfire. Randolph found himself on trial for the crime largely because of the public outrage fueled by these rumors.A tale of family passion, betrayal, and deception, Scandal at Bizarre is a fascinating historical portrait of the social and political realities of a world long vanished.

Much has been written about the "southern lady," that pervasive and enduring icon of antebellum regional identity. But how did the lady get on her pedestal-and were the lives of white southern women always so different from those of their northern...

Kierner vividly recreates the history of four generations of Livingstons and sheds new light on the development of both the elite ideology they represented and of the wider culture of early America.

With annotated footnotes, this work explores the debate over manners, morals, and cultural authority in the decades following American Revolution. It also includes an introduction that provides readers with a background on life and politics in the United States in 1787, when Americans were in the midst of nation-building.