UUnniivveerrssiittyy ooff MMaassssaacchhuusseettttss AAmmhheerrsstt SScchhoollaarrWWoorrkkss@@UUMMaassss AAmmhheerrsstt Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 1-1-1980 TThhee BBeeeecchheerr--TTiillttoonn aadduulltteerryy ssccaannddaall :: ffaammiillyy,, rreelliiggiioonn,, aanndd ppoolliittiiccss iinn BBrrooookkllyynn,, 11886655--11887755.. Altina L. Waller University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1 RReeccoommmmeennddeedd CCiittaattiioonn Waller, Altina L., "The Beecher-Tilton adultery scandal : family, religion, and politics in Brooklyn, 1865-1875." (1980). Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014. 1381. https://doi.org/10.7275/vdty-3744 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1/1381 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE BEECHER-TILTON ADULTERY SCANDAL FAMILY, RELIGION, AND POLITICS IN BROOKLYN, 1865-1875 A Dissertation Presented By ALTINA LAURA WALLER Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY February 1980 History I Altina Laura Waller 1980 All Rights Reserved ii THE BEECHER-TILTON ADULTERY SCANDAL: FAMILY, RELIGION, AND POLITICS IN BROOKLYN, 1865-1875 A Dissertation Presented By ALTINA LAURA WALLER Paul Boyer, Chairpea^^on of Committee S. n I, la Stephen Nissenbaum, Member Gerald McFarland, Member Howard Gadlin, Member Paul S. Boyer, Departprent Head Department of Histo; 111 For Laura and Andrew iv — . PREFACE Beginning as early as 1873, when Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner published the novel whose title. The Gilded Age gave a name to their generation, attempts , to understand American life in the late nineteenth century have been hampered by the dominance of powerful and usu- ally negative stereotyped images. In the popular mind and among many historians as well--the post-Civil War generation was perceived as somehow fatally flawed- -by crass materialism and greed, by political corruption and — scandal, and worst of all--by cloying sentimentality and hypocritical moral pretentiousness Significantly, the most extensive and probing studies of the political, social, and cultural history of the Gilded Age have focused on the minority who stood out- side the mainstream or resisted its dominant currents: critics and skeptics like Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, and Henry Adams; quixotic political reformers like E. L. God- kin; isolated creative figures like Albert Pinkham Ryder and Kate Chopin; humanitarians like Jane Addams and Jacob — Riis; or--at the other end of the scale the anonymous immigrant masses who struggled for survival and a decent existence against heavy odds. In short, historians have tried to "salvage" the Gilded Age for us by focusing on its redeeming qualities and its leavening minority, V . The fact is that twentieth-century perceptions of what makes important and worthwhile history have dulled our sensitivity to the issues that arrested the attention and concern of Americans living in the Gilded Age. His- torians have chosen to study economic development and political reform because these things seemed the most significant to the scholars who were writing about them. And, of course, these issues did capture the attention of some segments of late nineteenth-century American society. These matters certainly deserve careful historical inves- tigation, but our exclusive concentration on them has left us with a lopsided picture of the era. When it comes to the social and cultural contours of the life of the majority of this era, we have studied the fringes, the atypical, the nay-sayers, but we have somehow not yet penetrated to the core. This dissertation is an effort to redress the bal- ance somewhat: to explore--on their own terms and through the medium of a single, traumatic event--some of the central concerns of a segment of the American middle class in the 1870s. Specifically, I propose to examine the most sensational and highly publicized social scandal of the era: the 1875 adultery trial of the most popular American Protestant preacher of the day, Henry Ward Beecher vi Almost as soon as it was over, this event was relegated to the attic of the American consciousness. Everyone knew about it, but few--certainly few — historians considered it worthy of serious historical attention. For a period of several years while awareness of the scandal was at its height, no other event was more written or talked about. Some reacted with amusement, some with outrage; others were convinced it presaged the downfall of Christianity or heralded a social revolution-- but everyone knew about it, and everyone had something to say on the subject I have proceeded on the assumption . that no event however me lodramatic which so engaged the , , national attention can be without historical interest or significance A careful consideration of the circum- . stances personalities and ramifications of this famous , , scandal believe can help us understand some of the I , , fundamental issues confronting middle-class Americans in the mid-Victorian era. have approached the Beecher-Tilton scandal not as I narrative history, but as a study of institutional changes and their personal psychological ramifications as they were manifested in a single traumatic event. This means that often touch only briefly on or neglect entirely the I details of complicated events and trial testimony so that I can explore fully what I perceive to be the underlying vii . . patterns. Conversely, this also means dealing with a few important events from several different perspectives. To avoid possible confusion which might arise from this sometimes non-chronological organization, have included I in Chapter I a brief synopsis of the main events in the scandal and in Appendix I, a chronology. I hope that these two will help reduce confusion concerning the fac- tual sequence Further, I have not been overly preoccupied with the question of Beecher's guilt or innocence. Appendix II consists of a discussion focused directly on this issue, but the dissertation itself does not attempt to argue the point. It will soon be clear to the reader what my con- clusions are, but, nevertheless, I would be willing to argue that whether the scandal is true or not, it unveils the same fundamental social concerns The intense social . conflict it engendered in Brooklyn and the national fascination with the affair are testimony to that The scandal was first suggested to me by Profes- sor Stephen Nissenbaum, not as a dissertation topic, but as a possible teaching unit in a course at the University of Massachusetts known as New Approaches to History. After having successfully taught units such as Salem Witchcraft, Shay's Rebellion, and Lizzie Borden, the staff was looking for a new topic amenable to the viii