Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks in Boston History

by Paul Della Valle

Overview

The lives of notorious bad guys, perpetrators of mischief, visionary–if misunderstood–thinkers, and other colorful antiheroes, jerks, and evil doers from history all get their due in the short essays featured in these enlightening, informative, books. Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks in Boston History features eighteen short biographies of nefarious characters, from the pompous and self-righteous Cotton Mather to the swindler Charles Ponzi.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780762779154
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	10/01/2013
Series:	Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks in Histo
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Paul Della Valle, father of three and grandfather of two, lives on five acres of an old farm in Sterling, Massachusetts with his wife Karen, Yaz, the world’s greatest dog, and Boots Vanzetti, their anarchist cat. A golf addict, he mows two of the acres so he can practice hitting full wedges.
            Della Valle won dozens of writing and reporting awards in a thirty-year career as a journalist that began even before he graduated from Metropolitan State College in Denver in 1979. In 1996, he founded The Lancaster Times and Clinton Courier, which he published for nine years. He has taught writing at Worcester’s Clark University and journalism at Boston’s Northeastern University.
            He is also a songwriter, and sings and plays guitar with the Worcester County Bluegrass All Stars. In 2009, Globe Pequot Press published his book Massachusetts Troublemakers: Rebels, Reformers, and Radicals from the Bay State. Noted Boston Globe book critic David Mehegan said of Massachusetts Troublemakers, “It's a lively survey of spirited characters … It reminds us how much we need people who yank our collective social beards, people who know they are different and are happy to be.” 
            While researching the life of Horace Mann for that book, Della Valle was motivated to become a public school teacher. He now joyously teaches English to Clinton High School students who inspire him every day.

Table of Contents

Introduction viii

Chapter 1 Cotton Mather: "A very great liar" 1

Chapter 2 Thomas Hutchinson: "One of the most hated men on earth" 11

Chapter 3 Dr. Benjamin Church: "Make use of every precaution or I perish" 21

Chapter 4 Professor John W. Webster: "Our professors do not often commit murder" 32

Chapter 5 A. Bronson Alcott: "For physical toil he had no affinity" 44

Chapter 6 Joshua V. Himes: Press Secretary for the Great Disappointment 55

Chapter 7 Governor Henry J. Gardner: "Americanize America" 66

Chapter 8 Jane Toppan: "Jolly Jane" killed them all 80

Chapter 9 Judge Webster Thayer: Accused of "Judicial Homicide" 90

Chapter 10 J. Franklin Chase: "The Guardian of the Purity of the Puritans" 102

Chapter 11 James Michael Curley: "Lake all demagogues, he exploited a real need" 114

Chapter 12 Arthur P. Jell: "A tremendous calamity … treated with the utmost indifference" 125

Chapter 13 Harry Frazee: "The name is mud in Boston" 136

Chapter 14 Charles Ponzi: The Eponymous Schemer 146

Chapter 15 Barney Welansky: "I only wish I had been at the fire and died with the others" 155

Chapter 16 Specs O'Keefe: "Songbird" of the Brink's Gang 166

Chapter 17 Albert DeSalvo: The Boston Strangler 177

Chapter 18 Charles M. Stuart: "From ultimate victim to ultimate villain" 187

Bibliography 197

Index 210

About the Author 220