In 1887, a torso was discovered in a pond outside Philadelphia. Investigators could tell it was a man, but the race at first was in question. A manhunt for the killer ensued, and that led to a middle-aged black woman named Hannah Mary Tabbs and a young, light-skinned black man named George Wilson.

It was a sensational trial at the time. The media and spectators were intrigued and disturbed. While both Tabbs and Wilson admitted to having a role in the murder, there was some question about who did what. More of the evidence pointed towards Tabbs having the larger role, with her violent temper and sporting a black eye. She blamed the majority of the crime on Wilson, though, and the investigators took the bait. Wilson’s discomfiting light skin and Tabb’s demure demeanor likely also played a role in who was believed and who was discounted.

The author provides a well-researched book using historical documents and primary sources to reconstruct the circumstances surrounding the murder and ghastly dismemberment and the racial and gender social undertones leading to the conviction of both Tabbs and Wilson.

I loved everything about this!!!!
This author/historian is wonderful.
This isn't just about the crime, which is a bit gruesome. This covers policing or really the beginnings of policing in the US as we would be familiar with it. This covers how right from the beginning there was violence and disregard from the white police force towards the much more vulnerable and anxious Black Community.
This shows the intersection between formerly enslaved, formerly chattel slave oppressing, formerly Free Black Community & the growing European immigrant Community and how this stresses race relations. Who all is white and how to identify say Irish or Portuguese? It's interesting to the history of whiteness and how it expands when white supremacy is threatened.
This covers the beginnings of what we now would call race based science and how this triggered white fears. Once slavery was over biracial or lighter skinned Black folks who could pass, ' white black' I think the author labels it, really stoked white fears. It's interesting to see how important race is because the body is found in pieces. The science used and the surrounding communities reaction is fascinating.
This explores the complex intersections between race & gender and how a Black Woman could manipulate that, nefariously in this instance, to her benefit both within her community and without.
This is just a fascinating look at the US in this time period from a point of view we rarely consider .
It's written almost like a TV show and I was hooked right from the beginning.

I went ahead and bought a Black Women's History of the USA because I enjoyed this authors style so much. ( )

This book might win for Most-Descriptive-Title-I've-Read-In-A-While. Indeed, there is a Hannah Mary Tabbs, and there is a Disembodied Torso. No bait-and-switch here. Instead we have an overview of a Philadelphia murder case from 1887 stemming from the discovery of a racially-ambiguous disembodied torso, that of Hannah Mary Tabbs' alleged paramour. Randomly located body parts and illicit love affairs being as salacious then as now, the investigation and trial was well-covered in the press, although as Gross posits, the whole starting point was the inability to determine the race of the torso; since there was a possibility it was white, the investigators did their thing. If it had been obviously that of a black man, then, like the other body parts found later in the book determined not to be part of the torso in question, then it would have simply been discarded.

(Side note: apparently there were just body parts strewn here and there in Philadelphia at the time, which is interesting in and of itself. Also creepy.)

Thus, via saved press clippings and trial notes that Gross has dug out from various archives, we have a glimpse into the lives of black men and women in 1880s Philadelphia, a group generally excluded from any degree of anthropological or sociological study at the time. So that's interesting, although the crime aspect of the book is pretty cut-and-dry. It isn't like a riveting true crime story with lots of twists for an engaging plot. The authorities figure out the who-dunnit without much misdirection. There's bits of analysis here and there, but, based on some of her comments in the introduction, it seems like Gross is trying to write for general readership rather than pure academic audiences, so she likely scaled the analysis and theory back a bit.

But did she need to? If the book is supposed to be a 101-style-primer, then more context about race, society, race-in-society, etc., at the time frame would be welcome, and flesh the story out a lot more (think The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks or Manning Marable's Malcom X biography). If it's not meant to be 101, then all we have are the facts of a case with a smidgen of a view into black life in Philadelphia in the 1880s. While such a glimpse is rare, a presentation of such research without analysis doesn't give the reader much to chew on. The book, both in length and scope, is slight. Diversionary, but slight.

Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso by Kali Nicole Gross went on sale January 28, 2016.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. ( )