Vulgar History Nominees

Author Kathy Benjamin accompanies the pioneering women of the Lone Star State's funeral business.

The intimate task of caring for the dead had long fallen under women's sphere of responsibilities. But after the Civil War, the sudden popularity of embalming offered new financial opportunities to men who set up as undertakers, pushing women out of their traditional role. In Texas, from the 1880s to the 1930s, women slowly regained their place by the bier. Many worked while pregnant or raising children. Most shouldered the additional weight of personal tragedies and persistent sexism. All brought comfort to the bereaved in the isolation of the Texas frontier, kept its cities free of deadly disease and revolutionized an industry that was just coming into its own.

Author Karen Dybis follows the twists and turns of a shocking story, revealing the truth of Detroit's own Hex Woman.

Detroit was full of stark contrasts in 1931. Political scandals, rumrunners and mobs lurked in the shadows of the city's soaring architecture and industrious population. As the Great Depression began to take hold, tensions grew, spilling over into the investigation of a mysterious murder at the boardinghouse of Hungarian immigrant Rose Veres. Amid accusations of witchcraft, Rose and her son Bill were convicted of the brutal killing and suspected in a dozen more. Their cries of innocence went unheeded - until one lawyer, determined to seek justice, took on the case.

The full account of the 18th-century hanging of a school teacher is detailed in detailed in Carolyn Marvin's dramatic tale.

On a cold December morning in 1768, thirty-one-year-old Ruth Blay approached the gallows erected for her execution. Standing on the high ground in the northwest corner of what is now Portsmouth's old South Cemetery, she would have had a clear view across the pasture to the harbor and open sea. The eighteenth-century hanging of a schoolteacher for concealing the birth of a child out of wedlock has appeared in local legend over the last few centuries, but the full account of Ruth's story has never been told. Drawing on over two years of investigative research, author Carolyn Marvin brings to light the dramatic details of Ruth's life and the cruel injustice of colonial Portsmouth's moral code. As Marvin uncovers the real flesh-and-blood woman who suffered the ultimate punishment, her readers come to understand Ruth as an individual and a woman of her time.

Explore the grizzly tale of Charleston's most infamous serial killers from the beginning of their reign of horror till their eventual incarceration and execution.

In 1819, a young man outwitted death at the hands of John and Lavinia Fisher and sparked the hunt for Charleston's most notorious serial killers. Former homicide investigator Bruce Orr follows the story of the Fishers, from the initial police raid on their Six Mile Inn with its reportedly grisly cellar to the murderous couple's incarceration and execution at the squalid Old City Jail. Yet there still may be more sinister deeds left unpunished, an overzealous sheriff, corrupt officials and documents only recently discovered all suggest that there is more to the tale. Orr uncovers the mysteries and debunks the myths behind the infamous legend of the nation's first convicted female serial killer.

Join author Denise Parkinson for an intimate look at a Depression-era tragedy.

The once-thriving houseboat communities along Arkansas' White River are long gone, and few remember the sensational murder story that set local darling Helen Spence on a tragic path. In 1931, Spence shocked Arkansas when she avenged her father's murder in a DeWitt courtroom. The state soon discovered that no prison could hold her. For the first time, prison records are unveiled to provide an essential portrait. The legend of Helen Spence refuses to be forgotten--despite her unmarked grave.

In these pages, rediscover the legend of Diana of the Dunes...and learn the truth.

In the fall of 1915, Alice Gray traded her life in Chicago for a solitary journey in the remote sand hills of northwest Indiana along Lake Michigan. Living in a fisherman's shack, she measured herself against nature rather than society's rigid conventions. Her audacity so bewitched reporters and a curious public that she became a legend in her own time--she became ""Diana of the Dunes."" Nearly a century later, the story is still a popular folktale, but questions remain. Who was Alice Gray? Why did this Phi Beta Kappa scholar leave Chicago? What happened to her soul mate, Paul Wilson? In this first-ever book about Diana of the Dunes, the mystery of Alice Gray is revealed by those who knew her and through new research. Excerpts from her dunes diary are published here for the first time since 1918. In these pages, rediscover the legend of Diana of the Dunes...and learn the truth.

Massachusetts was at the center of the national struggle for women's rights, and the early activities there, described in this well-researched book, enabled the next generation of women to triumph over tradition.

Massachusetts was at the center of the national struggle for women's rights. Long before the Civil War, Lucy Stone and other Massachusetts abolitionists opposed women's exclusion from political life. They launched the organized movement at the first National Woman's Rights Convention, held in Worcester. After the war, state activists founded the Boston-based American Woman Suffrage Association and Woman's Journal to lead campaigns across the country. Their activities laid the foundation for the next generation of suffragists to triumph over tradition. Author Barbara Berenson gives these revolutionary reformers the attention they deserve in this compelling and engaging story.