Today’s Cutting Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Excerpt from the Badger State Banner newspaper, April 3, 1890:
Henry Johnson, an old bachelor of Grand Dyke, cut off the heads of all his hens recently, made a bonfire of his best clothes and killed himself with arsenic.
Culled from: My favorite book, Wisconsin Death Trip by Michael Lesy
Wretched Recommendations!
Jake recently wrote me to attest to the genius of my favorite book, Wisconsin Death Trip. I loved his summary so I thought I’d share in case any of you have yet to discover this delightful gem of morbidity:
“You’re probably already well aware of this but this is one of the treasures in my library … a first edition of Wisconsin Death Trip by Michael Lesy, 1973. If not, it’s chock full of everyday newspaper accounts of murder, madness, arson, suicide, infanticide and other assorted calamities in the town of Black River Falls in the 1890s. The photos and articles were culled from newspapers of the day. If you haven’t come across it, it’s always fascinating to browse.
“The book on Amazon: Wisconsin Death Trip A paperback reprint was issued in 2000 AD
“Also subject of a 1999 documentary: http://www.wisconsindeathtrip.com/about.html Haven’t seen the movie yet but I just put it on my must-see list.
“Some stills from the movie: http://www.wisconsindeathtrip.com/photos.html ”
Thank you, Jake! I thought I’d add my own thoughts about the book and the movie, as I reviewed them in earlier newsletters:
Wisconsin Death Trip
By Michael Lesy (University of New Mexico Press)
“The pictures you’re about to see are of people who were once actually alive.” So begins historian Michael Lesy’s masterpiece – a by turns touching and disturbing examination of life and death in a small Wisconsin town during the final 15 years of the nineteenth century. Lesy stumbled across a cache of 30,000 glass plate images made by a local town photographer named Charley Van Schaick and spools of microfilm from the local newspaper – and combined the most compelling of these images and newspaper excerpts to create a vivid examination of Victorian prairie life. Although there are numerous post-mortem memorial photographs to add morbid appeal to the book, the newspaper and insane asylum excerpts are what I find absolutely enthralling. If ever anyone tries to suggest to you that times were better “before”, you might want to refer them to these matter-of-fact tales of murder, suicide, insanity, and lethal pestilence. Death was a constant threat and entire families of 6 children could be wiped out by diptheria in a matter of days. It’s no wonder that so many were driven to suicide: the depth of despair that these people must have gone through is at times palpable. To give you an idea of the sort of macabre fascinations you can find in these olde newspapers, here are some excerpts:
“The 60 year old wife of a farmer in Jackson, Washington County, killed herself by cutting her throat with a sheep shears”
“Mrs. James Baty… died suddenly of a hemorrhage of the lungs. She leaves a husband, her family of 6 children having died of diptheria last summer”
“Mrs. John Larson… drowned her 3 children in Lake St. Croix during a fit of insanity… Mrs. Larson imagines that devils pursue her”
And my personal favorite:
“Mrs. Carter… was taken sick at the marsh last week and fell down, sustaining internal injuries which have dethroned her reason. She has been removed to her home here and a few nights since arose from her bed and ran through the woods… A night or two after she was found trying to strangle herself with a towel… It is hoped the trouble is only temporary and that she may soon recover her mind.”
You don’t see entries like that in newspapers anymore!!
***** – The Comtesse’s Favorite Book!
And here’s my less-glowing review of the film:
Wisconsin Death Trip (2000)
I finally got around to viewing the highly-anticipated (by me, anyway) film version of my all-time favorite book, Michael Lesy’s Wisconsin Death Trip. And I was by turns enthralled and bitterly disappointed. In case you’re not familiar with the book, it is a collection of excerpts from a newspaper in the small town of Black River Falls, Wisconsin in the 1890’s, which are presented together with a collection of found images from a local photographer taken during the same timespan. Many of the newspaper excerpts are delightfully deranged and mesmerizingly tragic, and depict a time of great hardship and despair, during an era before welfare or diptheria immunizations, when the tides of fate could destroy families so quickly and cruelly that mental breakdowns were the only sane response. The book is a truly thought-provoking and fascinating read.
The film starts out to be a faithful rendering of the book, with black and white re-enactments of many of the more compelling tales. The director did a fantastic job of casting individuals who looked like they crawled right out of the vintage photographs, and the period details are just right. I turned to my girlfriend and remarked on how brilliant it all was – they had done the impossible by making a film worthy of the book.
And then something went horribly, horribly wrong. Suddenly, the beautiful black and white period scenery was replaced by color footage of the ugly citizens of modern-day Black River Falls. Various unconnected vignettes of modern small-town American life played before me: parades, football games, cars driving down boring streets, children playing. Stupid people saying stupid things. And for what? No explanation is given for the appearance of this modern footage. I’m imagining that the director thought it would be oh-so-profound to juxtapose the modern Black River Falls with its despairing past, but it completely ruined the film for me by breaking the spell of nostalgia that was so expertly cast.
And so the film continues – with brilliant vignettes of 1890’s insanity and crime and sadness followed by boring, ugly footage of smalltown 1990’s America.
My recommendation? Skip the modern footage and focus on the sad tales in black and white. You’ll have a much better time than I did, believe me!