EPISODE 3: Sara L. Crosby

In this episode, Siobhan talks with Associate Professor of English at The Ohio State University at Marion, Sara L. Crosby, about her new book, Poisonous Muse: The Female Poisoner and the Framing of Popular Authorship in Jacksonian America. Crosby discusses how the trope of the female poisoner permeated popular literature in the mid-nineteenth century. In her analysis of the 1840 murder trial of Hannah Kinney, we see how the partisan press used the accused as a vessel through which to fight-out central political battles of the day. We then see how jury decisions may serve as a metric for determining which metaphors and cultural frames are prevailing at a point in time. Following a popular metaphor enables Crosby to track the cultural tides influencing law and politics in Jacksonian America.