Books by "Michael J. Schaack"
5 books found
Documenting American Violence
by Christopher Waldrep, Michael Bellesiles
2006 · Oxford University Press
Violence forms a constant backdrop to American history, from the revolutionary overthrow of British rule, to the struggle for civil rights, to the present-day debates over the death penalty. It has served to challenge authority, defend privilege, advance causes, and throttle hopes. In the first anthology of its kind to appear in over thirty years, Documenting American Violence brings together excerpts from a wide range of sources about incidents of violence in the United States. Each document is set into context, allowing readers to see the event through the viewpoint of contemporary participants and witnesses and to understand how these deeds have been excused, condemned, or vilified by society. Organized topically, this volume looks at such diverse topics as famous crimes, vigilantism, industrial violence, domestic abuse, and state-sanctioned violence. Among the events these primary sources describe are: --Benjamin Franklin's account of the Conestoga massacre, when an entire village of American Indians was killed by the Paxton Boys, a group of frontier settlers --militant abolitionist John Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry --Ida B. Wells' condemnation of lynchings in the South --the massacre of General Custer's 7th Cavalry at Little Bighorn, as witnessed by Cheyenne war chief Two Moon --Nat Turner's confession about the slave revolt he led in Southampton County, Virginia --Oliver Wendell Holmes' diaries and letters as a young infantry officer in the Civil War --a police officer's account of the Haymarket Trials --Harry Thaw's murder of the Gilded Age's most prominent architect, Stanford White, through his own published version of the events --the post-trial, public confessions of Ray Bryant and J.W. Milam for the murder of Emmett Till --the Los Angeles Police Department's investigation into the causes of the 1992 riot Taken as a whole, this anthology opens a new window on American history, revealing how violence has shaped America's past in every era.
The author of this long and detailed account of the investigations into the Haymarket case was a member of the police force and a colleague of Inspector Bonfield, the police officer who led the police into the crowd at Haymarket on May 4, 1886. The book, which was widely distributed at the time, included many documents from the case, descriptions of testimony at trial, and many drawings of people and incidents. The author, Michael Schaack, and Inspector Bonfield were subsequently dismissed from the Chicago Police after an investigation for corruption. Subsequent investigations of the trial uncovered perjured testimony by police witnesses and others, and jury rigging by the prosecution.
"Francis O'Neill was Chicago's larger-than-life police chief, starting in 1901- and he was an Irish immigrant with an intense interest in his home country's music. In documenting and publishing his understanding of Irish musical folkways, O'Neill became the foremost shaper of what "Irish music" meant. He favored specific rural forms and styles, and as Michael O'Malley shows, he was the "beat cop" -actively using his police powers and skills to acquire knowledge about Irish music and to enforce a nostalgic vision of it"--