| Lizzie Borden | |
|---|---|
 | |
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Real Name |
Lizzie Andrew Borden |
|
Born |
July 19, 1860 |
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Died |
June 1, 1927 |
Origin[]
Lizzie Andrew Borden was an American woman who was tried and acquitted of the August 4, 1892 axe murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts. No one else was charged in the murders, and, despite ostracism from other residents, Borden spent the remainder of her life in Fall River. She died of pneumonia at the age of 66, just days before the death of her older sister, Emma.
The Borden murders and trial received widespread publicity in the United States, and have remained a topic in American popular culture depicted in numerous films, theatrical productions, literary works, and folk rhymes around the Fall River area.
Lizzie Andrews Borden was a grown woman living in Fall River, Massachusetts with her father Andrew, her stepmother Abby, and her elder sister Emma. Andrew was a successful banker, but he lived well below his means. Normally, a woman of Lizzie's age and class would have gotten married, but her father's miserly ways stifled her social life and severely limited her marriage prospects (she may have also been gay). Lizzie also had a difficult relationship with Abby, whom she regarded as something of a Wicked Stepmother and would only refer to as "Mrs. Borden".
On the morning of August 4, 1892, Abby Borden was hacked to death in an upstairs room of the Borden house. Later, Andrew returned home from his morning walk and fell asleep on the sofa, where the murderer hacked him to death too. The horrific incident quickly became a national scandal. When the murder happened, Emma had been visiting friends in Fairhaven and the only people known to have been in the vicinity of the house at the time were Lizzie and housekeeper Bridget Sullivan. The housekeeper had no apparent motive, so Lizzie emerged as the primary suspect. The public was enthralled. To Victorian sensibilities, the idea of a woman committing such a violent, physical crime was shocking.
Lizzie was arrested and tried for both murders in June 1893 but was acquitted, given the circumstantial evidence. She was nonetheless ostracized thereafter by the people of her native Fall River, Massachusetts, where she continued to live until her death in 1927.
Folk rhyme[]
The case was memorialized in a popular skipping-rope rhyme, sung to the tune of the then-popular song "Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay."
- Lizzie Borden took an axe
- and gave her mother forty whacks.
- When she saw what she had done,
- she gave her father forty-one.
Folklore says that the rhyme was made up by an anonymous writer as a tune to sell newspapers. Others attribute it to the ubiquitous, but anonymous, "Mother Goose".
In reality, Lizzie's stepmother suffered eighteen or 19 blows; her father suffered eleven blows.
The rhyme has a less well-known second verse:
- Andrew Borden now is dead,
- Lizzie hit him on the head.
- Up in heaven he will sing,
- on the gallows she will swing.
Public Domain Appearances[]
All published appearances of Lizzie Borden from before January 1, 1930 are public domain in the US.
Public Domain Literary Appearances[]
- The Fall River Tragedy: A History of the Borden Murders (1893)