Abstract
Hallie Rubenhold’s The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed By Jack the Ripper has drawn the criticism of the community of amateur sleuths dubbed ‘Ripperologists’ for its revisionist perspective, which claims that the canonical five victims of Jack the Ripper were not all sex workers. Rubenhold’s victim-centred approach has opened a new front in the history wars, as Ripperologists accuse her of historical denialism in pursuit of a feminist agenda. This article assesses Rubenhold’s methods, and her contribution to historical criminology, as well as considering why dominant historical narratives of crime prove so resistant to reinterpretation.
Highlights
The late nineteenth century was a time of constant fear for the destitute women of London’s East End
More than other unsolved historical mysteries, the Ripper case has captured the attention of amateur sleuths – ‘Ripperologists’ – who have turned research on Jack the Ripper into a life’s work, and a distinct branch of historical criminology
Rubenhold’s foray into writing crime history and, to an extent, historical criminology has seemingly opened a new front in the history wars that have plagued some sectors of the discipline
Summary
The late nineteenth century was a time of constant fear for the destitute women of London’s East End. Ripperology’s traditional focus has been speculating on the identity of the Ripper, and the motives that drove the murder spree Most of this theorising derives from the analysis of an incomplete or otherwise unreliable historical record, and yet the community of Ripperologists have developed normative standards for the field that guide what research is considered valuable and what is not. It is into this fray that British-American historian Hallie Rubenhold stepped with her 2019 book The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper. Rubenhold’s contention puts a dramatic new spin on our understanding of the Ripper murders, and essentially calls into question over a century’s worth of assumptions made by Ripperologists
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