‘True’ Americans and ‘Violent’ Immigrants: Making Sense of Wife Murder in Chicago, 1870–1910

Abstract

As a social category ‘immigrant’ can function rhetorically to constitute a line between self and Other. The case study of spousal murder in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Chicago illustrates that Americans attempted to make sense of these murders by scapegoating immigrants. Statistical data illustrate that immigrants were no more likely to murder a spouse than anyone else. Yet, analysis of the rhetoric about wife murder in Chicago newspapers shows that murderers were framed as immigrant Other. We identify three frames used in newspapers to constitute immigrants as Other and identify the contemporary relevance for public understandings of immigration. We argue that while explicit debates about immigration draw lines that constitute American identity, the most insidious rhetorical borders enter into the American imaginary through seemingly unrelated issues.