Vitriol throwing in Victorian America

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when caustic and corrosive substances such as concentrated sulphuric acid or carbolic acid were easily available. Acid was extremely portable, as bottles and syringes could be successfully concealed in coat and skirt pockets. Throwing, squirting, spraying, or pouring acid was a fairly accurate means of harming specific areas of the body or damaging clothing. Vitriol throwers often deliberately aimed at their victim’s face and eyes to ensure permanent facial disfigurement. Most American acid assaults were by lone operators with a very specific target and motivation, and the woman consumed by jealousy and bent on revenge dominated popular understandings of acid crime. Vitriol throwing was a very specific form of female vigilantism in this period, but it was not an exclusively female practice. Most news and crime reports centred on attacks on public streets and in public institutions, which generated intense fear and anxiety and recurring moral panics over public safety in urban-industrial America, particularly when male serial “Jacks” were at large. Overall, the public, press, and courts demonstrated considered antipathy and ambivalence toward vitriol offences, offenders, and victims as illustrated by the controversial Petrie-Rozelle case in 1880s California.