Dangerous to Know: Women, Crime, and Notoriety in the Early Republic (review)

Susan Branson ends her latest book by recalling Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's observation that well-behaved women rarely make history, but, Branson notes, "[E]ven the badly behaved ones often fall away from posterity's view" (139). Dangerous to Know: Women, Crime, and Notoriety in the Early Republic works to correct history's omission of both the good and the bad by reviving one of the most notorious female criminals in American history with an approach that sheds light on the forgotten narratives of those "well-behaved women."

Dangerous to Know begins by following Ann Carson, after her release from prison on a robbery charge in 1822, as she wandered the streets of Philadelphia from boarding house to boarding house looking for a place to stay. Although even a brothel refused the infamous felon entrance that night, within a matter of months she maneuvered a quick reversal of fortune. She turned author, and seduced crowds of Philadelphians into inviting her—or at least her story—into their homes. Branson describes The History of the Celebrated Mrs. Ann Carson . . . Written By Herself as fascinating its audience with "passion, sex, and murder" in "an extraordinary tale of a woman who co-opted her husband's authority, supported herself and her children, took a younger (and financially dependent) lover, and chose to fight her way out of a tragic set of circumstances by perpetrating an outrageous crime" (75). According to Branson, Carson's life veered from the course that a middle-class woman was taught to expect after her ne'erdo-well husband abandoned her and their three young sons. Instead of giving way to quiet desperation and poverty, Carson established her own china shop and dallied enthusiastically with attractive men. She earned her "celebrated" notoriety, however, when her husband returned to reclaim his household and her new husband (that "younger lover") shot him in the face. But, again, instead of bowing to "tragic . . . circumstances," Carson armed herself with pistols and organized a gang of desperados to kidnap the governor of Pennsylvania and force him to pardon her paramour. Although the conspiracy failed, it transformed a struggling lady merchant into the most infamous "heroine" in the state.

At first glance, such an "extraordinary" narrative might not appear representative of the experience of middle-class women in the early republic, but that is essentially Branson's argument. She describes Carson as "occup[ying] a middle ground that has been largely unexplored" by scholars who rely too heavily on "prescriptive behavior . . . as a key to understanding society" (138). This dependence on conduct manuals and sermons, she claims, has left them unable to "account for the variety of activities" and strategies that "downwardly mobile middle-class women" deployed to maintain their status in the "economically volatile" early republic (138, 137). Branson admits that Carson's particular "activities" led to a "unique case," but she points out that her "circumstances must have been familiar to a large group of people: middling women, fallen on hard times, who struggled to keep themselves afloat" (75, x). Her History, therefore, illustrates "how one woman dealt with the legal and social restraints" common to this large class of women and so in effect tells their story as well (75).

Branson's primary formal device for making this connection is an approach she describes as a "paired history" (ix). Although she devotes chapters 2 through 4 of Dangerous to Know to unraveling Carson's tangled tale, she also investigates her ghostwriter, the even more intriguing and elusive Mary Clarke. Carson sought out the budding true-crime writer in 1822, when she found herself too notorious and impoverished to pursue other business ventures—or find proper lodging. Rather than sink into genteel poverty, she wanted Clarke to help her parlay her infamy into a book deal—and give her a place to stay. Although their relationship originated in mutual economic interest, the first chapter, titled "Two Working Women," also details a more significant confluence...