Paper Title
Pardon or Punish? Consequences of Clemency and Infanticide in Nineteenth-Century Pennsylvania
Start Date
12-6-2011 9:30 AM
End Date
12-6-2011 12:00 PM
Subject Areas
North America, children, motherhood
Abstract
In 1809, Susanna Cox, a twenty-four year old servant living in Oley, Pennsylvania, was accused, convicted, and executed for the death of her newborn son. The notoriety earned by Cox led not to treatment as a cultural pariah but, instead, to unexpected empathy from many members of the Berks County community. This support even led to the submission of a clemency petition to Governor Simon Snyder. Cox’s case was used in the popular press as an argument for the reconsideration of capital punishment and the treatment of the female accused. Snyder, who was vocally critical of the death penalty, still chose to uphold the law of the Commonwealth, reaffirming the conviction of the courts and ordering Cox’s execution.
The case of Susanna Cox raises the question of the interplay between history and social memory: legal and historical documentation condemning Cox is in contrast to the folkloric and popular records that portrayed her as a misguided innocent. I will explore how Snyder evaluated Cox’s case, and how this compared to and was influenced by other clemency requests. What elements of her case led her community to describe her as a sympathetic victim of circumstance, and why did the governor not respond to this portrayal? I intend to discuss these issues, as well as the application of infanticide laws in early Pennsylvania, in order to better contextualize the treatment received by Susanna Cox.
Keywords
infanticide, clemency
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
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Pardon or Punish? Consequences of Clemency and Infanticide in Nineteenth-Century Pennsylvania
In 1809, Susanna Cox, a twenty-four year old servant living in Oley, Pennsylvania, was accused, convicted, and executed for the death of her newborn son. The notoriety earned by Cox led not to treatment as a cultural pariah but, instead, to unexpected empathy from many members of the Berks County community. This support even led to the submission of a clemency petition to Governor Simon Snyder. Cox’s case was used in the popular press as an argument for the reconsideration of capital punishment and the treatment of the female accused. Snyder, who was vocally critical of the death penalty, still chose to uphold the law of the Commonwealth, reaffirming the conviction of the courts and ordering Cox’s execution.
The case of Susanna Cox raises the question of the interplay between history and social memory: legal and historical documentation condemning Cox is in contrast to the folkloric and popular records that portrayed her as a misguided innocent. I will explore how Snyder evaluated Cox’s case, and how this compared to and was influenced by other clemency requests. What elements of her case led her community to describe her as a sympathetic victim of circumstance, and why did the governor not respond to this portrayal? I intend to discuss these issues, as well as the application of infanticide laws in early Pennsylvania, in order to better contextualize the treatment received by Susanna Cox.