Term paper on Sacco–Vanzetti Trial (1921)

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian-born anarchists, were arrested in May 1920 on charges that they had committed robbery and murder in Braintree, Massachusetts. Their subsequent trial, set in the midst of the Red Scare, was marked by ambiguous evidence and prejudice on the part of the presiding judge, Webster Thayer. Found guilty, the defendants received death sentences. A special commission of three (Lowell Commission) reviewed and upheld the verdict. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in August 1927 despite widespread international protest. Many believed that their radical politics and unpopular ethnicity had condemned the two. In 1968 the governor of Massachusetts issued a proclamation that acknowledged the trial’s lack of fairness.
Suggestions for Term Papers
1. Discuss the differing views on whether Sacco and/or Vanzetti was guilty.
2. Analyze Judge Thayer’s conduct during the trial.
3. How important were the defendants’ ethnic background and political views in determining their fates?
4. Discuss the public protest against the verdict and the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti.
5. Compare the real case with a depiction, such as Upton Sinclair’s novel Boston (1928), or the movie Sacco and Vanzetti (1971).

Suggested Sources: See entry 19 for related items.

REFERENCE SOURCES

Encyclopedia of the American Judicial System: Studies of the Principal Institutions and Processes of Law. Robert Janosik, ed. New York: Scribner, 1987. 3 vols. Thorough and comprehensive source of in-depth information on important court cases and judicial processes, including the Sacco and Vanzetti trial.

Encyclopedia of the American Left. Mari Jo Buhle, ed. Hamden, CT: Garland, 1990. Good, comprehensive coverage of personalities, events, organizations, and groups, including the Sacco and Vanzetti case.

Great American Trials. Edward W. Knappman, ed. Detroit: Gale, 1994. Informative summaries for 200 important trials, including Sacco and Vanzetti.

GENERAL SOURCES

Avrich, Paul. Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995. Based on interviews with anarchists and written by a leading authority on anarchist movements.

Fisher, David. Hard Evidence: How Detectives inside the F.B.I.’s Sci-Crime Lab Have Helped Solve America’s Toughest Cases. New York: Simon&Schuster, 1995. Generally useful insight into the nature of forensic investigation, although the author accepts without question the judgments given by the lab technicians in controversial cases such as Sacco and Vanzetti.

SPECIALIZED SOURCES

Feuerlicht, Roberta S. Justice Crucified: The Story of Sacco and Vanzetti. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977. Good introductory history of the time and the event in question based on interviews with participants. Points out certain injustices of the case.

Jackson, Brian. The Black Flag: A Look at the Strange Case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981. Brief, somewhat superficial history based on state police records. Contains some errors but does include Sacco’s cross-examination at the trial, as well as the governor’s proclamation issued in 1968 removing the stigma and disgrace suffered by Sacco and Venzetti.

Russell, Francis. Sacco and Vanzetti: The Case Resolved. New York: Harper&Row, 1986. By an author whose twenty years of research and reflection convinced him that Sacco, at least, was guilty as charged .

———. Tragedy in Dedham: The Story of the Sacco-Vanzetti Case. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962. An investigation of what some have felt was an apparent miscarriage of justice.

Young, William, and David E. Kaiser. Postmortem: New Evidence in the Case of Sacco and Vanzetti. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1985. A recent investigation that concludes evidence was manipulated to frame the two men.

BIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES

Avrich, Paul. Anarchist Portraits: An Oral History of Anarchism in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988. Good collective biography and historical description of various personalities. Provides insight into the Italian anarchist world that produced Sacco and Vanzetti.

———. Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991. Well-designed and detailed examination of the two men in the context of European and American anarchism; nonjudgmental in tone.

Johnpoll, Bernard K., and Harvey Klehr, eds. Biographical Dictionary of the American Left. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1986. Good collective biography providing informative sketches on personalities associated with radical movements.

AUDIOVISUAL SOURCES

The Trial of Sacco and Vanzetti. Washington, DC: American Bar Association, 1982. Two videocassettes. Historical reenactment of the trial based on the court record. Each video is 60 minutes.

WORLD WIDE WEB

Seventieth Anniversary of the Execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. September 1997; updated January 1998. http://burn.ucsd.edu/∼mai/saccovenzetti.html Fine web site with pictures and relevant links to both primary and secondary source material. Of interest is the 1927 article by Felix Frankfurter, ‘‘The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti.’’