From 1882 until 1968 there were 4,743 reported lynchings in the United States.  Three thousand four hundred and forty six of those victims, over 73-percent, were black and almost all of the lynching victims were killed by white mobs. (1)   The majority of the black victims had been accused of robbing, insulting, raping, or killing a white woman.  The majority of these lynchings occurred in the period between 1890 and 1920 and most, but not all, were in the South.  Scholars have for years attempted to understand why lynchings occurred when they did and the reasons for the apparent acceptance of violent racism in the United States, particularly in the years after the Civil War and some would argue that it lasted well into the 1960s.

Interest in the subject of lynching has moved to the World Wide Web.  There are dozens of websites dedicated to the study of this dark trend in American history with a number of these sites examining single instances of lynching.  The purpose of this essay is to examine critically three of these websites: A Horrible Lynching; Duluth Lynching Online Resource; and The Trial of Sheriff Joseph Shipp et al., 1907. The first of these websites examines a lynching in Omaha, Nebraska in 1919.  The Duluth site examines three lynchings in a single day in Duluth, Minnesota, also in 1919.  The last site examines a unique trial in American history, the trial of Sheriff Joseph Shipp and others by the Supreme Court for a 1906 lynching in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The lynchings examined by each of these websites have a number of similarities and they will therefore be well-suited to a critical review.  In each instance a white woman went to the local authorities to report that she had been attacked by a black male.  The local law enforcement authorities then arrested one or more black men for the purported crime.  After being incarcerated, these men were seized by white mobs that broke into the jail, perhaps with the assistance of the same law enforcement officials that incarcerated the accused.  The mobs then brutally murdered them.

The websites were visited in early October, 2005 and a dial-up connection, Earthlink, was used to see how quickly these sites downloaded.  After first deciding on what type of website it is, the reviewer will critique each based on their content, argument, sources, their design/form, whether or not the website will serve the needs of the audience they are directed towards, and their use of new media.

A Horrible Lynching
(http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0700/stories/0701_0134.html)  
Created and maintained by the Nebraska Studies/Historical Society; date the site was first launched was not listed; date visited 5 & 8 October 2005.

The first site examined, A Horrible Lynching, covers the brutal murder of Will Brown on 25 September 1919.  Brown was lynched by a mob of white men some say was as large as 5,000 after Brown was arrested for the purported rape of a local white woman, Agnes Loebeck.  Brown had been taken to the Douglas County Courthouse jail and the mob broke into the jail to get at Brown.  He was then dragged into the street, hanged, shot, and then burned by the mob.  The U.S. Army was called in to restore order, which it did, and soldiers then arrested 100 persons for the crime.  None, however, were ever convicted.

This website is a product of the Nebraska Historical Society and its primary audiences are the teachers in the state as well as their students.  It is a well-designed electronic essay/exhibit that downloads quickly despite the number of photographs included in the narrative portion of the website.  It is designed with frames, with navigation buttons across the top of the page and interactive buttons on the left.  Both of these sections follow you as you advance through the narrative portion of the site, which appears in the center of your screen.

Across the top of the page are the main headings of the website and the portion of the website dedicated to the lynching of Will Brown is but a momentary section of a long, interactive timeline.  That is, the overall website covers the history of the State of Nebraska and the lynching section is part of the “Progressing into the 20th Century, 1900-1920” portion of the site under the sub-heading “Racial Tensions in Omaha.”  There is a search box in the upper left that will lead you quickly to the section of interest if you type in “lynching” but attempting to find this particular section without knowing details would otherwise be problematic.

With the frames remaining stable on the left and above, the viewer is given a scrollable middle section that contains an illustrated narrative.  There is no sitemap available and unfortunately this site has disabled the back button and therefore makes navigating through the site difficult, especially if you cannot remember which exact section may have the information you are looking for.  There is, however, a print button at the bottom of each page if one wished to have a paper copy of that page.  There are also video clips available if you have Quick Time to view them.  At the end of the narrative (which is three pages/sections long) a reader is given the choice of going to “Teacher Activities,” and once there you are given a listing of questions and discussions points for either pre-8th grade level or 8th grade and older.

The narrative describes, in some detail, the events of that September of 1919 in Omaha.  There are a number of personalities involved, including the boss of the local political machine who had recently been voted out of office, a reformist mayor, a corrupt city government, an unimpressive police force, a sensationalist local newspaper, and much intrigue, in fact enough to make a Hollywood filmmaker take notice.  The narrative itself is fairly straightforward, reading much like a newspaper article.  Since the primary sources used to write the narrative are newspaper articles, perhaps this should come as no surprise.  There are poignant quotes scattered through the text, including one from Henry Fonda, an Omaha native, who as a 14-year old boy witnessed the lynching first-hand.  The photographs used too added to the story in a positive way, although the photo of the burning of Will Brown was disturbing.

The narrative itself is fairly straightforward, with little hint of any overall argument.  It does ask the questions about the “whys” of the lynching but does not lay the blame squarely with any one cause except under the rubric of “racial tension.”  Before passing overall judgment on the merits of the narrative and lack or argument, the reviewer went back and started over with the narrative at the overall section entitled “Racial Tensions.”  It was here that the authors have laid out their argument that racial tensions led to the lynching.  The causes of those tensions were fears by native laborers of competition from foreign and black workers, questions of identity in an emerging capitalist economy, sensationalist journalism, an increase in the membership of the local KKK chapters, and the machinations of the political machine in Omaha.  These arguments are based on the current line of historical scholarship on racism in the U.S.  In fact, the website designers have done an excellent job of placing this lynching event into an overall context of the rise of racism in the U.S. during this period.  This particular experience enforced the edict that any reviewer must be certain to examine all pages of a particular website that may be germane to the topic at hand.

Beyond text, photographs, and two video clips there is little interactivity or access to other sources or documents.  The site does list a few locations for a student to go to obtain copies of any documents, the majority of which are housed by the Nebraska Historical Society (the authors of this website), but the site could have been better served by having links to entire newspaper articles (particularly the entire text of articles quoted), documents, or transcriptions of oral histories within the narrative itself.  Overall, however, a teacher interested in the rise of racism in Nebraska and the lynching event in particular should be well pleased with the site as long as they utilize the entire section on “Racial Tensions in Omaha.”  A scholar of the lynching of Will Brown, though, would need to move beyond to get more detail and would consider this site as a gateway perhaps, or a solid introduction to the subject.

Duluth Lynchings Online Resource
(http://collections.mnhs.org/duluthlynchings/) 
Created and maintained by the Minnesota Historical Society; date of launching not included; date visited 4 & 8 October 2005.

On 15 June 1920 Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie, black workers of a traveling circus, were lynched by a white mob in Duluth after they had been arrested and incarcerated for the rape of a local white woman, Irene Tusken.  As had Will Brown, they too were taken from their jail cells by the mob, and were shot down in the street.  In an interesting twist, three other black men who had also been arrested for the crime were taken by the mob but not killed.  The National Guard was called out to restore order.  Unlike the incident in Omaha, a grand jury turned in 37 indictments and three white men were tried and convicted of rioting, with each serving less than 15 months in jail.  One of the surviving blacks was tried for rape.  He was convicted and sentenced to 30 years.

After the relatively quick loading of the Omaha lynching website, the Duluth website was distressingly slow to load, with over two minutes passing before the entire index page was downloaded.  It is an attractive page, however, with the screen divided by frames and an introductory slide show running across the top of the screen, which probably caused the slow download.  In the website designer’s defense, there is a button to click to skip this slide show.  Navigation through this site is very clear-cut, with the navigation buttons listed in three locations, across the top, down the left and again across the bottom, which is probably overly redundant.  The navigation buttons include a “Statement of Purpose,” an interactive “Timeline,” “Oral Histories,” “People,” “Glossary,” “Additional Resources,” and “Comments.”  These are the navigation links that appear in the three locations.  In the center of the index page are the following links to the various sections of the narrative: “Background”, “The Lynchings”, “Legal Proceedings”, “Incarcerations”, and “Afterwards.”  After clicking on one of the latter to access the narrative, the left frame’s index changes to include all of the latter links with the first set of links carried along the top and bottom borders.  Unlike the Omaha site which was only a section of a long historical timeline-chronology, the Duluth lynching website is a “stand-alone” section of the Minnesota Historical Society’s main website.  Unfortunately, the viewer must scroll down to see all of the index page in its entirety.

The authors of this interactive electronic essay and archive have also clearly stated their purpose as: “an opportunity to remember and learn from this tragic incident in Minnesota history. . .[and] to provide an in-depth and scholarly resource of primary source materials on the subject.”  It is very in-depth, particularly in comparison with the Omaha website.  It has available over 2,000 pages of primary source materials.  As for arguments the authors note that their website is not an on-line exhibit “but rather a digital collection providing primary source materials with a minimum of interpretations.”  Their target audience are scholars interested in this event in Minnesota history as well as the general public.

The header and left index frame are permanent fixtures on your screen.  The site has its own search engine that is easily accessible.  A viewer would need a Flash player to access many of the features and a Flash player is available to download from this website.  For those that do not want access to a Flash player the oral histories are provided both as videos or actual transcriptions, which was a welcome feature.  Unfortunately they are only small clips/excerpts of the entire interview and the entire interview is not available on-line.  The site has an excellent bibliography with links to the finding aids of many other archives and libraries, and, importantly, the links all work.  There is also a comment section where viewers can email the Minnesota Historical Society although there is no listing of what the comments of other viewers are.

The website’s illustrative narrative is as the authors promise, little interpretation and simply a straight chronological narrative that leaves the reader with more questions than answers.  The most overriding question is why were six men arrested for the rape but only three of them lynched? The story literally cries out for more details.  The opening section entitled “Background” is perhaps the best part of the narrative in that it places the lynchings in historical context with the overall themes of racism in the U.S.  Although that must be qualified because unlike the Omaha site it does little more than state that white and immigrant labor feared for their jobs from the incoming blacks, few that they were indeed in Duluth (approximately 2,000 in 1920).  The authors also add that lynching was nothing new to the North and that 219 people were lynched in the North between 1889-1918 but they do not provide a detailed breakdown of the race and gender of these lynching victims.  The photographs used within the narrative added to the text and were a welcome addition.  Also, each page has its own print button as well as a link to that page’s citations.  The sources for the narrative were newspaper accounts, oral histories, some government documentation, and secondary sources but all were used unevenly with some sections, such as the narrative on the judicial proceedings, having no citations.

Since the authors make it clear in the beginning that their site was not an interpretive one, it is perhaps unfair to overly criticize the narrative for lacking scholarship.  It does what the authors say they will do and in reality it provides a solid overview of the lynching.  Overall the photographs, the oral history snippets, and the access to primary sources makes this a very well-done digital archive although access to the complete transcripts of the oral histories would have made this even more valuable.  Scholars and the general public would find it to be a good resource and it serves as an excellent gateway resource on the subject.

The Trial of Sheriff Joseph Shipp et al., 1907
(http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/shipp/shipp.html)
The website was designed by Professor Dough Linder and the essay listed on the site is copyrighted as of 2000 and appears to have been updated in 2005; site was visited on 9 & 11 October 2005.

This website is concerned with the lynching of Ed Johnson on 19 March 1906 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the subsequent trial of the man who arrested him, Sheriff Joseph Shipp, as well as his deputies and others by the Supreme Court for contempt of court. This is the only instance of the Supreme Court every trying anyone for a criminal act.  The circumstances surrounding the lynching are like the previously two reviewed websites.  Shipp arrested Johnson after a white woman, Nevada Taylor, claimed that she had been raped by a black man.  Unlike the previously mentioned cases, however, Johnson actually made it to trial where he was convicted and sentenced to death.  His lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court and that court stayed his execution.  After this news of the stay of execution reached Chattanooga, a mob formed and stormed the jail where Johnson was being held.  He was taken out of his cell to a nearby bridge where he was hung and then shot to death, all the while proclaiming his innocence.  The Supreme Court then ordered Shipp, who was responsible for Johnson, and his deputies, tried for conspiracy, murder and criminal contempt.

This case is unique on many levels besides the actual Supreme Court trial.  President Theodore Roosevelt was involved and ordered the Secret Service to conduct a detailed investigation.  The lone dissenter on the court for the Plessy vs. Fergusen case, Justice John Harlan, was also a key player as was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.  Unlike so many lynchings, this one has literally mountains of evidence including information on the key white participants, information which is lacking in so many other cases since so few ever made it to trial.  The Supreme Court ultimately found Shipp guilty and he served 90 days in the District of Columbia Federal Penitentiary and was released.  He returned to Chattanooga to a hero’s welcome.

The website’s index page downloads quickly as it is a simple table with a single image of Shipp appearing on the right.  Down the left side are 12 links to other information, primarily documentation, including a map of Chattanooga, short biographies of the major figures, Supreme Court documents, excerpts of the court transcripts, the entire transcript of the 1909 Supreme Court decision, newspaper articles, 12 images, a 1906 sermon from a local pastor, and a bibliography.  Unfortunately the viewer must scroll down to view all of the links.  There is also a link to an essay by the website’s author, Professor Doug Linder, a Professor of Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.  The website is part of his overall website Famous Trials (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/ftrials.htm), which includes other “famous” trials such as the Trial of Socrates and the Clinton Impeachment Trial.  The Famous Trials website is used as part of his class entitled “Seminar in Famous Trials.”

This is a well-detailed archive/database that is easy to navigate although one must scroll down off the main index page to view all of the links.  Although there is no site map each navigation section is clearly labeled and the back buttons are not disabled as in the Omaha site.  There is a wealth of documentary evidence included but it is all simple text that covers the entire screen border to border, which made printing out documents in their entirety rather difficult.  The margins should have been set in a narrower fashion.  Additionally the documentary evidence was incomplete as only sections of most of the documents were included and the Secret Service report of the incident was not included at all, which was very unfortunate as it would contain a wealth of information on the lynching itself, which for most lynchings is simply not the case.  Also, there is no new media to speak of on the website but in reality it did not need any as the site is meant primarily for legal scholars.  The map of Chattanooga is dated 1999, while a period map would have made a more useful addition.  The layout diagram of the jail is also of limited usefulness.

There was little interpretation of the evidence and if anything this website was dedicated to the legal issues of jurisdiction of the federal courts.   The only hint of an argument listed in Linder’s essay was his statement that “it appears that the Shipp trial may assume it rightful place as one of the famous trials in American history” which it well should.   Since his website is for the use of his law students, it is perhaps understandable that he did not include scholarly argument.   Indeed, he was not concerned with the lynching itself, only the legal aspects of the case.   He did provide links to other websites dedicated solely to the study of lynching but unfortunately three of the links did not work.   He also included tables that listed statistics on lynching in the U.S. but that was all related to placing this incident in an overall context of lynching and racism in U.S. history.   

In this review of websites dedicated to the study of lynching, each site had its merits.  The two “archives” and one “electronic essay” proved to be worthwhile sites filled with relevant information.   Each was relatively easy to navigate through, even with a dial-up connection, and were well designed.   Although the Duluth site carries no argument save the fact that it covers an event that should be “remembered”, and therefore under some definitions does not constitute historical scholarship (as an archive/database it does not really need to be so-labeled) it should be viewed as an excellent example of history on the World Wide Web.  It was particularly well-designed and proved to be the best of the three regarding its treatment of the subject and was the most pleasurable to visit.   The Omaha site met its objective of providing information to its audience of teachers and students below the 12th grade level.   Taking the section on racism as a whole, it was a fairly good example of historical scholarship.   But that section in general and the lynching portion in particular could have been improved upon with the addition of more documentary evidence made available directly from its pages.   The Shipp website fulfilled its obligations to its stated audience but was still useful to others as well.  Although very simplistically designed it contained a wealth of information and could serve, as each of the websites could, as a gateway to the study of individual acts of lynching or the subject of lynching as a whole.

Notes:

(1) http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/shipp/Lynchcauses.html