French comic artist and social observer Emma made a huge splash on the internet when she released "You Didn't Ask," a brilliant explanation of the 'mental load' of housewifery.
Here's the murder story that proves her point perfectly. It's from Ohio State historian Randolph A. Roth, who rediscovered an infamous New England murder in 1840 while reading old newspapers from New Hampshire:
"Bradbury Ferguson and his wife had quarreled one day, and that night she refused to come up to bed. Enraged, he grabbed his shotgun and shot her in the stomach. Their children raced downstairs to see what had happened. As his wife lay bleeding to death on the floor, he packed his things for an escape to Canada, but could not find everything he needed. He demanded that she tell him where his best clothes were; her last words were 'in the closet.'"
-From "Spousal murder in northern New England," citing the New Hampshire Patriot, March 5, 1841. In the book Over the threshold: intimate violence in early America, Daniels and Kennedy, eds., 1999. Art, another murderess by Edvard Munch, public domain.
#clews #truecrime #youdidntask #newhampshiremurders #mentalload #mentallabor #cognitivelabor #invisiblelabor #housewife
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