The Pig Farmer's Daughter and Other Tales of American Justice

From the head of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and noted professor of law and history at the University of Pennsylvania, a book that examines both civil and criminal court cases from the Civil War to the present, to reveal the impact of stereotypingrace, class, gender - on the American legal system. The question Mary Frances Berry asks: Whose story most strongly influences the making of legal decisions in the American justice system? Using previously unexamined material from state appellate civil and criminal court cases - cases of rape, seduction, and paternity disputes, and cases dealing with murder, inheritance, and property disputes in which sexual relations are at the heart of the story - Berry takes us through two centuries of American case law to show how attitudes toward gender, race, class, and sexuality have materially affected, and continue to affect, judicial decision-making.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.