Rape in the Morning Appeal, 1880 & 1900

Race, especially in the Gilded Age, plays an important role in the culture of rape.  The most common view of a rapist during this time was a "dangerous, beastly black male." In the Appeal, the data shows that in the seven times that the offender was identified in the article, three of them were black.  Freedman also discusses the association of lynchings with black rapists; in the Appeal, two out of the three black offenders were lynched and while there are a few cases of attempted lynchings, the cases with no mention of race (presumably white) contained no successful lynchings.  To exemplify rape lynchings of black offenders in the Appeal, we will examine a case listed in “Miscellaneous” from South Carolina.  

The offender, Louis Kinder, is immediately identified and has assaulted a white woman.  He was lynched by the woman’s relatives and the paper even details that he was “hanged and riddled with bullets.”  Instead of the objective focus on his main crime, the paper also details his past crimes, such as outraging a colored girl, killing another colored girl, and committing burglary and theft, to highlight his immoral character.  In the almost-lynchings of no race mention offenders (who can be presumed white), the paper discussed the circumstances around their crime, such as the actual court case and the offender’s father condemning his actions in “A Beastial Boy.” This difference highlights what the newspapers want their readers to take from their reports; in the case of Kinder, they want the common reader to see him as a villain but Pohl from “A Beastial Boy” as a standout case that shouldn’t be taken as a generalization.

In 1900, the paper identified less of the offenders with only two of the stories directly confirming the racial identity of the offenders compared to five in the early 1880 period.  This data fits with Freedman’s reports that in transition to the 20th century, less reports focused on the black man rapist and race in general.