Sodomy in Minnesota Newspapers

When looking through Minnesota newspapers, the main focus was on The Daily Globe and it's later rendition, The Saint Paul Globe. Within these two, only 16 stories were able to be found. As sodomy is a difficult crime to find written about, other newspapers such as The Appeal, The Princeton Union, and The Minneapolis Journal; the inclusion of which rose the total number of cases to 30. It is important to point out that The Appeal is an African American newspaper and thus writes a bit differently than the other newspapers. 

The frequency of sodomy reportings in Minnesota over a time span from 1880-1903 did not change substantially. Both the beginning and end of this period have about the same number of cases. The cases did tend to get more detailed as time went on, with the first descriptive story occuring in 1889. While there are a good handful of stories that are fairly descriptive, the majority are nothing more than court proceedings or listings alongside other crimes. 

As there are not many stories to be found, there are only a few search terms that prove effective in searching for them. The first is obviously "sodomy" as that is the legal term relating to the crime. The other term that contributed to finding stories was "crime against nature". As this is a phrase, it is unable to be put into Bookworm, as was done with "sodomy", but it is a phrase that appears frequently enough to have been useful. 

Coverage of these crimes is incredibly vague. The vagueness can make it very difficult to know what exactly the accused was guilty of at times. This is important as during this period sodomy applies to ANY sexual act that does not result in procreation. This means that oral or anal sex with women could apply, although all of the cases here involve exclusively men. This makes it problematic in many cases, but the exact crime can often be inferred by the language used.