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Under The Shadow Of The Awful Gallows-Tree: The 1866 And 1868 Murder Trials Of Thomas Dula And Ann Melton As A Case Study In Gender And Power In Reconstruction Era Western North Carolina, Heather L. Miller
Heather L. Miller
This thesis seeks to build on scholarship done by historians of social and cultural history by exploring how the murder narrative was treated and evolved in popular discourse surrounding the time of the murder, the murder trials, Dula’s execution in May 1868, and Melton’s acquittal later that year. This is a micro-history that explores everyday life on a small scale by tracing the common, if elusive lives of Thomas Dula, Ann Melton, and Laura Foster, and the communities they lived in, to explore the culture in which they lived—and died. Two suspects were involved in Foster’s death, Thomas Dula and …