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The Laura Fair trial received an incredible amount of publicity, and people had very different reactions to the murder and the trials. Suffragists and many women at the time understood Laura Fair's position. She had been manipulated for years by Crittenden, continuously believing that they would get married, but he repeatedly lied to her. Crittenden was the adulterer who, as Emily Pitts Stevens said, "advanced the unholy doctrine of free love as a married man living in open adultery with Mrs. Fair."
Fair also received attention by more well-known suffragists, such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. After her initial sentence to death, the two visited her in jail and included her in speeches made in the area. Suffragists emphasized the fact that Fair was not given a fair trial, as the jury consisted of only men, and that the legal system as a whole could not be fair to women if trials continued to be conducted in the same manner as Fair's.
Image: https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Emily_Pitts_Stevens
Haber, Carole. The Trials of Laura Fair: Sex, Murder, and Insanity in the Victorian West. University of North Carolina Press, 2013. Accessed December 7, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9781469607597_haber.
Emily Pitts Stevens
The prosecution of the case used many comparisons in order to sway the jury in their favor, and these comparisons also swayed the opinions of the public. Their depictions of Fair as "a fallen woman, a "she-devil," an immoral, sexually aggressive "syren" who had lured the hapless Crittenden into her erotic web," created an increased public outcry about Fair's actions, and, more broadly, the dangers of the free love movement.
After the Trial
After the Trial
Thousands lined up to hear the verdict of the trials, and the strong opinions on the situation did not die down quickly. Information about Fair and her endeavors were included in newspapers across the country for many years after she was acquitted, and her trial provided a reference for other trials, debates, and literature.
Class Legislation
Class Legislation
A few years after the trial of Laura Fair, San Francisco was in the process of ridding the city of prostitution. In response to a bill on this topic, in 1876, Caroline N. Churchill wrote Class Legislation, or, a Method of Regulating the Social Evil. The legislation focused on trying to criminalize prostitution in San Francisco.
In the legislation, there is a section called The Vindication of Martha, where it argues why this legislation is a burden on women. This is when Laura Fair is mentioned. She's mentioned to show that listening to what society wants women to do and what men expect from them can cause them to go insane and kill, just like what Laura Fair did.
"Class Legislation or, A Method of Regulating the Social Evil" 1876
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31175035168858&view=1up&seq=28
The Gilded Age
The Gilded Age
Mark Twain also used the case of Laura D. Fair as inspiration and a point of reference in his first novel The Gilded Age. While the trial depicted in his work took place in New York and included the corrupt judicial system of the state, he included a shooting, a trial, and a plea of temporary insanity that are all very similar to Laura Fair's situation. Fair's case would have been fresh in the minds of Twain's readers, as it was published in 1873.
French, Bryant Morey. "Mark Twain, Laura D. Fair and the New York Criminal Courts." American Quarterly 16, no. 4 (1964): 545-61. Accessed December 7, 2020. doi:10.2307/2711148.
Poetry
Poetry
Suffragists celebrated the not guilty verdict, but many others lamented what they believed to be a mistake by the judicial system. This poem written by an author in California and published by the Gold Hill Daily News in Nevada criticizes the way the trial played out, ending the poem with "For crime stands clear, and none need fear when justice plays such pranks as these." Clearly, many people found the outcome of the trial appalling and unbelievable, and considered Fair to be guilty even after the trial was over.
Gold Hill Daily News December 6, 1872 Image 2.
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