Andrew Borden Case Summary
THE CASE OF LIZZIE BORDEN
In 1892, Fall River, Massachusetts was a northern town of sharp class divisions. Fall River was a leader in textile manufacturing, a thriving mill town of about 80,000 with a bustling port (Berni 1997). The ruling classes were of the long-settled Yankees that lived in the fashionable part of town known as "The Hill” (Booth 2013). Those who lived below The Hill, and area commonly referred to as “The Pit”, were typically of lower class, worked in the mills and were often newly arrived immigrants (Booth 2013). Andrew Borden made his fortune through real estate and banking. When the opportunity arose, he bought up several blocks of downtown property, tore down the existing structures, and built the massive Andrew J. Borden building, renting it out …show more content…
Black introduced a new concept- social time, which refers to movement over time in social space- an increase or decrease in the degree of intimacy, inequality or cultural diversity between groups of people. Black argued that because social space is the basis of moral judgments about what is right and wrong, and because this is constantly in motion, clashes over morality are inevitable and ubiquitous. Such clashes constitute the foundation of all conflict. The book’s two foundational principles are “conflict is a direct function of overcloseness” and “conflict is a direct function of undercloseness” (Black, 2011:6). Conflict thus results from excessive and insufficient intimacy, from too much and too little inequality, and from overdiversity and underdiversity. Through conflict, what people actually treat as right and wrong is revealed. People’s actions do not always reflect their claimed beliefs. Morality varies across time, place, and case. Pure sociology can be used to explain this variation using two complementary theories to explain the cause, severity, and form of conflict: social time and social
In 1892, Fall River, Massachusetts was a northern town of sharp class divisions. Fall River was a leader in textile manufacturing, a thriving mill town of about 80,000 with a bustling port (Berni 1997). The ruling classes were of the long-settled Yankees that lived in the fashionable part of town known as "The Hill” (Booth 2013). Those who lived below The Hill, and area commonly referred to as “The Pit”, were typically of lower class, worked in the mills and were often newly arrived immigrants (Booth 2013). Andrew Borden made his fortune through real estate and banking. When the opportunity arose, he bought up several blocks of downtown property, tore down the existing structures, and built the massive Andrew J. Borden building, renting it out …show more content…
Black introduced a new concept- social time, which refers to movement over time in social space- an increase or decrease in the degree of intimacy, inequality or cultural diversity between groups of people. Black argued that because social space is the basis of moral judgments about what is right and wrong, and because this is constantly in motion, clashes over morality are inevitable and ubiquitous. Such clashes constitute the foundation of all conflict. The book’s two foundational principles are “conflict is a direct function of overcloseness” and “conflict is a direct function of undercloseness” (Black, 2011:6). Conflict thus results from excessive and insufficient intimacy, from too much and too little inequality, and from overdiversity and underdiversity. Through conflict, what people actually treat as right and wrong is revealed. People’s actions do not always reflect their claimed beliefs. Morality varies across time, place, and case. Pure sociology can be used to explain this variation using two complementary theories to explain the cause, severity, and form of conflict: social time and social