ABSTRACT
DURING THE SUMMERS OF 1874 AND 1875, THE GREATEST SCANDAL OF THE nineteenth century unfolded before the inhabitants of New York City. Theodore Tilton publicly accused his good friend and business partner, Henry Ward Beecher, of seducing his wife, Elizabeth Tilton. The local papers, full of dramatic confessions and strident denials, closely followed Beecher’s investigation by his church and his trial the following summer. They faithfully reported Victoria Woodhull’s radical beliefs on free love, Theodore Tilton’s shrill complaints, and the heartfelt denials of Beecher and his followers. Beecher, exonerated by a biased church investigation and neither condemned nor acquitted by a hung jury, continued to occupy the pulpit at Plymouth Church, still its most popular preacher. Narratives of the trial focused on contested images of masculinity, marriage, and bourgeois gender relations. What was “true love”? Who had victimized Elizabeth Tilton-Theodore or Beecher? Which man had violated the sacred tenets of “‘noble manhood’”? And, of course, was Beecher guilty and of what exactly?1
