Arresting images
It might not seem that the live helicopter feed of Los Angeles police cruisers trailing O.J. Simpson’s white Bronco has much in common with the Sacco and Vanzetti murder trial. But a new exhibit at the Harvard Law School (HLS) Library shows that America’s appetite for tawdry and salacious crime reporting existed long before “Dateline NBC” ever did. “Extra! Extra! Read All About It: A Tale of True Crime” explores the exploitative history of crime and the American media, a relationship that began in the mid-1800s when a public fascination with true crime emerged, largely stemming from the popularization of serialized crime literature in the penny press. Curated by Lesley Schoenfeld, coordinator of public services and visual collections, the exhibit showcases this literature, published in both newspapers and books around the country, as well as the media’s depictions of three prominent historical crimes: Massachusetts’ child serial killer Jesse Pomeroy, the Lindbergh...