In Search of Sacco and Vanzetti

April 15, 2012

The story of Ferdinando Sacco (1892-1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (1888-1927) is well known: after the brutal robbery and murder of a payroll clerk and a guard in Braintree, MA, in 1920, the two Italian immigrants with anarchist sympathies were arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death. The sensational trial became a cause celebre for radicals all over the world. The furor has yet to abate: Were they innocents persecuted for their politics or violent criminals who deserved their fate? Journalist Tejada (former editor in chief, National Geographic World) sifts through the evidence from the trial and revelations from documents and testimony uncovered since then, putting her findings in the context of the labor movement and the political unrest of the time. She makes convincing parallels between the anti-anarchism atmosphere surrounding the case and the terrorism-inspired hysteria prompted by 9/11, and carefully documents the indisputable fact that the defendants did not receive a fair trial, even by the lax standards of the day. VERDICT This scholarly work will appeal to those interested in the history of radicalism in the United States.--Deirdre Bray Root, Middletown P.L., OH

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 15, 2012
This is a terrific reexamination of the Sacco and Vanzetti case by journalist Tejada, whose lively writing and reporter's eye offer a fresh, invigorating perspective on otherwise familiar characters and historical episodes. She brings the suspense and engagement of a good thriller to the events surrounding the April 1920 murders of a Massachusetts paymaster and security guard. This now relatively obscure incident precipitated a years-long legal battle that became a cause celebre and set off a governmental response to radicalism not unlike that seen in recent times to the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. When they were arrested, neither Sacco nor Vanzetti was even questioned about the murders; they were picked up as suspicious characters and asked if they were communists or anarchists, who they knew, and what societies they belonged to. As Tejada demonstrates, the fact that both felt compelled to lie in responseand that they were both armedhelped to make the case against them. Her examination of the case and her alternative theory of their guilt or innocence are both compelling. Tejada set out to write a double biography, one that attempts to decouple Sacco from Vanzetti, to get a look at who they were as individuals. In the process, she has also written a very entertaining and perceptive history of early-twentieth-century radicalism, anarchism, the Wobblies, and the American Labor Movement.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)