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Great cultural change occurred during the 1920s.
Women had attained the right to vote in 1920, after a
hundred-year suffrage battle. Emancipation was abrupt; with many changes
happening quickly. Examples include women working for the first time, women
attaining higher education, women smoking, and many fashion changes such as
wearing pants or other "revealing" clothing.
Prosperity and
cultural change in the Roaring '20s also caused great tragedy. Bathtub
Gin, or home-brewed alcoholic beverages, could cause serious
injuries such as blindness or even death. Sexual customs changed in the
'20s, with increased sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted
pregnancies.
The following is a description of one great tragedy in Boston's history.
Edith Greene was a 19 year-old unmarried pregnant woman. She was urged by
her boyfriend to get an abortion. Abortion was illegal in Massachusetts in
1926. Her boyfriend found a doctor that would perform the operation. An
infection set in, and Edith Greene died. To conceal the crime, the doctor
cut up her body, packed it in bundles, and then dumped them in a cemetery.
The following is quoted from Boston Murders by Marjorie Carlton
(1948):
"Who left the bundles in Calvary Cemetery? The bundles contained portions
of the body of Edith Greene...her lover wanted no part of the coming
offspring, and took her to Dr. Thomas E. Walsh. The operation was performed,
but infection set in. The doctor did a neat job of carving, and a better job
of packing the various segments of the body, especially the torso, in a box
that contained his wife's new fur coat. Needless to say, the company's name
was on the box. It seemed unlikely that the doctor figured the box would
come home to roost. He was apprehended, and sentenced to six to seven years
in prison. Edith's lover, held in bail for a while as an accessory, went
free."
The July 16, 1926 New York Times describes Edith Greene's murder: "Dr.
Thomas E. Walsh and his wife, wanted on murder charges in the connection
with the death of Edith Greene, were reported by the police tonight as ready
to surrender. An earlier report that Dr. Walsh had given himself up proved
unfounded, and the police said that arrangements for the surrender were
canceled when the physician failed to keep an appointment with an inspector.
...
With [the boyfriend] in custody, charged with being an accessory before and
after the fact, the police concentrated upon finding another physician
thought to have aided Walsh in operating and dismembering the body. Miss
Greene was a 19-year-old State ward and a former employee of the Boston
Psychopathic Hospital."
The second doctor implicated in the murder was arrested on July 19th,
after fleeing to New York City.
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