The 1906 Grace Brown Murder Case, the true story behind the novel An American Tragedy
In 1925, Theodore Dreiser published An American Tragedy, a novel inspired by a crime that had happened nearly twenty years earlier. Dreiser had always wanted to write a book about a murder, and he also wanted to illustrate his theory of naturalism, or an individual's inability to overcome basic aspects of heredity and fate. The protagonist of An American Tragedy is a young man named Clyde Griffiths. Like Dreiser himself, Clyde is born to religious parents who preach on the streets of various cities. His childhood is austere and Clyde longs for a life beyond his parents’ restrictive ideals.
After an incident that involves him getting mixed up with a wild crowd and leaving the scene of a fatal car crash, Clyde makes his way toward upstate New York, where his wealthy uncle owns a factory. Clyde takes the job that his uncle provides, as a foreman supervising various workers. One of the workers, Roberta Alden, catches Clyde’s eye, and the attraction proves mutual. Clyde seduces Roberta, who naively believes he will marry her. Unfortunately, Clyde also becomes involved with a local society beauty and has a true chance of rising in status. Roberta becomes pregnant, however, and her demands that Clyde marry her increase.
Following Roberta’s refusal to get rid of the baby, Clyde agrees to meet her at a lake resort. Roberta thinks they are going to get married, while Clyde’s plan is to kill Roberta and make the death seem like an accident. The pair takes a fateful boat ride, but once on the water, Clyde cannot seem to put his plan into action. Roberta moves suddenly toward Clyde who strikes her inadvertently with his camera; Roberta then falls from the boat and drowns, leaving the great question of Clyde’s technical guilt. Although he had planned to murder her, he had not gone through with it. He had not saved her from drowning either, but the defense team hired by Clyde's uncle stress Clyde's confusion and fear following the boat's upset, as opposed to any genuine malice on his part.
The true crime that inspired Dreiser’s novel involved Chester Gillette and Grace Brown, daughter of an upstate New York farmer. Chester’s parents had been Salvation Army workers and his well-to-do uncle had taken Chester under his wing. Chester and Grace had met—like Clyde and Roberta—while employed at the factory owned by Chester’s uncle. Although Chester was initially passionate towards Grace, he was becoming increasingly involved with the local society set. When Grace became pregnant, Chester’s affections quickly cooled.
Like Roberta, Grace drowned under questionable circumstances at a resort. There were “horrible lacerations” upon Grace’s forehead and mouth, judged to have been caused by blows from Chester’s tennis racket, though a later theory would state that the pole used to fish Grace’s corpse from the lake was at fault. Chester told different versions of what had happened, first that it was an accident and then that Grace had committed suicide. Due to his use of aliases at the resort and because he had never reported the incident, Chester was accused of premeditated murder. His trial was lengthy and sensational. Unlike Clyde Griffiths, however, Chester Gillette’s uncle did not offer any help with legal counsel and Chester was forced to take public representation. Though there were no witnesses and only circumstantial evidence, like his literary counterpart, Chester Gillette was convicted and executed.
Two versions of An American Tragedy were made into movies, first in 1931 and then in 1951 as the Academy Award-winning A Place in the Sun. In 2005, another adaptation of the novel was staged by the Metropolitan Opera Company. In 2007, the diary that Chester Gillette kept in prison was donated to Hamilton College by Gillette’s relatives, who stated that in this diary Chester Gillette is a less cavalier person than he seemed to be during his trial. All in all, through film, stage and the recognition of Dreiser’s novel as one of the 20th century’s greatest works, we see how our fascination with the tragic union of Chester Gillette and Grace Brown continues into the 21st century as well.
The Murder Trial of Chester Gillette, New York State Courts' Web Page
An American Tragedy, The Opera - Background of the Novel and Trial
The American Tragedy: Chester Gillette Murdered Grace Brown, Douglas MacGowan, CrimeLibrary.com
Burke Library Receives Chester Gillette Diary for Collection, Hamilton College News
