Poster #202 - Tarnowsky’s Women Homicide Offenders: Images and Stories

• In Event: ASC Poster Session I

Abstract

Tarnowsky, a Russian neuropathologist, studied 160 women imprisoned for homicide or attempted homicide in St. Petersburg, Russia, during the late 1800s. Theoretically, she included the Lombrosian system of body measurements, but added information on heredity and the women’s stories regarding the context of the homicide. She had a control group of 150 peasant women. She then categorized the types of homicides that were committed. The pictures included here, first on plates before photography existed as we know it, represent categories in Pauline Tarnowsky’s Les Femmes Homicides, Part 1, including greed, maternal love, sexual love, hatred, and revenge.

Authors

• Lin Huff-Corzine, University of Central Florida

• Kayla Toohy, University of Tampa

• Kylie Parrotta, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo