University of New England

Historian Elizabeth De Wolfe's new book examines the 19th century murder of a factory girl in Saco

Elizabeth A. De Wolfe, Ph.D., associate professor of history, investigated  the story of Mary Bean, a Saco Island factory girl who was murdered in 1850, for her latest book.

When the winter ice melted in April of that year, residents of Saco, Maine, made a gruesome discovery: the body of a young girl submerged in a stream.

Thanks to evidence left at the scene, a local physician was arrested and tried for the death of Mary Bean, the name given to the unidentified young girl; the cause of death was failed abortion.

Garnering extensive newspaper coverage, the trial revealed many secrets: a poorly trained doctor, connections to an unsolved murder in New Hampshire, and the true identity of “Mary Bean”—a young Canadian mill worker named Berengera Caswell, missing since the previous winter.

Mary Bean lived on in two popular books about her life and mysterious death. De Wolfe's new book, The Murder of Mary Bean and other Stories (Kent State University Press, August 2007),  examines the life and death of Mary Bean in fact and in fiction and uncovers what her many stories reveal about life in a changing Maine town.

De Wolfe explores such themes as the rapid social changes brought about by urbanization and industrialization in antebellum nineteenth-century society, factory work and the changing roles for women.  

She posits that the real threat to women in the nineteenth century was not murder but a society that had ambiguous feelings about the role of women in the economic system, in education, and as independent citizens.

Murder mysteries are ever popular, and even prior to publication of the book,  De Wolfe's exploration of this murder had already been featured on Maine Public Radio, the Portland Press Herald, the Journal Tribune in Biddeford, and the Biddeford-Saco-Old Orchard Beach Courier.

In 2008, Mary Bean was recognized with two national awards – The Independent Publisher Book Awards’ bronze medal in the True Crime category and ForeWord Magazine’s silver medal in its Book of the Year Awards’ True Crime category.

It is also basis for a Saco, Maine history walk display that was created by Saco Museum in November 2007 and an exhibition at the Saco Museum in spring 2008.


Tension of Rapid Mill Growth
De Wolfe, winner of the 2004 Fairfield Award for research in Saco history, observes, "The murder of Mary Bean brought to the forefront what had been simmering in Saco - a tension between the economic benefits of the growth of the mills and the detriments of rapid growth, particularly in what was seen as a growing population of strangers. When the trial revealed the 'secret` life of several Saco residents, people worried if they could ever really know who their neighbors were."

"In addition to concerns about the growth of crime, the murder of Mary Bean revealed strong attitudes about the proper place of women, especially girls, in society. Although the prosperity of the mills was built on the labor of women, the trial and the fiction strongly suggested that the best place for young women was at home."

De Wolfe's Previous Research
De Wolfe is chair of UNE's History Department  and also co-chair of UNE's Women's Studies Program.  She  teaches courses in women's history, communal societies, and American culture.

She earned her Ph.D. in American and New England studies from Boston University (1996), an M.A. in anthropology from the State University of New York/Albany (1985) and a B.A. in social science from Colgate University (1983). Dr. De Wolfe is the author of Shaking the Faith: Women, Family, and Mary Marshall Dyer's Anti-Shaker Campaign, 1815-1867 (2002), which was awarded the Communal Studies Association's "Outstanding Book Award" for 2003.

She is also co-editor of Such News of the Land: U.S. Women Nature Writers (2001). In 2004, DeWolfe received the University of New England's highest honor, the Kenneally Cup, in recognition of her excellence in teaching and service to the University. Kent State University Press will publish The Murder of Mary Bean and Other Stories  in November 2007.

(Press release updated Aug. 30, 2007)