H. V. Redfield
Horace Victor Eugene Redfield | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1845 Eden, New York, U.S. |
| Died | 1881 (aged 35–36) |
| Occupation | Journalist |
Horace Victor Eugene Redfield (1845–1881) was a journalist with the Cincinnati Commercial and the author of Homicide, North and South, a book comparing violence in the northern and southern United States.
He was born in Eden, New York in Erie County.[1] When he was four his father died[2][3] and he moved with his mother to Jasper, Tennessee in 1860.[1]
Pennsylvania State University has a collection of his papers.[4]
Homicide, North and South
A year before his death, Redfield completed Homicide, North and South,[5] an analysis of statistics for crime in general, and homocide in particular, in various northern and southern states, the latter states manifesting a higher incidence of the crimes he considered. Having grown up in the South, Redfield attributed that higher crime rate not to the erstwhile prevalence of slavery, but to an acceptance of vigilantism that he perceived there, a cultural reliance on personal retaliation for perceived wrongs where the rule of law did not have a robust presence.[6] Redfield's book was "the first to investigate southern homicide in any depth."[7]
Personal life
Redfield married Jennette Hamlin, daughter of Byron D. Hamlin.[8] Redfield's son, Horace Hamlin Redfield, ran a hardware store in Smethport, Pennsylvania and served a single term in the Pennsylvania General Assembly.[9]
References
- ^ a b Wood, Amy Louise (14 November 2011). The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 19: Violence. Univ of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807869284.
- ^ "Death of H V Redfield". The Tennessean. November 19, 1881. p. 2 – via newspapers.com.
- ^ "THE LATE H.V. REDFIELD". The New York Times. November 19, 1881.
- ^ "Horace V. Redfield Papers, 1869-1887 1743". libraries.psu.edu. Archived from the original on 2021-10-04. Retrieved 2021-10-04.
- ^ H.V. Redfield, Homicide, North and South. Being a Comparative View of Crime Against the Person in Several Parts of the United States (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1880) (retrieved 1 March 2026).
- ^ Alan Friedlander and Richard Allan Gerber, Welcoming Ruin, pp.190-191 (Haymarket Books, 2020).
- ^ Amy Louise Wood, ed., The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Volume 19: Violence, p.4 (University of North Carolina Press, 20110).
- ^ Cutter, William Richard (1924). "American Biography: A New Cyclopedia". (The source gives the year of marriage as 1896, but Redfield died in 1881.)
- ^ Horace Hamlin Redfield Mansion at "Planet Smethport," a project of the Smethport Hamlin Memorial Library (retrieved 1 March 2026).