Gender, Respectability, and Crime: Reflecting on The Leopold and Loeb Files

Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb

Nestled on page 112 of The Leopold and Loeb Files, Nina Barrett features an excerpt from noted social reformer Judge Ben B. Lindsey of the Juvenile Court of Denver who declared that the Leopold and Loeb crime was symptomatic of a “modern mentality and modern freedom of youth, with the misunderstandings between parenthood and childhood…the indifference to the rights of others in the stealing of automobiles, in joyrides, jazz parties, petting parties, freedom in sex relations and the mania of speed on every turn.”

Although Lindsey’s comments were perhaps unduly alarmist, he does hit upon how the Leopold and Loeb case struck a nerve in the historical moment of 1924. The trial became a way to explore fears about modern life in the Progressive Era, including anxieties about:

  • the limits and risks of science and rationality
  • the meaning of intellectual, urban masculinity
  • the effects of improper femininity and maternity
  • sexuality as action, orientation, and identity
  • the questionable security promised by wealth and respectability
  • the proper social and psychological development of children
  • the role of nature versus nurture

I want to dig into just one example of how this plays out in the case; specifically, how gender anxieties shaped the defense’s approach. Continue reading “Gender, Respectability, and Crime: Reflecting on The Leopold and Loeb Files”