Beschreibung:

Lot of 5 photographs and postcards, ranging in size from 3.4 x 5.5 in. and 9 x 8.25 in and featuring outdoor scenes of hangings and lynchings. Includes Reading the Death Warrant to Wirz on the Scaffold, Alexander Gardner 1865, capturing the early stages of the execution of Swiss-born Confederate Captain Henry Wirz on November 10, 1865. Arrested shortly after the end of the Civil War, Wirz was tried for the atrocities that took place at Camp Sumter, the prison in Andersonville, GA he was assigned to command. On the morning of his execution, Wirz allegedly "…rose in his cell at the Old Capitol and wrote a last letter to his wife…Later that forenoon, after giving a few final strokes to a stray cat that had wandered in to share his confinement, he emerged from his cell…followed the guards into an enclosed courtyard, where chanting soldiers and other spectators hung like vultures in the treetops. There was his life offered up to appease the public hysteria…" (from William Marvel. Andersonville: The Last Depot. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994). Also features a photograph taken moments before the execution of Hurt Hardy, the "Sweetheart Killer," who murdered his girlfriend Ethel Fenestock in 1935. Label on verso notes that 400 spectators gathered around the gallows in Ste. Genevieve, MO to witness his execution on February 27, 1937. Credited to Acme Newspictures, Inc., Chicago, IL. Of additional note is an image of Turkish Finance Minister Hassan Polatkan and Foreign Minister Fatin Zorlu suspended from scaffolding following their executions, probably held in Imrali,a prison island, for violating the Turkish constitution. Stamped on verso "Sep 18 1961."