In Naperville, Illinois, courtroom applauds as wife found innocent in sensational Chicago divorce case

After a nineteen day trial in which Isaac Burch, a leading Chicago banker, had charged his socialite wife Mary, niece and heiress to railroad magnate Erastus Corning, with adultery, the jury ruled unanimously in favor of Mrs. Burch. Public opinion was on the her side, as well, and there were celebrations with bands and bonfires in Chicago. The case was one of the most famous and influential divorce trials of the century thanks to its intense media coverage. (By John Osborne)  
Source Citation
Norma Basch, Framing American Divorce: From the Revolutionary Generation to the Victorians (Berkeley,CA: University of California Press, 2001), 162-165.
"The Burch Case," New York Herald, December 11, 1860, p. 5.
    Date Certainty
    Exact
    Type
    Lawmaking/Litigating
    How to Cite This Page: "In Naperville, Illinois, courtroom applauds as wife found innocent in sensational Chicago divorce case ," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/34729.