Lizzie Borden took an axe, and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one…
The infamous story goes like this: Lizzie Borden, 32, took an axe and murdered her step-mother, Abby Durfee Gray Borden, and her father, Andrew Borden. It was 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts. Lizzie Borden was unmarried, and since rumored to have been queer. Without a husband, Borden was destined to spend the rest of her life in her father’s house.
Abby was murdered first– she was found face down in the guest room, the back of her skull destroyed. Then Andrew, attacked while taking a nap on the couch.
The museum has stuffed dummies where those bodies once were: we sat on the couch next to Andrew and snapped a picture. The tiny Victorian rooms couldn’t contain our tour group. We pushed past each other to get a closer look at the crime-scene photos, the autopsy portraits.
At the end of the night, the Abby and Andrew Borden mannequins are moved so guests can stay inside the house. The spectacle of it all is quite shocking. Any sympathy for the victims has long faded to nothing but morbid interest, of which I am guilty, too.
I was gifted a postcard at the end of the tour. The portrait of Lizzie Borden printed on its face is large; high-res, prominent. She sits before a gray background. Her dress is beautifully made: lace wraps around her shoulders, graces her collar bones. The bodice is pleated, and a white flower rests under her chin. Her head is turned to the left, obscuring half her face in shadow. This is the most widely used image of Lizzie Borden: she is young, beautiful. (She never had a mug shot taken.) Under the museum’s logo is an illustration of an axe.
I truly don’t know what to do with the postcard. I don’t plan on sending it to anyone (I can’t think of a single person who would want it). Taping it to my wall feels weird. Despite being acquitted by a jury of men due to lack of evidence [she didn’t have a spot of blood on her; it is speculated that Lizzie committed the crime while naked] I don’t want to gaze upon her portrait and remember what she was accused of.
We spoke in class about the portrait as a piece of commodity. An image of someone notable sold as a souvenir, to be displayed in the homes of millions of strangers. Like Lady Dedlock’s portrait taped among many to Mr. Jobling’s wall in Bleak House. Like the posters of Taylor Swift hanging in every dorm building on campus. Everything in the Lizzie Borden house has her face on it. A couple things have the crime scene photos of the Borden parents’ bodies. We are still selling photos of people. The advancement of photographic technology has only made this practice easier.
Victorian Visual Culture 
This is so well written, and such a deep self analysis of the systems we all help perpetuate and must strive to engage with ethically. Thinking a lot recently about the idea of the “monstrous-feminine” and how both female characters and real women are often forced into this archetype, claimed by fans as “iconic” subversive feminist heroes, or condemned by others using the same misogynistic logic that prompted them to lash out at patriarchal society to begin with. Even in death, women can’t escape these narratives, nor the commodification of their image.
By: Sophie Frank on October 27, 2025
at 12:28 pm
Your analysis of Lizzie Borden, particularly your observation about the notion of ‘spectacle’ within the museum experience, reminded me of my own encounter during a Jack the Ripper tour through Whitechapel a few summers ago. The guide mentioned that several crime scene photographs, including those of victim Mary Jane Kelly, are available in the public domain. Viewing these images was profoundly unsettling.
In class, we discussed Victorian portraiture as a means of conferring honor and remembrance. This made me consider whether the continued accessibility of these women’s crime scene photographs, especially given their associations with sex work, reflects an ongoing violation of their dignity. It seems their privacy was compromised not only in life but also in death.
I am interested in further exploring the ethics surrounding such images, both within the context of the Victorian period and in the present day. What function do these photographs serve, and what does their ongoing visibility reveal about our cultural relationship to violence and spectacle?
By: Maire K on October 27, 2025
at 1:47 pm
I love this post, Stella! I have never been to the Lizzie Border museum, but you provide a beautifully written description of your visit as well as the ways that photography is woven through the exhibit and the museum marketing. Like Sophie, I was struck by the photographic memento that makes a spectacle of Lizzie as an example of the monstrous feminine. I enjoyed reading this and it was quite thought-provoking.
By: amartinmhc on November 2, 2025
at 2:02 pm
This is a really interesting post! I unfortunately fell victim to morbid curiosity and find myself wanting to visit. I think it’s so interesting how commodity culture plays into this, especially with the conversation around portraits and policing, specifically for women convicted or suspected of crime. I think it’s so interesting how we lose all sympathy for the Bordens and replace it with visiting the scene where they were killed, and how this crime has been memorialized with nursery rhymes and souvenirs. The fact that she is remembered with her portrait of her looking poised, beautiful, and seemingly innocent makes me really think about how women who were suspected of crime were treated differently than men based on their gender, and it makes me wonder how Lizzie continued to live in society after her acquittal. Was she a social pariah? Was she accepted? Did she have to move? Who did she live with as an unmarried woman with no parents? Great post, it really made me think!
By: genevieve.zahner19 on November 12, 2025
at 10:24 am
This is a really interesting post! I unfortunately fell victim to morbid curiosity and find myself wanting to visit. I think it’s so interesting how commodity culture plays into this, especially with the conversation around portraits and policing, specifically for women convicted or suspected of crime. I think it’s so interesting how we lose all sympathy for the Bordens and replace it with visiting the scene where they were killed, and how this crime has been memorialized with nursery rhymes and souvenirs. The fact that she is remembered with her portrait of her looking poised, beautiful, and seemingly innocent makes me really think about how women who were suspected of crime were treated differently than men based on their gender, and it makes me wonder how Lizzie continued to live in society after her acquittal. Was she a social pariah? Was she accepted? Did she have to move? Who did she live with as an unmarried woman with no parents? Great post, it really made me think!
By: genevieve.zahner19 on November 12, 2025
at 10:24 am
Super cool, Stella. I think this perfectly plays into some of our class discussions about visuality and exploitation — there’s something simultaneously fascinating and disheartening on the way this museum has capitalized on a crime.
By: ladysundayalice on December 11, 2025
at 9:52 pm