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Granfalloon: Celebrating the Life and Work of Kurt Vonnegut

A research guide started in 2022, Vonnegut's centenary year. Work on this guide continues.
Black and white photograph of three men

Sacco and Vanzetti

The trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti is one of the most notorious miscarriages of justice in North American legal history. Italian immigrant anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted of a fatal armed robbery that took place in Braintree, Massachusetts, on April 15, 1920. Despite several appeals, the two men did not receive a fair trial and were executed in Boston on August 23, 1927. The Sacco-Vanzetti case has continued relevance today as an example of ethnic and political intolerance.

The IU Bloomington Libraries offer access to several important collections of digitized primary sources relevant to Sacco and Vanzetti. These include Gale’s Crime, Punishment, and Popular Culture, 1790-1920, which provides access to court transcripts and other official documents emanating from the Sacco-Vanzetti trial, as well as letters written by the two men from prison. ProQuest’s History Vault includes a collection of case papers pertaining chiefly to the defense of Sacco and Vanzetti, together with papers of Justice Felix Frankfurter relating to the men's trial.

Selected library resources on Sacco and Vanzetti