The trial and execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti in Massachusetts in the 1920s caused much tension within the United States and around the world. The Italian immigrants were anarchists who were part of a movement that was involved in bomb attacks on the US government. After a controversial trial, many people believed the verdict was due to prejudice and paranoia. They were convicted in 1921 of murdering two men during a robbery in 1920 in Braintree. For six years the legal struggle continued, but all attempts to gain a new trial were denied. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed on Aug. 23, 1927. The notorious case and its verdict are still debated today.- Leanne Burden Seidel and Lisa Tuite
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Boston Globe Archive
July 12, 1921: Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco in the prisoner's dock in Norfolk Superior Court where they were convicted of first-degree murder of Frederick A. Parmenter and Alessandro Berardelli on April 15, 1920. During recesses, the two prisoners would be sequestered in a small room with this mesh and wire partition.
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Boston Globe Archive
April 6, 1960: The Pearl Street shoe factory of Slater & Morrill in South Braintree, where the paymaster, Frederick A. Parmenter, 34, and and his guard, Alessandro Berardelli, 44, were slain for $15,766.51 representing the weekly payroll of the factory. The holdup, during the afternoon of April 15, 1920, began the sensational Sacco and Vanzetti case.
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Boston Globe Archive
April 11, 1922: Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco as they appeared at the Dedham Courthouse on April 10, where they heard the order that they be executed for the murders of Frederick Parmenter and Alessandro Berardelli. In their address to the court, Sacco talked but five minutes apologizing that he was not familiar with the English language. Vanzetti, on the other hand, availed himself of 45 minutes during which he attacked the justice and two juries who had found him guilty. Yet it was during the reading of the execution order to Vanzetti when Sacco leaped from his chair, pointed his finger at Judge Thayer, and screamed, "You know that we are innocent and that you have condemned two innocent men."
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Boston Globe Archive
Aug. 8, 1927: Rose Sacco, wife of Nicola Sacco, left the Charlestown state prison after visiting with Arthur D. Hill, new defense counsel for the two men. Sacco and Vanzetti continued on a hunger strike that began July 16. Attorney Hill said he found the men "calm and courageous." Mrs. Sacco had testified in her husband's defense on July 1, telling the story of her marriage, their two children 8 years old and 18 months old, and of their home in Stoughton as well as events that had transpired before and after the day the murder took place.
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Boston Post
Aug. 10, 1927: The picketing of the State House by strikers sympathetic to Sacco and Vanzetti culminated in the arrests of 39. Hundreds followed the officers and their prisoners as they marched down Beacon Street and turned into Joy Street to Boston Police Station 3. This woman's sign said, "Equal and exact justice to all men of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political. Not in Massachusetts."
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Boston Globe Archive
Aug. 22, 1927: Preceding the execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, close to 800 police established a "cordon of steel" around the state prison at Charlestown. Floodlights were set up on the prison walls turning night into day; machine guns were carried by police and a high-pressure fire hose was in the hands of a fireman. Sacco was pronounced dead on Aug. 23, 1927, at 12:19 a.m. and Vanzetti at 12:26 a.m. . The large police detail was kept on hand until the Suffolk County ambulance left just after 2 a.m.
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Boston Globe Archive
Aug. 29, 1927: The gigantic funeral cortege of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti marched over streets strewn with flowers from the North End to the Forest Hills Cemetery. The bodies of the two men lay in state at the Langone undertaking chapel at 383 Hanover St., North End, prior to the funeral procession, and the two men were cremated at Forest Hills. Some of the floral pieces were so huge it required half a dozen men to carry them.
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Boston Globe Archive
Aug. 29, 1927: Crowds estimated by police at more than 200,000 witnessed the funeral of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. People gather in Scollay Square to watch the procession.
