Dr. Bridget M. Marshall is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell where she teaches courses on Gothic novels, disability in literature, witchcraft trials, and American literature. She is the author of the academic book, The Transatlantic Gothic Novel and the Law, 1790 – 1860 and numerous scholarly articles on topics including pedagogy, New England witchcraft trials, mill girl graves, and Gothic literature. Her book on the Industrial Revolution’s connections to Gothic literature will be published in June of 2021. Her interest in witchcraft trials began when she was in graduate school in Amherst when she began researching local witchcraft cases for Historic Northampton; she developed an exhibit for the Parsons house property and an online exhibit and educational website about Mary Parsons.

Dr. Bridget Marshall will discuss her research on Massachusetts witchcraft trials before Salem, focusing on the cases of Mary Parsons of Northampton in 1656 and 1674 and Mary Webster of Hadley in 1683. Both cases are notable for the ways they defy many of our assumptions about who was accused of witchcraft and how such trials proceeded, ideas that are often based on popular knowledge of the events of the Salem Witch Hysteria in 1692. Come hear about the woman they called “Half-Hanged Mary”!

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