Sacco & Vanzetti:
Guilty as Charged
John Riemenschneider
Holland Patent Middle School
Grade 8
jriemenschneider@hpschools.org
Was the Government Right to
Execute Sacco & Vanzetti?
Directions: In your small group you will complete the following task.
1) Read the summary first to get a good understanding of the case
2) Analyze each slide and the document/picture/graphic on each slide
3) Determine if the document provides evidence for the execution of Sacco &
Vanzetti or evidence supporting their innocence
4) After you have gone through all the slides, determine as a group if the Sacco &
Vanzetti should have been executed. You must answer this part in Short Response
format.
*This will utilize the first two steps of the PPA:
1. Define the Problem
2. Gather Evidence
Review: Overview of Trial
Sacco and Vanzetti were accused of the murders of Frederick Parmenter, a paymaster,
and Alessandro Berardelli, a security guard, at the Slater-Morrill Shoe Company, on
Pearl Street in Braintree Massachusetts during the afternoon of April 15, 1920.
Vanzetti was further charged with the theft of $15,776.51 from the company.
Police suspicions regarding the Braintree robbery-murder and an earlier attempted
robbery in Bridgewater, Massachusetts centered on local Italian anarchists. While
neither Sacco nor Vanzetti had a criminal record, the authorities knew them as radical
militants and adherents of Luigi Gallenaei Police connected the crimes and the recent
activities of the Galleanist anarchist movement, speculating that the robbers were
motivated by the need to finance more bombings.
The two men were arrested in Brockton, Massachusetts on May 5, 1920, after
appearing at a garage to pick up a car that police believed was used in the robberies.
Both had pistols on them, along with anarchist literature, and Vanzetti was carrying
shotgun shells similar to those used in the holdups.
Vanzetti was first tried for the armed robbery in Bridgewater and convicted. Both men
were then tried for the Braintree crimes and convicted. After several failed appeals
over six years, Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in the electric chair on August 23,
1927
Source: http://saccoandvanzetti.org/
The Evidence
Click on the link here to look over the
evidence from the trial.
Make sure you look through the entire list
to see all of the evidence.
• Click here for a poem about the trial of
Sacco and Vanzetti
Reminder!
Use the skills taught to you
during this year to analyze
political cartoons.
Make sure you identify
people/symbols
Read all text
Determine the overall
message of the author
Source: http://superitch.com/?p=11510
Source: http://bill.ballpaul.net/iaph/main.php?g2_itemId=1078
Was the Government Right to
Execute Sacco & Vanzetti?
• Now that you have looked at the evidence, read
a poem and looked at some political cartoons,
decide as a group if Massachusetts had enough
evidence to execute Sacco & Vanzetti.
Remember to use the short answer format used
in ELA & Social Studies! You may type your
response if you would like.