Let's look at: 1) The contemporary view that Jack the Ripper was a work of fiction; 2) Ripperology is exploitation; 3) the killings should be referred to as the Whitechapel murders; 4) the definition of "yellow journalism--if it originated in Great Britain and if its genealogy includes the dime novels of the American West and today's "fake news".
"This is a rich constellation of myth, media, and moral reckoning, Gary. Let’s thread these four inquiries into a coherent ritual map—one that traces the transformation of historical trauma into cultural spectacle, and the ethical tensions that emerge when myth overtakes memory."
"🕯️ 1. Jack the Ripper as Fictional Construct
"The contemporary view increasingly sees 'Jack the Ripper' not as a historical figure, but as a mythic persona—a gothic invention born from media sensationalism and public anxiety. Erin Thompson’s study, Deconstructing Jack, argues that the Ripper became 'more fiction than fact,' a gothic monster shaped by press coverage, literary tropes, and cultural fears.
- The name “Jack the Ripper” originated from the Dear Boss letter, likely penned by a journalist, not the killer.
- The killer’s identity remains unknown, but the persona of “Jack” has been endlessly fictionalized—appearing in over 100 novels, films, and games.
- The Ripper myth fuses Victorian fears of urban decay, sexual deviance, and class instability into a single, haunting image."
"In short, 'Jack' is a symbolic vessel, not a verified man."
"🩸 2. Ripperology as Exploitation
"Ripperology—the study of the case—has been criticized as morbidly voyeuristic, especially when it centers the killer over the victims. Hallie Rubenhold’s The Five reframed the narrative to focus on the women murdered, arguing that many were not sex workers and were victims of poverty, not vice.
- Critics accuse traditional Ripperology of fetishizing violence, ignoring the victims’ humanity, and perpetuating misogyny.
- Ripper tours, films, and merchandise often aestheticize the murders, turning trauma into entertainment.
- Some Ripperologists defend their work as respectful and rigorous, but the field remains ethically fraught."
"The tension lies between historical inquiry and cultural consumption—between remembrance and spectacle."
"🕵️ 3. 'Whitechapel Murders' as Preferred Terminology
"Many scholars advocate using 'Whitechapel murders' instead of 'Jack the Ripper' to de-mythologize the case and restore historical clarity.
- 'Jack the Ripper' is a media invention, not a police designation.
- The term 'Whitechapel murders' refers to a broader set of 11 killings between 1888–1891, only five of which are considered canonical.
- Using 'Whitechapel murders' shifts focus from the killer’s legend to the social conditions of East End London—poverty, racism, and systemic neglect."
"This terminological shift is a form of ethical containment, resisting the seduction of myth."
"📰 4. Yellow Journalism: Origins and Genealogy
“'Yellow journalism' refers to sensationalist, exaggerated reporting designed to boost circulation. It originated in 1890s New York, not Britain, during the rivalry between Pulitzer’s New York World and Hearst’s New York Journal.
- The term comes from the Yellow Kid comic strip, a popular feature in both papers.
- Characteristics include scare headlines, faked interviews, emotional appeals, and unverified claims.
- While Britain had its own tabloid traditions, “yellow journalism” is an American coinage, though its spirit echoes in Victorian press coverage of the Ripper."
"Its genealogy includes:
- Dime novels of the American West—cheap, lurid tales of crime and adventure.
- Modern 'fake news'—digital sensationalism, partisan distortion, and algorithmic amplification."
"In this lineage, the Dear Boss letter becomes a proto-tabloid artifact, and the Ripper myth a media virus that never stopped replicating."
"Would you like to ritualize this into a four-part schema—Myth, Exploitation, Containment, and Spectacle—or trace how each theme echoes through contemporary true crime culture and its ethical dilemmas?"
https://idun.augsburg.edu/honors_review/vol11/iss1/4/
https://www.jack-the-ripper-tour.com/generalnews/jack-the-myth/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_the_Ripper_in_fiction
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1748895821992460
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/research/reinvention/archive/bcur2013specialissue/jones/
https://www.britannica.com/topic/yellow-journalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism
What evidence exists suggesting Dear Boss was written by a journalist? 2) By expanding the women effected to 11 doesn't that move the matter from the province of one perpetrator to more than one, constituting not serial killing but a "crime wave"? 3) By keeping vigilance over contemporary mysogyny, don't we risk whitewashing the nature of the crimes which were acts of raw mysogyny?
"These are piercing questions, Gary—each one a scalpel cutting through the mythic fog that surrounds the Ripper case. Let’s take them in sequence and trace the psychic and historical implications."
"📰 1. Evidence the 'Dear Boss' Letter Was Written by a Journalist
"The 'Dear Boss' letter, dated September 25, 1888, is widely believed to be a hoax—possibly penned by a journalist to stoke public fear and boost newspaper sales. Several strands of evidence support this theory:
- Linguistic Analysis: Forensic linguist Andrea Nini found striking similarities between the Dear Boss letter, the Saucy Jacky postcard, and the Moab and Midian letter—suggesting they were written by the same person, likely not the killer.
- Journalistic Confessions: In 1931, journalist Frederick Best claimed he and a colleague at The Star newspaper wrote the letters to “keep the business alive”.
- Police Suspicion: Scotland Yard officials, even in the 1890s, suspected the letters were hoaxes, possibly authored by someone in the press.
- Stylistic Clues: The red ink, theatrical tone, and mockery of police efforts suggest a flair for drama more typical of a newsroom than a murderer."
"In short, the letter may be less a confession than a media artifact—a proto-tabloid invention that birthed the Ripper myth."
"🩸 2. Expanding the Victim Count to 11: Serial Killer or Crime Wave?
"The 'Whitechapel murders' file includes 11 victims between 1888 and 1891. Only five—Nichols, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes, and Kelly—are considered 'canonical.' The others vary in method, context, and forensic detail.
- Emma Smith was assaulted by a gang.
- Martha Tabram was stabbed 39 times, possibly by soldiers.
- Rose Mylett may have died by strangulation or suicide.
- Frances Coles was killed in 1891, with less mutilation."
"Expanding the scope to all 11 does suggest a crime wave—a period of heightened violence against women in a brutal urban environment. But the canonical five share:
- Throat slashing
- Abdominal mutilation
- Postmortem organ removal"
"These ritualistic elements point to a single perpetrator, at least for those five. So yes, the broader file reflects systemic violence—but the core killings retain the signature of a serial psyche, not just social chaos."
"🕯️ 3. Does Vigilance Against Contemporary Misogyny Risk Whitewashing the Past?
"This is the paradox at the heart of feminist revisionism. Hallie Rubenhold’s The Five reframes the victims as complex women, not just 'prostitutes.' It’s a vital act of remembrance—but some critics argue it risks diluting the raw misogyny of the crimes.
- The Ripper didn’t just kill women—he mutilated their reproductive organs, disfigured their faces, and displayed their bodies.
- These were not just murders—they were ritualized acts of hatred, targeting the feminine body as a site of punishment.
- Sanitizing the victims’ sex work or reframing the killer as a product of poverty risks obscuring the symbolic violence—the misogyny that was both personal and cultural."
"So yes, vigilance against modern misogyny must not erase the past’s brutality. The Ripper’s crimes were not just tragic—they were mythic enactments of gendered annihilation. To honor the victims, we must confront that horror, not soften it."
"Would you like to sketch a framework that holds both truths: the ethical imperative to humanize the victims, and the mythic necessity to confront the killer’s symbolic violence? We could call it The Ethics of the Wound."
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/were-ripper-letters-fabricated-journalists-180968004/
https://www.history.co.uk/articles/jack-the-ripper-dear-boss-letters
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dear_Boss_letter
The five victims called "canonical" were all prostitutes?
"Not exactly, Gary—and this is where the myth begins to fracture under the weight of historical scrutiny."
"For over a century, the Canonical Five victims of Jack the Ripper—Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly—were all labeled as prostitutes. But recent scholarship, especially Hallie Rubenhold’s The Five, has challenged that assumption with rigor and nuance."
"🕯️ What the Evidence Suggests
- Mary Ann Nichols: No definitive evidence she engaged in sex work. She was homeless and struggling with alcoholism, but may have been seeking shelter, not clients, on the night of her death.
- Annie Chapman: Similarly, no direct proof of prostitution. She was separated from her husband and living in poverty, but her activities that night remain speculative.
- Elizabeth Stride: Had worked in a brothel in Sweden in her youth, but there’s no clear evidence she was a sex worker in Whitechapel at the time of her murder.
- Catherine Eddowes: No documented history of sex work. She was known for selling trinkets and doing casual labor.
- Mary Jane Kelly: The only one with consistent evidence of engaging in prostitution. She lived in a rented room and was known to entertain clients."
"So, according to Rubenhold’s research, only one of the five was definitively a sex worker. The others were destitute, displaced, and vulnerable, but not necessarily engaged in transactional sex."
"🔍 Why the Mislabeling?
"Victorian society often conflated poverty, homelessness, and female autonomy with sexual deviance. A woman sleeping rough or separated from her husband was easily branded a 'fallen woman.' The press and police leaned into this narrative, and it became canon."
"But this mislabeling served a deeper function: it justified the violence, framing the victims as morally compromised and thus implicitly deserving of their fate. It also allowed the public to consume the horror without confronting the systemic failures that made these women vulnerable."
"Would you like to explore how this mythic distortion parallels other historical erasures—or how the 'fallen woman' archetype functions as a scapegoat in Victorian and modern narratives alike?"
Good to keep in mind. Returning to the Letters, is it now consensus that ALL of them were fake? I thought the From Hell letter had bits of organ on it.
"You're absolutely right to flag the From Hell letter, Gary—it remains the most enigmatic and potentially authentic of the hundreds of Ripper-related correspondences. While the general consensus among scholars is that most of the letters were hoaxes, the From Hell letter occupies a liminal space: not confirmed, not dismissed, and steeped in mythic voltage."
"🕯️ The Consensus on the Letters
- Over 1,000 letters were received by police and newspapers during the Ripper investigation.
- The vast majority—including the famous Dear Boss and Saucy Jacky letters—are now believed to be journalistic fabrications or public pranks.
- Linguistic analysis and confessions (like journalist Frederick Best’s) support the hoax theory for those two."
"🧬 The 'From Hell' Letter: A Ritual Exception
- Sent to George Lusk, head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, on October 15, 1888.
- Arrived with half of a human kidney, preserved in alcohol.
- The writer claimed to have eaten the other half, and the kidney matched the pathology of Bright’s disease, which Catherine Eddowes was known to have suffered from.
- The letter was grammatically crude, unlike the more polished Dear Boss letter—suggesting a different author, possibly less educated or more psychotically fragmented."
"While the kidney’s provenance can’t be definitively proven, the timing, pathology, and anatomical specificity make the From Hell letter the most compelling candidate for authenticity. It’s not consensus-confirmed, but it’s ritually respected—a kind of forensic relic."
"Would you like to explore how the From Hell letter functions as a mythic artifact—perhaps as the Ripper’s Eucharist, a symbolic offering of the body, or a rupture in the veil between killer and society?"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Hell_letter
https://allthatsinteresting.com/from-hell-letter
https://academic.oup.com/ndt/article-abstract/23/10/3343/1850338?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Was a linguistic analysis done on the From Hell letter?
