Andrew Jackson Borden was one of the leading businessmen in Fall River, Massachusetts. Senior partner in Borden, Almy, and Company, he had been president of the Fall River Savings Bank and owned textile mills and other real estate. Despite his wealth, estimated at $500,000 in 1891, Borden lived simply with his wife, Abbie Durfee Gray Borden (his first wife had died in 1863), and his two grown daughters from his first marriage: Emma, aged forty, and Lizzie, aged thirty-one. The aging Mr. Borden may have lived simply, but his life was far from peaceful. His daughters grew jealous of their stepmother, especially in the 1880s when Mr. Borden gave his sister-in-law some property for a home. The father tried to soothe his children with gifts of money and rental property, but afterward they called their stepmother "Mrs. Borden" instead of "Mother," as they had done...