CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
EN/FR
Search
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Charles Becker

American police officer and convicted murderer

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 5, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Charles Becker was a lieutenant in the New York City Police Department between the 1890s and the 1910s. He was convicted of first degree murder and executed for the killing of Herman Rosenthal, a bookmaker and gambler, in 1912 near Times Square.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Charles Becker” as american police officer and convicted murderer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Charles, Becker and American.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1912—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Charles, Becker and American providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Charles Becker”, the useful work is to connect “american police officer and convicted murderer” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1912.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Charles Becker”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Charles Becker primary sources, Charles Becker archive and Charles research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Charles Becker”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Charles Becker” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.