Grace Mae Brown (March 20, 1886 – July 11, 1906) was an
American skirt factory worker whose murder caused a nationwide sensation, and whose life inspired the
fictional character Roberta Alden in the
Theodore Dreiser novel,
An American Tragedy, as well as the
Jennifer Donnelly novel,
A Northern Light.
Shelley Winters was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance inspired by Grace Brown, with the name changed to 'Alice Tripp' in
A Place in the Sun. The facts of the real murder are laid out in the two non-fiction books: Adirondack Tragedy: The Gillette Murder Case of 1906
, written by Joseph W. Brownell and Patricia A. Wawrzaszek, and Murder in the Adirondacks: An American Tragedy Revisited
, by Craig Brandon.