I read some newspaper accounts of the trial many years ago, and what I found particularly striking was the us-and-them attitude of the Yankees- for example, referring to a Swedish maid as "a Portuguese", which in Fall River obviously meant a non-Yankee. (Note: Whereas a Yankee is an American to you guys, over here it's a Northerner to a Southerner, a New Englander to a Northerner, and a descendant of English settlers to a New Englander.)
Fall River has fallen on hard times, but I've always thought it was beautifully situated (you can tell that from looking at a map); it looks magnificent at night when you approach it from the west (from Providence), over the bridge. It still has the enormous granite mills, but my wife calls it the vinyl-siding capital of the world.