Although she played the titular older sister Emma Borden (who was nine years Lizzie's senior), Joan Lorring was fifteen years younger than Carmen Mathews (Lizzie) in real life.
This episode takes place in Fall River, Massachusetts in August 1893.
This is the first episode to feature historical figures as characters.
Nell Cutts, a journalist for "The Sacramento Record", is based on the pioneering late 19th Century American journalist Nellie Bly.