ABSTRACT

Over the Threshold is the first in-depth work to explore the topic of intimate violence in the American colonies and the early Republic. The essays examine domestic violence in both urban and frontier environments, between husbands and wives, parents and children, and masters and slaves. This compelling collection puts commonly held notions about intimate violence under strict historical scrutiny, often producing surprising results.

part |62 pages

Overviews

chapter two|23 pages

Personal Violence in a “Peaceable Kingdom”

Pennsylvania, 1682–1801

chapter three|18 pages

Governing the Passions

The Eighteenth-Century Quest for Domestic Harmony in Philadelphia's Middle-Class Households

part |107 pages

Husbands, Wives, and Lovers

chapter five|17 pages

“My Mind is to Drown You and Leave you Behind”

“Omie Wise,” Intimate Violence, and Masculinity

chapter six|24 pages

“He Murdered Her Because He Loved Her”

Passion, Masculinity, and Intimate Homicide in Antebellum America

chapter seven|13 pages

“A New Home” For Whom?

Caroline Kirkland Exposes Domestic Abuse on the Michigan Frontier

chapter eight|22 pages

Keeping the Peace

Domestic Assault and Private Prosecution in Antebellum Baltimore

part |46 pages

Parents and Children

chapter nine|12 pages

“Unnatural Mothers”

Infanticide, Motherhood, and Class in the Mid-Atlantic, 1730–1830

chapter ten|17 pages

Laying Claim to Elizabeth Shoemaker

Family Violence on Baltimore's Waterfront, 1808–1812

chapter eleven|15 pages

Decorous Violence

Manners, Class, and Abuse in Rebecca Rush's Kelroy

part |69 pages

Masters, Servants, and Slaves

chapter twelve|18 pages

“As If There was not Master or Woman in the Land”

Gender, Dependency, and Household Violence in Virginia, 1646–1720

chapter thirteen|17 pages

Theater of Terror

Domestic Violence in Thomas Thistlewood's Jamaica, 1750–1786

chapter fourteen|14 pages

“I have Got the Gun and Will do as I Please with Her”

African-Americans and Violence in Maryland, 1782–1830

chapter fifteen|18 pages

Within the Slave Cabin

Violence in Mississippi Slave Families