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.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |62 pages
Overviews
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
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