Heroes of their own lives: the politics and history of family violence : Boston, 1880-1960

Description

In this unflinching history of family violence, the historian Linda Gordon traces policies on child abuse and neglect, wife-beating, and incest from 1880 to 1960. Drawing on hundreds of case records from social agencies devoted to dealing with the problem, Gordon chronicles the changing visibility of family violence as gender, family, and political ideologies shifted. From the "discovery" of family violence in the 1870s–-when it was first identified as a social, rather than personal, problem–-to the women's and civil rights movements of the twentieth century, Heroes of Their Own Lives illustrates how public perceptions of marriage, poverty, alcoholism, mental illness, and responsibility worked for and against the victims of family violence. Powerful, moving, and tightly argued, Heroes of Their Own Lives shows family violence to be an indicator of larger social problems. Examining its sources as well as its treatment, Gordon offers both an honest understanding of the problem and an unromantic view of the difficulties in stopping it. Frontmatter Preface and Acknowledgements 1 Introduction 2 "The Cruelty": Child Protection, 1880-1910 3 The Progressive-Era Transformation of Child Protection, 1900-1920 4 Single Mothers and the Contradictions of Child-Protection Policy 5 "So Much fo rthe Children Now, So Little Before": Child Neglect and Parental Responsibility 6 "Only to Bring My Children Up Good": Child Abuse and Social Change 7 "Be Careful About Father": Incest, Girls' Resistance, and the Construction of Femininity 8 "The Powers of the Weak": Wife-Beating and Battered Women's Resistance 9 Conclusion: Social Control and the "Powers of the Weak" Appendix A: Research and Analysis Methods Appendix B: Client Characteristics Notes Index