Infanticide and Infant Abandonment in the New South

Richmond, Virginia, 1865-1915

Bibliographic Data

ID6080427
AuthorsElna C Green (Florida State University, corresponding author)
Year1999
Volume24
Issue2
Pages187-211
Publication date1999-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Family History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0363-1990 • E-ISSN: 1552-5473
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/036319909902400204
PMID11623656
OpenAlexW2027042296
LanguageEN
Citations received8

The Civil War and Reconstruction and the South's postbellum industrialization produced economic dislocation on a tremendous scale. One product of that economic upheaval was an increasing problem of infanticides and infant abandonments. This case study of Richmond, Virginia, examines patterns of abandonment and neonaticide as documented in records of the city almshouse and the city coroner. It demonstrates that race shaped the options available to women with problem pregnancies in that African American women had access to fewer social welfare institutions such as maternity homes. As a result, unmarried black women kept their out-of-wedlock babies more often than did whites, but they also committed infanticide at higher rates than did whites. Moreover, racial trends in infanticides and infant abandonment suggest that Richmond's white working class experienced economic advancements at the turn of the twentieth century, while the city's black working class continued to live in depression-like conditions throughout the period

Archaeology · Coroner · Environmental health · Great Depression · Industrialisation · Poison control · Political science · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Suicide prevention · Welfare · Demography · History · Homelessness and Social Issues · Homicide, Infanticide, and Child Abuse · Law · Medicine

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