Query From Barbara Behr babehr@aol.com 20 March 2000

I am taking a class concerning women and the family until 1870. I am interested in learning more about women and crime in American in the 17th and 18th centuries. I have found several websites and books on the subject but there is only slight reference to crimes committed by women during these centuries.

I am interested in what types of offenses were committed by women during this time, how they were punished, and what percent of criminal offenders were male vs. female. Thanks for any information...

Responses:

Branson, Susan _Beyond Respectability: The Female World of Love and Crime in Late 18th and Early 19th Century Philadelphia, Studies in 18th Century Culture_

Dayton, Cornelia Hughes _Women Before the Bar: Gender, Law & society in Connecticut, 1769-1789 (U of North Carolina Press, 1995)._ ___________article re: abortion where the mother died but doctor is prosecuted in Stanley Katz ,et al _Colonial America: Essays in Politics and Social Development_.

Hoffer, Peter _Murdering Mothers_

Jones, Ann _Women Who Kill_ (Beacon Press, 1996).

Rowe, Gail S. "Women's Crime and Criminal Administration in Pennsylvania,1763-1790" (Pennsylvania Magazine Hits. and Biog. 1985)