TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Acknowledgment 1
Introduction 3
Authors Foreword 7
I: Child Abuse on the Western Frontier 9
Children's Frontier Experience 10
Abuse of Frontier Orphans 14
Story of the Most Famous Orphans of the Old West: The Sager Children 15
Afterword to the Sager Story 36
Abuse of Stepchildren on the Frontier 37
Abuse by Frontier Birth Parents 38
Story of Stock Detective Hanged for Murdering a Teenager: Tom Horn 38
Afterword to the Horn Story 40
Sexual Abuse of Frontier Children 40
Seepage of Frontier Violence into the Home 42
Story of a Most-wanted Outlaw: John Wesley Hardin 42
Afterword to the Hardin Story 45
Story of a Child Witness to Lynchings: Mollie Sheehan 46
Institutional Violence Sanctioned by Parents 51
Effects of Violence on Frontier Children 54
Status of Children on the Frontier 57
II: Spousal Battery on the Frontier 59
Status of Women on the Frontier 60
Abusive Frontier Wives 64
Abusive Frontier Husbands 64
Story of Abusive Husband Who Pursued His Wife Through Five States:
John and Sarah Grannis 67
Afterword to Grannis Story 97
III: Domestic Tragedies on the Frontier 101
Stories of Two Oregon Trail Children: Elvina Apperson and Mary Allen 102
Story of a Gold-rush Gambler’s Wife: Lucinda Vedder 105
Story of the First Woman Sentenced to Hang by the State of California:
Emma LeDoux 127
Question of Emma's Guilt 179
Afterword to LeDoux Story 182
Retrospect on Domestic Tragedies 183
IV: Epilogue 185
About the author 189
Notes 191
Bibliography 203
Index 209