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The Secret Life of the Lawman's Wife de Barbara J. Alderman

The Secret Life of the Lawman's Wife

Autor Barbara J. Alderman
en Limba Engleză Hardback – 29 noi 2006 – vârsta până la 17 ani
During an era when many women concentrated on hearth and home, thousands of women quietly and without pay served in law enforcement. They organized, administered, presented reports to county commissioners, prepared for inspections, comforted victims, disciplined unruly inmates, fought with escapees, rode shotgun with their husbands as backup, and raised children, tended gardens, and kept house. They risked their lives every day and some paid the ultimate price. This is their story.The office of county sheriff has existed in America since 1634. Between 1800 and 1960, families of the sheriff lived in or near the jail. All family members, young and old, worked alongside the lawman to fulfill the required duties, without additional pay. The mom and pop jail was truly a family business. After the middle of the 20th century, fewer families carried on this tradition as counties modernized and jails became professionalized.
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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9780275993054
ISBN-10: 0275993051
Pagini: 240
Dimensiuni: 156 x 235 x 24 mm
Greutate: 0.54 kg
Editura: Bloomsbury Publishing
Colecția Praeger
Locul publicării:New York, United States

Notă biografică

BJ Alderman has published articles in several popular magazines, including Chronicle of the Old West, and American Western Magazine.

Cuprins

PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. What's a Nice Girl Like You . . .?2. First Days on Duty3. Home Sweet Home4. Behind the Scenes5. Mrs. Sheriff's Hat Tree6. With a Little Help from My Trustees7. It Takes a County8. Wedding Bands and Badges9. With a Little Help from My Young'uns10. With a Pistol in Her (Apron) Pocket11. Here's the Grocery Bill, Honey12. Loaves and Fishes13. Bootlegging Babysitters, Straight Pins, and Whirligigs14. Guests of the County15. Pa, I Hear Them Sawing Again16. Escape Encounters of the Fourth Kind17. Nerves of Steel-or Not18. An Unglamorous and Thankless Job19. 'Til Death Do Us Part20. The Final ChapterAppendix 1. Jailhouse Family Members Who Provided InformationAppendix 2. Alphabetical Listing of Jailhouse WivesAppendix 3. Jailhouse Wives by State and CountyNotesBibliography and Recommended ReadingIndex

Recenzii

For more than two centuries, county jails in the US operated as family businesses. Sheriffs had to be elected, but once in office, wives and children made the system work with their unpaid and often unrecognized labor. Wives provided cooking, cleaning, and backup security. Alderman seeks to correct this oversight by writing this book on the wives and families of county sheriffs. The author gathered stories from 65 informants, utilized county archives and newspapers, and mined local jailhouse records. She includes a helpful alphabetical index of the 158 jailhouse family members referenced in the text, and another index organized by state and county. The information is excellent. Interestingly, some wives took over for deceased husbands, ran for office in their own right, and won the right to serve as female sheriffs. More attention could be paid to class and gender in analyzing the experiences of the lawman's wife, particularly when the wife was the lawman (lawperson?). Alderman organized her book topically and collapsed all space and time, so that an incident in the early 19th century stands next to a story from the mid-20th century. This ahistorical quality makes the volume more useful as a coffee table book than as professional historical analysis. Recommended. General readers/public libraries.
Until the 1960s, the typical American jail was a small unit operated by the local sheriff and his wife. While the sheriff functioned as the lawman, the day-to-day management of the jail was overseen by his wife. Although neither paid nor recognized for their efforts, these Mrs. Sheriffs fed and disciplined the inmates, comforted the victims, fought with escapees, and served as backups for their husbands while keeping house, raising children, and tending gardens. Although volumes have been written about the lawmen, their wives have been almost totally ignored. Now, Alderman, a journalist whose specialty is the American West, has gathered interviews, snippets of local histories, letters, and diaries to come up with stories about the secret, or, more aptly, overlooked lives of the lawmen's wives..These stories, captivating, and sometimes incredible, should appeal to history buffs, women's studies, and people who simply want a good read. All public libraries should consider.
One night in 1853, you are jailed for shooting at your neighbor. You are taken to jail by the sheriff your particulars are written down in a ledger by the sheriff's wife, who also locks you in and brings you a home-made meal. Unbeknownst to you she also takes a statement from your intended victim and comforts his children, prepares the report on your arrest, cleans the empty cells, tidies her own home in the corner of the jail building, feeds her husband and children, and settles down to repair the jail linen. You are not being paid for your time in the jail, and neither is she. Alderman accounts for the lives of these hitherto largely unknown women, whose work sustained the law enforcement system of the US for generations and whose work was eliminated as the enterprise stopped being a cottage industry.