Another Instance of That Fearful Crime: The Criminalization of Infanticide in Antebellum New York City

My paper explores the criminalization of infanticide and infant abandonment in mid-nineteenth-century New York City. In particular, I analyze changing sexual mores and ideas of maternal sentiment in the antebellum period and their influence on infanticide indictments and convictions. According to coroners’ reports and court records, although indictment rates for infanticide suspects increased over the nineteenth century, judges acquitted nearly all women suspected of infanticide in antebellum New York City. Authorities’ reluctance to convict women speaks to the daunting task prosecuting attorneys faced in securing convictions. Inadequate forensic evidence coupled with an honorable reputation often precipitated a suspect’s acquittal in an infanticide trial.

As a result, most infanticides went unpunished; few, however, went unnoticed. Despite authorities’ difficulty proving infanticide, cases piqued public interest and concern. New Yorkers’ preoccupation with these crimes elicited the attention of medical and legal experts, as they were called upon to help adjudicate cases, as well as to initiate reforms to thwart increasing infanticide rates in the growing city, endeavors indicative of the perceived threat the crime posed to social order and Victorian womanhood. Thus, I examine women’s experiences with unwanted pregnancy and the social and legal reactions to infanticide to illuminate fertility control in the antebellum United States and the class tensions, gender hierarchies, and power relations that governed and shaped New York law and society.