Roth, Randolph. "Child Murder In New England." Social Science History 25.1 (2001): 101. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Feb. 2014. (Lawless)
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Randolph A. Roth “[. . .] is currently completing Child Murder in America, a study of homicides of and by children from colonial times to the present” (Ohio State University). In his work “”Child Murder in New England” Roth writes about child murders that happened in New England for hundreds of years. He tries to determine what motivated mothers or fathers to murder their infants. Roth writes “Like many species of animals, human beings in every society studied to date are more likely to be murdered on the day they are born than on any other day of their lives [. . .]. The murder rate drops dramatically on the second day of life, as parents and guardians bond emotionally with the child” (Roth 107). After stating this Roth goes on to state various cases where women murdered their children the day of the birth. Roth writes “White women in New England who did murder their newborn children often faced special circumstances [. . .]Such women could not be helped by improved economic and demographic circumstances. They could not solve their problems by marrying eligible men, because they were already married or had damaged their reputations irreparably. ” Roth's work is filled with graphs and diagrams as well as statistics of the number of husbands, wives, and children murdered. This is a very interesting read because it focuses on the very difficult decisions that women of varying eras had to make concerning children. Be warned however, this work is dramatic and graphic concerning the ways that the mothers murdered their children. (Lawless).
This is a link to Roth's biography page.
https://history.osu.edu/directory/Roth5
This is a link to Roth's biography page.
https://history.osu.edu/directory/Roth5