Suicide is a quintessentially individual act, yet one with unexpectedly broad social implications. Though seen today as a private phenomenon, in the uncertain aftermath of the American Revolution this personal act seemed to many to be a public threat that held no less than the fate of the fledgling Republic in its grip. Salacious novelists and eager newspapermen broadcast images of a young nation rapidly destroying itself. Parents, physicians, ministers, and magistrates debated the meaning of self-destruction and whether it could (or should) be prevented. Jailers and justice officials rushed to thwart condemned prisoners who made halters from bedsheets, while abolitionists used slave suicides as testimony to both the ravages of the peculiar institution and the humanity of its victims. Struggling to create a viable political community out of extraordinary national turmoil, these interest groups invoked self-murder as a means to confront the most consequential questions facing the newly united states: What is the appropriate balance between individual liberty and social order? Who owns the self? And how far should the control of the state (or the church, or a husband, or a master) extend over the individual? With visceral prose and an abundance of evocative primary sources, Richard Bell lays bare the ways in which self-destruction in early America was perceived as a transgressive challenge to embodied authority, a portent of both danger and possibility. His unique study of suicide between the Revolution and Reconstruction uncovers what was at stake—personally and politically—in the nation’s fraught first decades.

Excerpt from Bibliotheca Americana: Catalogue of American Publications, Including Reprints and Original Works, From 1820 to 1848, Inclusive Mother' 8 Medical Guide, 12mo cl Man of Two Worlds,18mo cl Sabbath School as it should be, 12mo cl Slate and Black-board Exercises, 18mo Tea. And Cofi'ee, their Effects on the Human System, 18mo pap Word to Teachers Young Housekeeper, cl Husbz111d, cl Man' 8 Guide, cl Woman's Guide, cl Wife, 01 on Vegetable Diet, 12mo cl 011 the Use of Tobacco, 18mo pap B., Conversations with Children 011 the Gos pels, 2 v.12mo Produce Tables, or Ready Calculator, shp 'alda, the Captive, by Agnes Strickland. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.