Title We shall be no more : suicide and self-government in the newly United States / Richard Bell

Published Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2012

Click on the following:
EBSCO eBooks
ProQuest Ebook Central

Copies

Description 1 online resource (332 pages) : illustrations Contents Suicide and the state of the union -- The sorrows of young readers -- Saving sinking strangers -- Wounds in the belly of the state -- The threshold of heaven -- The problem of slave resistance Summary 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 Though suicide is an individual act, Richard Bell reveals its broad social implications in early America. From Revolution to Reconstruction, everyone--parents, newspapermen, ministers and abolitionists alike--debated the meaning of suicide as a portent of danger or of possibility in a new nation struggling to define itself and its power Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 269-317) and index Notes Print version record SUBJECT Umschulungswerkstätten für Siedler und Auswanderer Bitterfeld gnd Subject Suicide -- United States -- History Suicide -- Political aspects -- United States Suicide -- Moral and ethical aspects -- United States Suicide in mass media. Suicide -- Social aspects -- United States Suicide -- history Suicide -- ethics PSYCHOLOGY -- Suicide. Suicide Suicide in mass media Suicide -- Moral and ethical aspects Suicide -- Social aspects Suizid Öffentliche Meinung Sozialordnung Selbstmord. Geschichte. Självmord -- historia. Självmord -- politiska aspekter. Självmord -- etik och moral. Självmord -- sociala aspekter. United States USA. Genre/Form History Form Electronic book LC no. 2011019574 ISBN 9780674068698 0674068696 9780674064799 0674064798

  Permalink