Wife Murder in Chicago: 1910-1930

Abstract

Between 1910 and 1930, at least 391 women were intentionally killed by their husbands in Chicago. This is a relatively small subset of all the homicides in Chicago over this period, approximately 7297 in all. Nonetheless, it is clear that then, as now, homicide by an intimate partner was a leading cause of the premature death of women. This Article interrogates those 391 deaths for what they can tell us about marital disruption, domestic violence, and the lives of women in early-twentieth century America, and the extent to which they parallel or differ from the recent past. We discuss, among other things, the ethnicity, race, and age distribution of the victims, the apparent motivation for the murders, and the response of the criminal justice system-that is, the verdicts and/or sentences handed out, if any. To understand the implications of this data, we also explore the context in which these crimes occurred - the population changes, broader social and cultural trends that affected both the status of women and the institution of marriage, and the availability of reme­dies or services for victims of unhappy marriages, including the accessibility of both divorce and assistance for victims of domestic violence. From this examination, we draw a number of broader inferences about the continuing problem of marital violence, including wife murder, and society's response to it.