This was my doctoral dissertation at the University of Oregon, and I was very fortunate to receive the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation's Charlotte Newcombe dissertation fellowship which led to a book contract from Harvard University Press. The incredible sources that I stumbled across made the book.
I recall spending eight hours with divorce records from the 1920s in the basement of a Central Oregon maintenance shed and becoming so engrossed that I missed the shift change and was unable to leave for another eight hours--and not caring. I truly had the sense of uncovering hidden lives and histories; the project took over my life for years.
Purchase
"A fascinating and rich study of violence against women, meticulously researched and replete with the voices of men and women. . . . Peterson del Mar has crafted a careful social history, one in which he argues and demonstrates cogently that violence against wives and wives' response to that violence have varied over time and have always been shaped by the social context--material, ideological, environmental, political." Regina Morantz-Sanchez, University of Michigan
"This is a fascinating book, with a bold and clear argument and a host of insights into family life and standards. . . ." Peter N. Stearns, American Historical Review
"In What Trouble I Have Seen, Peterson Del Mar paints an extraordinary landscape of men's violence against wives, the forms of women's resistance to male violence, and nonviolent men's complicity with the ideas that underpin such violence. . . Peterson Del Mar's writing is clear and often moving. His effective use of the testimonies of those who have seen trouble, those who have meted out trouble, and those who have relegated it makes this a compelling read." Carole J. Sheffield, Signs
I recall spending eight hours with divorce records from the 1920s in the basement of a Central Oregon maintenance shed and becoming so engrossed that I missed the shift change and was unable to leave for another eight hours--and not caring. I truly had the sense of uncovering hidden lives and histories; the project took over my life for years.
Purchase
"A fascinating and rich study of violence against women, meticulously researched and replete with the voices of men and women. . . . Peterson del Mar has crafted a careful social history, one in which he argues and demonstrates cogently that violence against wives and wives' response to that violence have varied over time and have always been shaped by the social context--material, ideological, environmental, political." Regina Morantz-Sanchez, University of Michigan
"This is a fascinating book, with a bold and clear argument and a host of insights into family life and standards. . . ." Peter N. Stearns, American Historical Review
"In What Trouble I Have Seen, Peterson Del Mar paints an extraordinary landscape of men's violence against wives, the forms of women's resistance to male violence, and nonviolent men's complicity with the ideas that underpin such violence. . . Peterson Del Mar's writing is clear and often moving. His effective use of the testimonies of those who have seen trouble, those who have meted out trouble, and those who have relegated it makes this a compelling read." Carole J. Sheffield, Signs