TY - JOUR PY - 2014// TI - Violent roots: Lethal violence in two counties in early statehood Washington JO - Journal of interpersonal violence A1 - Lee, Heeuk D. A1 - Stout, Kelly Rae A1 - Neuilly, Melanie-Angela SP - 417 EP - 439 VL - 29 IS - 3 N2 - Was the American Western Frontier a violent place? While many agree with the popular Wild West conception, others argue for a Workaday, quiet version of the West. The Wild West/Workaday West debate is an important one because some argue that current levels of violence in the United States are a result of the Western history of violence. Unfortunately, establishing such a history of violence is difficult because of methodological issues. We propose here to address these methodological issues and participate in the Wild West/Workaday West debate. We examine two death records sources for Walla Walla and Spokane counties in Eastern Washington between 1903 and 1907. We find that the two Northwestern counties under study were more violent at the beginning of the 20th century than at the beginning of the 21st century, even though Walla Walla was significantly less violent than Spokane.
Language: en
LA - en SN - 0886-2605 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0886260513505704 ID - ref1 ER -