From 'Peaceable Kingdom' to 'Wild West': Violence and Crime on the Early American Frontier

Project start date: 2006-04 Project end date: 2011-08
The research project is an historical study of violence and crime on the Early American frontier, examining the extent to which, and reasons why, the early American frontier became the locus of such violence and disorder. The databases available are collections of petty criminal cases from the court of common pleas and court of quarter sessions for 13 counties in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio, USA and Ontario, Canada, ranging in date from 1730 to 1820. In addition there is tax data in 26 datasets for the same counties, covering the same dates. The datasets being made available are not the principal output of the project but part of the research methods. The data itself will not be available until January 2011—the project concludes in August 2011.
Subject domains: 
Era(s): 
Country/region(s): 
Methods usedCategory
Funding sources: 
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Digital resource created:  
Fully searchable open access online databases with predefined queries (using SQL data) of court records and tax data with restricted login access to download full datasets—available only to researchers in UK HEIs.

Institutions affiliated with this project: 

UK HE institutions involved:
University of Dundee

Project staff and expertise: 

Principal staff member:Dr Matthew C. Ward
Other staff:
External expertise:


Metadata on this arts-humanities.net record
Author(s) of recordAnna Winterbottom
TitleFrom 'Peaceable Kingdom' to 'Wild West': Violence and Crime on the Early American Frontier
Record created2010-06-21
Record updated2011-01-24 16:40
URL of recordhttp://www.arts-humanities.net/node/3890
Citation of recordAnna Winterbottom: From 'Peaceable Kingdom' to 'Wild West': Violence and Crime on the Early American Frontier.
<http://www.arts-humanities.net/node/3890>
created: 2010-06-21, last updated 2011-01-24 16:40