“With No One Present With Her But Her Mother”: Infanticide and Social Childbirth in the Post-Civil War U.S. South

Historians have long characterized infanticide as an act committed by unmarried women alone and in secret. However, this article demonstrates that in the post-Civil War U.S. South, the grandmothers of deceased infants, or the mothers of women accused of killing their newborns, were frequently suspected of having aided their daughters. This essay draws on local court records, coroners’ inquests, and newspaper reports involving Black and White women from South Carolina to explore this overlooked aspect of historical infanticide and to situate the participation of grandmothers in coroners’ inquests, criminal trials, and infanticide itself within the broader context of social childbirth.