The Secret Life of the Lawman's Wife

"For more than two centuries, county jails in the US operated as family businesses. Sheriffs had to be elected, but once in office, wives and children made the system work with their unpaid and often unrecognized labor. Wives provided cooking, cleaning, and backup security. Alderman seeks to correct this oversight by writing this book on the wives and families of county sheriffs. The author gathered stories from 65 informants, utilized county archives and newspapers, and mined local jailhouse records. She includes a helpful alphabetical index of the 158 jailhouse family members referenced in the text, and another index organized by state and county. The information is excellent. Interestingly, some wives took over for deceased husbands, ran for office in their own right, and won the right to serve as female sheriffs. More attention could be paid to class and gender in analyzing the experiences of the lawman's wife, particularly when the wife was the lawman (lawperson?). Alderman organized her book topically and collapsed all space and time, so that an incident in the early 19th century stands next to a story from the mid-20th century. This ahistorical quality makes the volume more useful as a coffee table book than as professional historical analysis. Recommended. General readers/public libraries." - Choice