The study explored the social behavior surrounding the commission of and response to infanticide, and attempted to reconstruct actual rates of infanticide. It investigated criminal proceedings, newspaper accounts and, where available, coroner's inquests. Infanticide rates varied over both time and space. It was relatively uncommon in Holmes County, where religious, linguistic, and geographic barriers created insular communities (e.g., the Amish and Mennonites) that allowed the inhabitants to enforce community standards that prevented infanticide. The sexual activities that would lead to unwanted pregnancies were limited by the same factors that constrained infanticides. Infanticide occurred more frequently in Ross County, where residents exhibited higher rates of general homicidal violence. In both counties, rates of homicide in general and infanticide in particular were influenced by local events such as the building of the Ohio Canal through Ross County at the end of the 1820s and by national events such as the Civil War. Appendix, notes