In his book Wounded Innocents, writer Richard Wexler recounts the testimony of eight-year-old Mary Ellen Wilson in the first U.S. court case concerning child abuse. The year was 1874:

Mama has been in the habit of whipping and beating me almost every day. She used to whip me with a twisted whip, a raw hide. The whip always left a black and blue mark on my body. I have now the black and blue marks on my head which were made by mama, and also a cut on the left side of my forehead which was made by a pair of scissors. She struck me with the scissors and cut me . . . I do not know for what I was whipped—mama never said anything to me when she whipped me.

Interestingly, this case was brought before the court by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty...