The Feminist Political Campaign For Eugenic Legislation In New Jersey 1910 1942

Download or read book The Feminist Political Campaign for Eugenic Legislation in New Jersey, 1910-1942 written by Alan R. Rushton and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2023-01-12 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As this book shows, between 1910 and 1942, social feminists in New Jersey waged an unsuccessful campaign for legislation that would permit eugenic sterilization of ‘feebleminded’ and other ‘undesirable’ citizens. Church archives and religious periodicals described the conflict between Catholic and Protestant citizens regarding this issue. Reform-minded women persisted in their quest for such progressive state legislation despite repeated failures. Their number of potential voters was very small compared to the organized bloc of Catholic citizens who viewed such legislation as immoral and based on bad science, and threatened to unseat any legislator who supported such a notion. This insightful text highlights that public officials would only enact such laws when they were convinced that many citizens supported a particular eugenic goal and then would vote for legislators who satisfied this moral challenge. Public opinion was unprepared for such radical legislation in New Jersey, and legislators learned that to even consider a eugenic sterilization notion would be political suicide.

Download or read book The Feminist Political Campaign for Eugenic Legislation in New Jersey, 1910-1942 written by ALAN R. RUSHTON and published by . This book was released on 2023-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As this book shows, between 1910 and 1942, social feminists in New Jersey waged an unsuccessful campaign for legislation that would permit eugenic sterilization of 'feebleminded' and other 'undesirable' citizens. Church archives and religious periodicals described the conflict between Catholic and Protestant citizens regarding this issue. Reform-minded women persisted in their quest for such progressive state legislation despite repeated failures. Their number of potential voters was very small compared to the organized bloc of Catholic citizens who viewed such legislation as immoral and based on bad science, and threatened to unseat any legislator who supported such a notion. This insightful text highlights that public officials would only enact such laws when they were convinced that many citizens supported a particular eugenic goal and then would vote for legislators who satisfied this moral challenge. Public opinion was unprepared for such radical legislation in New Jersey, and legislators learned that to even consider a eugenic sterilization notion would be political suicide.

Download or read book When Abortion Was a Crime written by Leslie J. Reagan and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive history of abortion in the United States, with a new preface that equips readers for what’s to come. When Abortion Was a Crime is the must-read book on abortion history. Originally published ahead of the thirtieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, this award-winning study was the first to examine the entire period during which abortion was illegal in the United States, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century and ending with that monumental case in 1973. When Abortion Was a Crime is filled with intimate stories and nuanced analysis, demonstrating how abortion was criminalized and policed—and how millions of women sought abortions regardless of the law. With this edition, Leslie J. Reagan provides a new preface that addresses the dangerous and ongoing threats to abortion access across the country, and the precarity of our current moment. While abortions have typically been portrayed as grim "back alley" operations, this deeply researched history confirms that many abortion providers—including physicians—practiced openly and safely, despite prohibitions by the state and the American Medical Association. Women could find cooperative and reliable practitioners; but prosecution, public humiliation, loss of privacy, and inferior medical care were a constant threat. Reagan's analysis of previously untapped sources, including inquest records and trial transcripts, shows the fragility of patient rights and raises provocative questions about the relationship between medicine and law. With the right to abortion increasingly under attack, this book remains the definitive history of abortion in the United States, offering vital lessons for every American concerned with health care, civil liberties, and personal and sexual freedom.

Download or read book America, History and Life written by and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 874 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Article abstracts and citations of reviews and dissertations covering the United States and Canada.

Download or read book Margaret Sanger written by Jean H. Baker and published by Hill and Wang. This book was released on 2011-11-08 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Undoubtedly the most influential advocate for birth control even before the term existed, Margaret Sanger ignited a movement that has shaped our society to this day. Her views on reproductive rights have made her a frequent target of conservatives and so-called family values activists. Yet lately even progressives have shied away from her, citing socialist leanings and a purported belief in eugenics as a blight on her accomplishments. In this captivating new biography, the renowned feminist historian Jean H. Baker rescues Sanger from such critiques and restores her to the vaunted place in history she once held. Trained as a nurse and midwife in the gritty tenements of New York's Lower East Side, Sanger grew increasingly aware of the dangers of unplanned pregnancy—both physical and psychological. A botched abortion resulting in the death of a poor young mother catalyzed Sanger, and she quickly became one of the loudest voices in favor of sex education and contraception. The movement she started spread across the country, eventually becoming a vast international organization with her as its spokeswoman. Sanger's staunch advocacy for women's privacy and freedom extended to her personal life as well. After becoming a wife and mother at a relatively early age, she abandoned the trappings of home and family for a globe-trotting life as a women's rights activist. Notorious for the sheer number of her romantic entanglements, Sanger epitomized the type of "free love" that would become mainstream only at the very end of her life. That she lived long enough to see the creation of the birth control pill—which finally made planned pregnancy a reality—is only fitting.

Download or read book Who Chooses? written by Simone M. Caron and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first to synthesize the intertwined histories of contraception, sterilization, and abortion in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. Caron skillfully blends the local study of reproductive history in the state of Rhode Island into her thorough re-telling of the larger story that played out on the national stage

Download or read book Hoosiers and the American Story written by Madison, James H. and published by Indiana Historical Society. This book was released on 2014-10 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A supplemental textbook for middle and high school students, Hoosiers and the American Story provides intimate views of individuals and places in Indiana set within themes from American history. During the frontier days when Americans battled with and exiled native peoples from the East, Indiana was on the leading edge of America’s westward expansion. As waves of immigrants swept across the Appalachians and eastern waterways, Indiana became established as both a crossroads and as a vital part of Middle America. Indiana’s stories illuminate the history of American agriculture, wars, industrialization, ethnic conflicts, technological improvements, political battles, transportation networks, economic shifts, social welfare initiatives, and more. In so doing, they elucidate large national issues so that students can relate personally to the ideas and events that comprise American history. At the same time, the stories shed light on what it means to be a Hoosier, today and in the past.