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Chapter 4 Interrogations and Investigations

1. She had had three children, but one died. Inquest on Carolina Petrovitis, March 21, 1916, case no. 234-3-1916, Medical Records Department. For another physician who closely questioned a woman about abortion, see the Inquest on Matilda Olson, April 30, 1918, case no. 289-4-1918, Medical Records Department. [BACK]

2. On this point, see Martha Vicinus, "Sexuality and Power: A Review of Current Work in the History of Sexuality," Feminist Studies 8 (spring 1982): 133-156. The few histories that examine the control of male heterosexuality include Mary E. Odem, Delinquent Daughters: Protecting and Policing Adolescent Female Sexuality in the United States, 1885-1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995); Allan M. Brandt, No Magic Bullet: A Social History of Venereal Disease in the United States Since 1880 , exp. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 61-64, 66-70; and G.J. Barker-Benfield, The Horrors of the Haft Known Life: Male Attitudes toward Women and Sexuality in Nineteenth Century America (New York: Harper and Row, 1976). For overviews of

the history of sexuality, see John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper and Row, 1988); Kathy Peiss and Christina Simmons, eds., with Robert A. Padgug, Passion and Power: Sexuality in History (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989). [BACK]

3. Michael Grossberg argues that the judiciary dominated nineteenth-century family law and claimed patriarchal authority over domestic relations. Michael Grossberg, Governing the Hearth: Lava and the Family in Nineteenth-Century America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 289-307. On feminists, see also Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 243-244; Linda Gordon, Woman's Body, Woman's Right: Birth Control in America , rev. and updated (1976; reprint, New York: Penguin Books, 1990), chap. 5. Joan Brumberg found that members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union acted as marriage "enforcers" in cases of unmarried pregnant women when they deemed marriage appropriate. Joan Jacobs Brumberg, "'Ruined' Girls: Changing Community Responses to Illegitimacy in Upstate New York, 1890-1920," Journal of Social History 18 (winter 1984): 254-257. Linda Gordon finds that feminists had a powerful impact on the welfare state, "particularly its regulatory organizations," at the turn of the century. That influence extended to the state's promotion of male responsibility in cases of pregnant unwed women. Linda Gordon, Heroes of Their Oran Lives: The Politics and History of Family Violence, Boston, 1880-1960 (New York: Viking, 1988), 297. On juvenile courts, see Odem, Delinquent Daughters . [BACK]

4. On the control of medicine, see Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine (New York: Basic Books, 1982), 102-112, 118, 184-197. [BACK]

5. H.H. Hawkins in, "Symposium. Criminal Abortion. The Colorado Law on Abortion," JAMA 40 (April 18, 1903): 1099; Franz Eschweiler in Wilhelm Becker, "The Medical, Ethical, and Forensic Aspects of Fatal Criminal Abortion," Wisconsin Medical Journal 7 (April 1909): 633; James C. Mohr, "Patterns of Abortion and the Response of American Physicians, 1790-1930," in Women and Health in America: Historical Readings , edited by Judith Walzer Leavitt (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), 12l. [BACK]

6. The Illinois Supreme Court commented on dying declarations in twelve out of the thirty-seven cases concerning an abortion-related death. Dying declarations may have been introduced or discussed in additional cases without having been addressed in the Supreme Court opinions. Furthermore, many dying declarations were collected but never used in court. For examples of Illinois Supreme Court discussion of dying declarations, see Dunn v. the People , 172 Ill. 582 (1898), pp. 587-591; People v. Huff 339 Ill. 328 (1930), p. 332. For evidence of the importance of dying declarations in other states, see reports of cases in Texas, Wisconsin, and Maryland respectively in "Dying Declarations Obtained in Abortion Case as Condition to Rendering Aid," JAMA 52 (April 10, 1909): 1204; "Dying Declarations Made after Refusal of Physician to Treat Abortion Case without History," JAMA 60 (June 7, 1913): 1829-1830; "Admissibility of Evidence to Prove Criminal Abortion," JAMA 60 (January 4, 1913): 79-80. For nineteenth-century cases, see Grossberg, Governing the Hearth , 363 n. 64. On Canada, see Constance B. Backhouse, "Involuntary Motherhood: Abortion, Birth Control, and the Law in Nineteenth Century Canada," Windsor

Yearbook of Access to Justice 3 (1983): 61-130; Angus McLaren, "Birth Control and Abortion in Canada, 1870-1920," Canadian Historical Review 59, no. 3 (1978): 319-340. [BACK]

7. The clerk of the Criminal Court of Cook County reported that between 1924 and, I believe, 1934, there were thirty-two prosecutions for murder by abortion and only seven convictions; and out of six prosecutions for abortion, two convictions. [Thomas E. Harris], "A Functional Study of Existing Abortion Laws," Columbia Law Review 35 (January 1935): 91 n. 17. Frederick J. Taus-sig provided the name of the author in Abortion, Spontaneous and Induced: Medical and Social Aspects (St. Louis: C.V. Mosby, 1936), 426. In his study of abortion indictments in early twentieth-century Philadelphia, Roger Lane also finds few prosecutions and even fewer convictions. Personal communication from Roger Lane to author, May 31, 1989. Comparable data on the number of arrests and convictions for abortion are not available after the mid-1930s because police annual reports stopped reporting this information in detail. [BACK]

8. The rise in arrests beginning in 1889 was probably the result of the abortion exposé in the Chicago Times , December 12, 1888, through January 6, 1889. On the Comstock raids, see "Fight Race Suicide in Raids All over U.S.," Chicago [ News ], November 20, 1912, Abortionists Files, HHFC; "Take Chicagoans in Federal War on Race Suicide," Chicago Tribune , November 21, 1912, Abortionists Files, HHFC. The peaks in 1914 to 1917 coincided with local and state investigations of abortion and baby farms, and newspaper coverage of abortion in Chicago. Chicago Department of Health, Report , 1911-1918, vol. 1, pp. 1055-1056; Juvenile Protective Association, Baby Farms in Chicago , by Arthur Alden Guild ([Chicago], 1917). [BACK]

9. See, for example, Inquest on Milda Hoffmann, May 29, 1916, case no. 342-5-1916, Medical Records Department; Degma Felicelli, October IX, 1916, case no. 224-10-1916, Medical Records Department. [BACK]

10. Coroner Peter Hoffman reported sending 185 people to the grand jury for abortion during his fifteen year tenure between 1905 and 1919. I have calculated the average. Cook County Coroner, Biennial Report , 1918-1919, Municio pal Reference Collection. [BACK]

11. The following three paragraphs are based on my reading of coroner's inquests and transcripts of criminal abortion trials. [BACK]

l2. William Duffor English, "Evidence—Dying Declaration—Preliminary Questions of Fact—Degree of Proof," Boston University Law Review 15 (April 1935): 382. [BACK]

l2. William Duffor English, "Evidence—Dying Declaration—Preliminary Questions of Fact—Degree of Proof," Boston University Law Review 15 (April 1935): 382.

13. Ibid., 381-382. [BACK]

14. Quotation from Inquest on Petrovitis. Simon Greenleaf described the dying declaration as "declarations made in extremity, when the party is at the point of death, and when every hope of this world is gone; when every motive to falsehood is silenced, and the mind is induced, by the most powerful considerations, to speak the truth. A situation so solemn and so awful is considered by the law as creating an obligation equal to that which is imposed by a positive oath in a court of justice." Simon Greenleaf, A Treatise on the Law of Evidence , vol. 1, 16th ed. (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1899), 245. See also John Henry Wigmore, A Treatise on the System of Evidence in Trials at Common Law, In-

cluding Statutes and Judicial Decisions of All Jurisdictions of the United States (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1904), 1798-1819. [BACK]

15. "Murder by abortion" was the standard phrase used in the coroner's jury's verdicts and Grand Jury indictments. For example, Inquest on Rosie Kawera, June 15, 1916, case no. 152-5-1916, Medical Records Department; People v. Dennis 246 Ill. 559 (1910), pp. 560-561. [BACK]

16. C.S. Bacon, in "Chicago Medical Society. Regular Meeting, Held Nov. 23, 1904. Symposium on Criminal Abortion," JAMA 43 (December 17, 1904.): 1889. Roger Lane finds, from his study of indictments in Philadelphia's circuit court, that most abortion cases did not follow the death of a woman, but that women testified as a "result of the damage done." On the nineteenth century, see Roger Lane, Violent Death in the City: Suicide, Accident, and Murder in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979), 93; on the early twentieth century, personal communication from Roger Lane to author. [BACK]

17. Lawrence M. Friedman and Robert V. Percival, The Roots of Justice: Crime and Punishment in Alameda County, California, 1870-1910 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981), 111-116, 310; Sidney L. Harring, Policing a Class Society: The Experience of American Cities, 1865-1915 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1983).

In my discussion of the state, I am interested in the broad array of people, institutions, and officials involved in the enforcement of the criminal abortion laws. I do not regard the state as completely unified or consistent in its policies, for certainly there were conflicts between various state agents. The judiciary scrutinized police actions and criticized them, for example, but the differences among the different levels and officers of the state are not my primary focus. For a critical discussion on historians' use of the term the state , see Michael Ig-natieff, "State, Civil Society, and Total Institution: A Critique of Recent Social Histories of Punishment," in Legality, Ideology, and the State , edited by David Sugarman (London: Academic Press, 1983), 183-211. [BACK]

18. This chapter is based on my examination of forty-four Cook County Coroner's Inquests into abortion deaths between 1907 and 1937, held in the Medical Records Department, Cook County Medical Examiner's Office. Two were found in transcripts of criminal abortion trials. [BACK]

19. Mohr, "Patterns of Abortion," 122; Paul H. Gebhard et al., Pregnancy, Birth and Abortion (New York: Harper and Brothers and Paul B. Hoeber Medical Books, 1958), 194-195, 198. On delay in seeking medical treatment, see James R. Reinberger and Percy B. Russell, "The Conservative Treatment of Abortion," JAMA 107 (November 7, 1936): 1530; J. D. Dowling, "Points of Interest in a Survey of Maternal Mortality," American Journal of Public Health 27 (August 1937): 804. On the high level of complications and fatalities associated with self-induced abortions, see Regine K. Stix, "A Study of Pregnancy Wastage," Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 13 (October 1935): 362-363; Raymond E. Watkins, "A Five-Year Study of Abortion,'' AJOG 26 (August 1933), 162. [BACK]

20. Taussig, Abortion , 24.; William J. Robinson, The Law against Abortion: Its Perniciousness Demonstrated and Its Repeal Demanded (New York: Eugenics Publishing, 1933), 38-39. See also U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children's Bureau, Ma-

ternal Mortality in Fifteen States , Bureau publication no. 223 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1934), 103-104. I have not found an incident of families bribing officials, but on the corruption of police and coroners, see Mark H. Hailer, "Historical Roots of Police Behavior: Chicago, 1890-1925," Law and Society Review 10 (winter 1976), 306-307, 311, 316-317; Julie Johnson, "Coroners, Corruption, and the Politics of Death: Forensic Pathology in the United States," in Legal Medicine in History , edited by Michael Clark and Catherine Crawford (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 268-289. [BACK]

21. I requested the Inquest on Flossie Emerson, who died February 28, 1916, but the Cook County Coroner's Office has no record of her death. Personal communication with Cathy Kurnyta, Director of Medical Records Department, Cook Count), Medical Examiner's Office. Emerson's abortion-related death was one of the cases for which Dr. Schultz-Knighten was prosecuted, People v. Schultz-Knighten , 277 Ill. 238 (1917). I did not find any records from the 1920s or 1930s of black women who had abortions. The paucity of information on the abortion-related deaths of black women may be an artifact of bias in the sources or may reflect the relatively small size of Chicago's African American population. Although World War I migration of African Americans from the South increased Chicago's black population by 148 percent, African Americans still made up only 4 percent of Chicago's population in 1920. Allan H. Spear, Black Chicago: The Making of a Negro Ghetto (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), 140-146,223. On black women's use of abortion, see Rod-rique, "The Black Community and the Birth Control Movement," 140-141. [BACK]

22. Dr. Anna B. Schultz-Knighten complained that the coroner's physician, Dr. Springer, had "sneered" at her and called her a "nigger." Abstract of Record, p. 117, People v. Schultz-Knighten , 277 Ill. 238 (1917), Case Files, no vault no., Supreme Court of Illinois, Record Series 901. [BACK]

23. Taussig, Abortion , 156-158,185-222. [BACK]

24. Mortality reached 60 to 70 percent when septiccmia or peritonitis had occurred, according to Report of Fred J. Taussig, White House Conference on Child Health and Protection, Fetal, Newborn, and Maternal Morbidity and Mortality (New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1933), 466-467. Almuth C. Van-diver, "The Legal Status of Criminal Abortion, with Especial Reference to the Duty and Protection of the Consultant," AJO 61 (March 1910): 434-435, quotation on 497. [BACK]

25. O.B. Will, "The Medico-Legal Status of Abortion," Illinois Medical Journal 2 (1900-1901): 506, 508. Edward W. Pinkham, "The Treatment of Septic Abortion, with a Few Remarks on the Ethics of Criminal Abortion," AJO 61 (March 1910): 420. Illinois, All the Laws of Illinois , 1899, sec. 10, p. 216. In Nebraska and New Jersey, revocation of a physician's license for abortion did not require a criminal conviction. "Procedure before State Board of Health and Revocation of License for Criminal Abortion,'' JAMA 51 (August 29, 1908): 788; "Revocation of License for 'Practice' of Criminal Abortion on Single Occasion," JAMA 78 (June 24, 1922): 1988. [BACK]

26. Inquest on Mary L. Kissell, August 3, 1937, case no. 300-8-1937, Medical Records Department. See also Inquests on Edna M. Lamb, February 19,

1917, case no. 43-3-1917 and Anna P. Fazio, February 14, 1929, case no. 217-2-1929, both held by Medical Records Department. [BACK]

27. Verdict of Coroner's Jury,, Superintendent of Rhodes Avenue Hospital (name illegible) to Coroner Peter M. Hoffman, March 17, 1916 in the Inquest on Annie Marie Dimford, September 30, 1915, case no. 75-11-1915, Medical Records Department. See also Inquest on Ellen Matson, November 19, 1917, case no. 330-11-1917, Medical Records Department; Doctors D.S.J. Meyers and W.W. Richmond commenting on C.J. Aud, "In What Per Cent, Is the Regular Profession Responsible for Criminal Abortions, and What is the Remedy?" Kentucky Medical Journal 2 (September 1904): 98, 99. [BACK]

28. This "agreement" is discussed in the Inquest on Matson. It may have been made in 1915 during the abortion scandal following Anna Johnson's death. See chapter 3, this volume. [BACK]

29. Dr. Marion S. Swiont in Transcript of People v. Zwienczak , 338, Ill. 237 (1929), Case Files, vault no. 44701, Supreme Court of Illinois, Record Series 901. [BACK]

30. Dr. Coe and others in Vandiver, "Legal Status of Criminal Abortion," 496-501, quotation on 500; "Transactions of the New York Academy of Medicine. Section on Obstetrics and Gynecology. Meeting, of March 23, 1911. Criminal Abortion from the Practitioner's Viewpoint. Paper read by Walter B. Jennings," AJO 63 (June 1911): 1094-1096. [BACK]

31. Meeting of January. 9, 1912, Council Minutes, October 1911-June 1912, pp. 53-54, 56-57, Chicago Medical Society Records. The New Orleans Parish Medical Society published a letter to be sent to every physician in New Orleans, which included a model dying declaration. N.F. Thiberge, "Report of Committee on Criminal Abortion," New, Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal 70 (1917-1918): 802, 807-808. [BACK]

32. Meeting of January 9, 1912, Council Minutes, p. 57, Chicago Medical Society Records. For examples of dying declarations and judicial discussions on their validity, see Hagenow v. People , 188 Ill. 545 (1901), pp. 550-551, 553; People v. Cheney , 368 Ill. 131 (1938), pp. 132-135. [BACK]

33. "Criminal Abortion," JAMA 39 (September 20, 1902): 706; Palmer Findley, "The Slaughter of the Innocents," AJOG 3 (January 1922): 37. [BACK]

34. Inquest on Emily Projahn, October 10, 1916, case no. 26-12-1916, Medical Records Department. Abortion convictions appealed to higher courts in Texas and Wisconsin revealed that dying declarations were obtained from women under threats by physicians to refuse medical care. "Dying Declarations Obtained in Abortion Case as Condition to Rendering Aid"; "Dying Declarations Made after Refusal of Physician to Treat Abortion Case without History." [BACK]

35. John Ross in Inquest on Mathilde C. Kleinschmidt, September 22, 1930, case no. 255-9-30, Medical Records Department. [BACK]

36. Vandiver, "Legal Status of Criminal Abortion," 435; Furniss commenting on Jennings, "Criminal Abortion from the Practitioner's Viewpoint," 1096. [BACK]

37. See comments of Louise Hagenow as quoted in Hagenow v. the People , 188 Ill. 545 (1901), p. 552. [BACK]

38. Ernest F. Oakley in discussion of "Legal Aspects of Abortion," AJOG 3 (January 1922): 84.; "Abortion 'Club' Exposed," BCR 4 (November 1936): 5.

See also "Dying Girl Runaway Hides Name of Slayer," Chicago Examiner , March 8, 1918, Abortionists Files, HHFC. [BACK]

39. "End Murders by Abortions," Chicago Tribune , June 2, 1915, Abortionists Files, HHFC; Transcript of People v. Anna Heissler , 338 Ill. 596 (1930), Case Files, vault no. 44783, Supreme Court of Illinois, Record Series 901. [BACK]

40. Quotation from an unnamed physician in Hawkins, "Symposium. Criminal Abortion. The Colorado Law on Abortion," 1099. See also Will, "The Medico-Legal Status of Abortion," 508; Simon Marx and George Kos-mak in Jennings, "Criminal Abortion from the Practitioner's Viewpoint," 1095-1096. [BACK]

41. Parkes in Meeting of January 9, 1912, Council Minutes, October 11-June 1912, p. 55, Chicago Medical Society Records; W. Robinson, The Law against Abortion , 105-111. [BACK]

42. Inquest on Lamb; Jennings, "Criminal Abortion from the Practitioner's Viewpoint," 1094. [BACK]

43. Frank commenting on Aud, "In What Per Cent," 100. See comments of A. C. Morgan and Richard C. Norris in "Society Proceedings. North Branch Philadelphia County Medical Society. Regular Meeting, held April 14, 1904," JAMA 42 (May 21, 1904.): 1375-1376. Attorneys disagreed about whether or not physicians should act as informers in abortion cases. Allen H. Seaman and Charles R. Brock in "Symposium. Criminal Abortion. The Colorado Law on Abortion," 1097, 1098. Illinois law did not privilege communications between doctors and patients. C. S. Bacon, "The Duty of the Medical Profession in Relation to Criminal Abortion," Illinois Medical Journal 7 (January 1905): 22. [BACK]

44. "Girl's Letters Blame Dr. Mason in Death Case," Chicago Tribune , [April] 9, 1916, Abortionists Files, HHFC; "Voice from Grave Calls to Dr. Mason during Trial as His Fiancee's Betrayer," Denver Post , April 5, 1916. See also chapter 3, this volume. [BACK]

45. Quotation from "Dying Girl Runaway Hides Name of Slayer" (emphasis in original). See also "Girl Slain Here Gives Life to Hide Her Tragedy," Chicago Examiner , March 5, 1918; "Slain Girl Dies Holding Her Tragedy from Kin," Chicago Examiner , March 9, 1918. Both clippings in Abortionists Files, HHFC. All of these stories mention fathers. [BACK]

46. "Mrs. Ruth Conn," Chicago Herald , December 19, 1915, Abortionists Files, HHFC. [BACK]

47. "Death Arrest Bares List of 1,500 Women," Chicago Examiner [1916], Abortionists Files, HHFC. [BACK]

48. Inquest on Mary Shelley, October 30, 1915, case no. 352-10-1915, Medical Records Department. Bacon, "The Duty of the Medical Profession," 21-22. The Crowell family tried to prevent an investigation into Mamie Ethel Crowell's abortion by lying to physicians and the coroner, Inquest on Crowell, April 16, 1930, case no. 305-4-30, Medical Records Department. [BACK]

49. For family members who wanted the state to investigate an abortion, see People v. Hotz , 261 Ill. 239 (1914.). Quotation from "Medical News. A Maryland Abortionist Gets No Pardon," JAMA 43 (November 12, 1904.): 1476. [BACK]

50. Edward Flanigan in Inquest on Frances Collins, May 7, 1920, case no. 161-5-20, Medical Records Department. [BACK]

51. Comments of "Esther E.," BCR 4 (September 1920): 15. See also, W. Robinson, The Law against Abortion , 106-107. [BACK]

52. Hagenow v. People (1901), p. 551; People v. Hagenow 236 Ill. 514. (1908), p. 527; People v. Heissler (1930), p. 599. The coroner told Dr. Kruse to "make it a rule" at his hospital to call police in abortion cases so that they could bring the suspect in for identification; Inquest on Lamb. [BACK]

53. Sgt. O'Connor in Inquest on Petrovitis. [BACK]

54. Inquest on Petrovitis. [BACK]

55. Mable Matson in Transcript of People v. Hobbs , 297 Ill. 399 (1921), Case Files, vault no. 38773, Supreme Court of Illinois, Record Series 901. [BACK]

56. Rosie Kronowitz in abstract of People v. Heisler , 300 Ill. 98 (1921), p. 38, Case Files, vault no. 39077, Supreme Court of Illinois, Record Series 901 [BACK]

57. The following account is drawn from the Inquest on Eunice McElroy, November 14, 1928, case no. 486-11-28, Medical Records Department. [BACK]

58. John Harris in Inquest on Dimford. See also Robert Patrick Crelly in Inquest on Kissell. One man married his lover two days after her abortion; she died three weeks later (see Inquest of Esther Stark, June 12, 1917, case no. 65-6-1917). Quotation in People v. Rongetti , 344 Ill. 278 (1931), p. 284. [BACK]

59. Inquest on Anna Johnson, May 27, 1915, case no. 77790, Medical Records Department. [BACK]

60. Inquest on Matson. [BACK]

61. "Death Threat to Hostetler," Chicago Tribune , June 5, 1915, Abortionists Files, HHFC. Police and press often called the men in these cases "the sweetheart"; see "Doctor Faces Manslaughter Charge in Girl's Death," Chicago Tribune , April 18, 1930, Abortionists Files, HHFC. [BACK]

62. Inquest on Alma Bromps, April 27, 1931, case no. 35-5-1931, Medical Records Department; People v. Ney , 349 Ill. 172 (1932), pp. 173-174. For other lovers who testified against the abortionist, see Cochran v. The People , 175 Ill. 28 (1898); People v. Hobbs , 297 Ill. 399 (1921). [BACK]

63. Walter Beisse in Inquest on Rose Siebenmann, April 16, 1920, case no. 266-4-20, Medical Records Department. [BACK]

64. Charles Morehouse's name is spelled as "Moorehouse" in Transcript of People v. Hobbs , 297 Ill. 399 (1921), Case Files, vault no. 38773, Supreme Court of Illinois, Record Series 901; O'connell in Transcript of People v. Buettner 233 Ill. 272 (1908), Case Files, vault no. 30876, ibid. For convictions of boyfriends, see Dunn v. the People; People v. Patrick , 277 Ill. 210 (1917). Grace and Edith Abbott found that many foreigners languished in jail because they could not pay their fines; see Lela B. Costin, Two Sisters for Social Justice: A Biography of Grace and Edith Abbott (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983), 77. [BACK]

65. I know of only one case where the husband was charged. Bertis Dougherty pied guilty to abortion and testified as a state witness against the abortionist in People v. Schneider , 370 Ill. 612 (1939), pp. 613-614. [BACK]

66. Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago, A Study of Bastardy Cases, taken from The Court of Domestic Relations in Chicago , text by Louise DeKoven Bowen [Chicago, 1914] (History of Women, 1977) microfilm, item 9921, pp. 18, 19, 22. [BACK]

67. Young men and women understood how the juvenile courts worked

and how statutory rape cases proceeded; young men probably also knew how bastardy and abortion investigations proceeded. Odem, Delinquent Daughters . [BACK]

68. Transcript of Dunn v. the People , 172 Ill. 582 (1898), Case Files, vault no. 7876, Supreme Court of Illinois, Record Series 901. On the ways in which women could use the state's regulation for their own ends, see Gordon, Heroes of Their Own Lives , 289-299. [BACK]

69. Abortionists sometimes offered to cover funeral and other expenses as in the unsuccessful cover-up participated in and described by Emil Winter in the Inquest on Margaret B. Winter, November 13, 1916, case no. 274-11-1916, Medical Records Department. In the Winter case the abortionist was a midwife. For an unsuccessful attempt to keep abortion quiet by a physician, see Testimony of Walter F. Heidenway and Elizabeth Heidenway in the Inquest on Alma Heidenway, August 21, 1918, case no. 232-8-1918, Medical Records Department. [BACK]

70. On false death certificates, see Earll v. the People , 73 Ill. 329 (1874), p. 336; Rudolph W. Holmes et al., "The Midwives of Chicago," JAMA 50 (April 25, 1908), 1348. [BACK]

71. See Inquest on Fazio; Pinkham, "Treatment of Septic Abortion," 420. [BACK]


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