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Chapter 2 Private Practices

1. "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 15, 1888, pp. 1, 5. [BACK]

2. Coverage related to the abortion exposé appeared in the Chicago Times through January 23, 1889. [BACK]

3. "The Evil and the Remedy," Chicago Times , December 13, 1888, p. 4. [BACK]

4. Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine (New York: Basic Books, 1982), 79-144; William G. Rothstein, American Physicians in the Nineteenth Century: From Sects to Science (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972); Thomas Neville Bonner, Medicine in Chicago: A Chapter in the Social and Scientific Development of a City, 1850-1950 , 2d ed. (1957; reprint, Urbana: University of Illinois, 1991). [BACK]

5. One physician estimated in 1913 that no more than 13 percent of sick patients were treated in the hospital and not until 1938 did approximately half of all births take place in the hospital, as cited in Charles E. Rosenberg, The Care of Strangers: The Rise of America's Hospital System (New York: Basic Books, 1987), 316; Judith Walzer Leavitt, Brought to Bed: Childbearing in America, 1750-1950 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 171-195, 269, Morris J. Vogel, The Invention of the Modern Hospital: Boston, 1870-1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); Rosemary Stevens, American Medicine and the Public Interest (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), 80-82, 145. [BACK]

6. Thomas Goebel, "American Medicine and the 'Organizational Synthesis': Chicago Physicians and the Business of Medicine, 1900-1920," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 68 (winter 1994): 639-663; Donald E. Konold, A History of American Medical Ethics (Madison: State Historical Society for the Department of History, University of Wisconsin, 1962), 11-12, 57-67, 75. [BACK]

7. Bessie Louise Pierce, The Rise of a Modern City, 1871-1893 , vol. 3 of A History of Chicago (New York: Knopf, 1957), 166, 408-409, 418-419, 408 n. 47. [BACK]

8. On this idea, see Peter Fritzsche, Reading Berlin 1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996). [BACK]

9. Emmett Dedmon, Fabulous Chicago (New York: Random House, 1953), 73-94, 135-147. [BACK]

10. Frank Luther Mott, American Journalism: A History of Newspapers in the United States Through 250 Years, 1690-1940 (New York: Macmillan, 1941), 436-443; Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (New York: Basic Books, 1978), 70-74, 86; Norma Green, Stephen Lacy, and Jean Folkerts, "Chicago Journalists at the Turn of the Century: Bohemians All?" Journalism Quarterly 66 (winter 1989): 815-816; Judith R. Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 81-134. [BACK]

11. Justin E. Walsh, To Print the News and Raise Hell!, A Biography of Wilbur F. Storey (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968), chap. 8 and 216-217. [BACK]

12. "The Evil and the Remedy," Chicago Times , December 13, 1888, p. 4; "Doctors Who Advertise," Chicago Times , December 16, 1888, p. 4; ''Hercules and the Doctor," cartoon, Chicago Times , December 16, 1888, p. 9; "Moral Aids Needed," Chicago Times , December 18, 1888, p. 4; "A Noble Work," Chicago Times , December 23, 1888, p. 4. [BACK]

13. Text accompanying cartoon, "It Out-Herods the Days of Herod," Chicago Times , December 19, 1888, p. 4. [BACK]

14. See the cartoons, "It Out-Herods the Days of Herod," Chicago Times , December 19, 1888, p. 4; "Hercules and the Baby," Chicago Times , December 21, 1888, p. 4; Mott, American Journalism , 438-439. [BACK]

15. "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 12, 1888, p. 1; "The Evil and the Remedy," Chicago Times , December 13, 1888, p. 4; "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 15, 1888, p. 5. [BACK]

16. "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 12, 1888, p. 1. [BACK]

17. "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 13, 1888, p. 1; "The Evil and the Remedy," Chicago Times , December 13, 1888, p. 4. [BACK]

18. "The Sunday Times," Chicago Times , December 15, 1888, p. 4; "To the Readers of 'The Times,'" Chicago Times , December 19, 1888, p. 4; "Triple Sheet," Chicago Times , December 22, 1888, p. 4. [BACK]

19. "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 13, 1888, p. 1. [BACK]

20. "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 15, 1888, p. 1. [BACK]

21. "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 14, 1888, pp. 1-2. For other examples of midwives who refused to perform abortions, see the Vice Commission of Chicago, The Social Evil in Chicago, A Study of Existing Conditions with Recommendations by the Vice Commission of Chicago (1911; reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1970), p. 225; Inquest on Mary L. Kissell, August 3, 1937, case no. 300-8-1937, Medical Records Department. [BACK]

22. "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 15, 1888, p. 1. [BACK]

23. See, for example, the sketch of five female portraits, "For the Doctors," which asked, "Guess which one of the above is the 'girl reporter?'" and the sketch "A Souvenir," both in Chicago Times , December 21, 1888, p. 4; Editorial from the St. Louis Republic reprinted in ''Talk About 'The Times,'" Chicago Times , December 23, 1888, p. 4. Interest in the reporters themselves was typical of the era, Schudson, Discovering the News , 65, 69. [BACK]

24. "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 18, 1888, pp. 1-2. [BACK]

25. "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 20, 1888, p. 5. [BACK]

26. "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 17, 1888, p. 5. [BACK]

27. "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 21, 1888, p. n On Clark Street, Emmett Dedmon, Fabulous Chicago (New York: Random House, 1953), 140, 144-145. [BACK]

28. "Professional Abortionists," JAMA 11:26 (December 29, 1888): 913; Wilhelm Becker, "The Medical, Ethical, and Forensic Aspects of Fatal Criminal Abortion," Wisconsin Medical Journal 7 (April 1909): 624-626. [BACK]

29. Thirty-one of the thirty-four physicians who agreed to perform abortions can be identified; of these, twenty-two were Regulars. Of the forty-eight who agreed to help in some fashion, forty-two can be identified. Thirty-three, or over two-thirds of the total, were Regulars. At least twenty-one belonged to a medical society, including some Irregular societies, and twenty-one belonged to none. I am grateful to Rose Holz and Lynne Curry for collecting and tabulating this biographical information. Biographical information located in Medical and Surgical Register of the United States (Detroit: R. L. Polk, 1886 and 1890 editions); McDonald's Illinois State Medical Directory: A Complete List of Physicians in the State (Chicago: J. Newton McDonald, 1891); Connorton's Directory of Physicians, Dentists, and Druggists of Chicago, Including Suburbs in Cook County (Chicago: J. Newton McDonald, 1889). [BACK]

30. "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 16, 1888, p. 9; "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 18, 1888, p. 2; J. H. Etheridge to Editor, Chicago Times , December 18, 1888, p. 5. [BACK]

31. "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 18, 1888, p. 2; Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight , 212-214. [BACK]

32. "Awake! Arise!" Chicago Times , January 2, 1889, p. 4. I counted over sixty-five letters to the editor of the Chicago Times from doctors in the two-week period of the exposé. For example, Benjamin Miller to Editor, Chicago Times , December 21, 1888, p. 3. [BACK]

33. "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 17, 1888, p. 1; "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 20, 1888, p. 1; "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 22, 1888, p. 1; "From the Girl Reporter,'' Chicago Times , December 23, 1888, p. 9. [BACK]

34. Council Minutes, December 17, 1888, vol. 1887-1892, pp. 104-105, Chicago Medical Society Records, Archives and Manuscripts Department, Chicago Historical Society, Chicago, Illinois. Jacob Franks and see William T. Thackerey in "The Doctors Will Investigate," Chicago Times , December 18, 1888, p. 2. The Times reported that 250 people attended this meeting. [BACK]

35. Quotation by Etheridge in "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 18, 1888, p. 2; Council Minutes, December 17, 1888, vol. 1887-1892, p. 105, Chicago Medical Society Records. [BACK]

36. Council Minutes, January 7, 1889, vol. 1887-1892, pp. 108-112, Chicago Medical Society Records; "Thurston Is Expelled," Chicago Times , January 8, 1889, p.1. [BACK]

37. Bonner, Medicine in Chicago , 64-67, 84-103; Connorton's Directory , 31-53, 61-67. [BACK]

38. "Professional Abortionists," 913; Dr. J. W. Hervey to Editor, JAMA 12 (January 12, 1889): 69. [BACK]

39. Others have made similar observations. Norman Himes, Medical History of Contraception (1936; reprint, New York: Gamut Press, 1963), 282; Linda Gordon, Woman's Body, Woman's Right: Birth Control in America , rev. and updated (1976; reprint, New York: Penguin Books, 1990), 167-168. [BACK]

40. Regina Markell Morantz-Sanchez, Sympathy and Science: Women Physicians in American Medicine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 188-189, 220; James C. Mohr, Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy, 1800-1900 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 161; Mary Roth Walsh, " Doctors Wanted: No Women Need Apply": Sexual Barriers in the Medical Profession, 1835-1975 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), 145. [BACK]

41. "Seeking the Remedy," Chicago Times , January 5, 1889, p. 8; "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 16, 1888, p. 9. Dr. Emilie Siegmund agreed to perform an abortion, "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 15, 1888, p. 1. [BACK]

42. "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 19, 1888, p. 7. Letters from P. Curran, M.D., and Birney Hand, M.D., confirmed that most women seeking abortions were married, in "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 22, 1888, p. 5. [BACK]

43. "Infanticide. Retrospective Thoughts," Chicago Times , December 25, 1888, p. 1. [BACK]

44. "Bring the Husbands to Book," Chicago Times , December 28, 1888, p. 1; "Seeking the Remedy," Chicago Times , January 5, 1889, p. 5. See also "A Vigorous Letter from a Woman Physician," Chicago Times , December 16, 1888,

p. 9. On nineteenth-century feminists' views, see Mohr, Abortion in America , 111-113; Gordon, Woman's Body, Woman's Right , chap. 5. [BACK]

45. Reprint from Galesburg, Illinois, in "Talk About 'The Times,'" Chicago Times , December 23, 1888, p. 4; partial reprint of paper by Dr. H. H. Markham, "Seeking the Remedy, Duty of the Doctors," Chicago Times , January 1, 1889, p. 3. [BACK]

46. Reprint from Chicago Medical Visitor in "Infanticide in Chicago," Chicago Times , January 23, 1889, p. 4; "The Infanticide Revelations," JAMA 12 (January 12, 1889): 55. [BACK]

47. "The Infanticide Revelations," 56. [BACK]

48. "He Did His Full Duty," Chicago Times , December 22, 1888, p. 5. [BACK]

49. "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 12, 1888, p. 1; "The Cream City Needs Just Such a Cleansing," Letter from Milwaukee, Chicago Times , December 12, 1888, p. 5; "The Devilish Crime Is Not Confined to Chicago," Chicago Times , December 22, 1888, p. 5; "An Adjunct to the Remedy," Letter from Monticello, Illinois, Chicago Times , December 31, 1888, p. 5. [BACK]

50. Inez C. Philbrick, "Social Causes of Criminal Abortion," Medical Record 66 (September 24, 1904): 491; Henry W. Cattell, "Some Medico-Legal Aspects of Abortion," Bulletin of the American Academy of Medicine 8 (1907): 339; Earnest F. Oakley, "Legal Aspect of Abortion," A JOG 3 ( January 1922): 38. [BACK]

51. Illinois, Public Laws of Illinois , 1867, p. 89. [BACK]

52. See chapter 8 of this volume. [BACK]

53 For historical analyses of the interplay between society and disease definition and treatment, see Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Fasting Girls: The Emergence of Anorexia Nervosa as a Modern Disease (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988); Allan M. Brandt, No Magic Bullet: A Social History of Venereal Disease in the United States Since 1880 , expanded ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); Charles E. Rosenberg, The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962). [BACK]

54. Peter J. O'Callaghan and Charles B. Reed in "Chicago Medical Society. Regular Meeting Held Nov. 23, 1904," JAMA 43 (December 17, 1904): 1890; Christian Johnson, "Therapeutic Abortion," St. Paul Medical Journal 9 (1907): 240, 241-242; Ronald L. Numbers, "A Note on Medical Education in Wisconsin," in Wisconsin Medicine: Historical Perspectives , edited by Ronald L. Numbers and Judith Walzer Leavitt (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981), 183. [BACK]

55. Indications that necessitated abortion in order to preserve the pregnant woman's life included diseases of the kidneys, chronic heart or respiratory disease, eclampsia, cancers of the rectum, uterus, and breast, severe cases of rheumatism, contracted pelvis, uterine cysts, placenta previa, and pernicious anaemia. W. C. Bowers, "Justifiable Artificial Abortion and Induced Premature Labor," JAMA 33 (September 2, 1899): 568-569; E. S. McKee, "Abortion," AJO 24 (October 1891): 1333-1334; Frank A. Higgins, "The Propriety, Indications and Methods for the Termination of Pregnancy," JAMA 43 (November 19, 1904): 1531-1533. [BACK]

56. Quotation from Bowers, "Justifiable Artificial Abortion," 569; phrase from R. C. Brown, "Vomiting," Cyclopedia of Medicine , edited by George Mor-

ris Piersol, vol. 12 (Philadelphia: F. A. Davis, 1935), 945. On vomiting in the nineteenth century, see Joseph Taber Johnson, "The Mechanical Treatment of the Vomiting of Pregnancy," JAMA 6 (March 13, 1886): 285. On the cure for this condition, see Paul Titus, "Hyperemesis Gravidarum: Treatment by Intravenous Injections of Glucose and Carbohydrate Feedings," JAMA 85 (August 15, 1925): 488-493, as cited in Kristin Luker, Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 55, 275 n. For continuing discussion, see Henricus J. Stander, Williams Obstetrics: A Textbook for the Use of Students and Practitioners , 7th ed., a revision and enlargement of the text originally written by J. Whitridge Williams (New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1936), 521. The Children's Bureau found that vomiting remained an important indication for therapeutic abortions in the late 1920s, U.S. Department of Labor, Children's Bureau, Maternal Mortality in Fifteen States , Bureau publication no. 223 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1934), 108. [BACK]

57. Paul Titus, "A Statistical Study of a Series of Abortions Occurring in the Obstetrical Department of the Johns Hopkins Hospital," AJO 65 (June 1912): 960-961; Taussig, Abortion, Spontaneous and Induced: Medical and Social Aspects (St. Louis: C.V. Mosby, 1936), 281-282, see table on 282; Irving K. Perlmutter, "Analysis of Therapeutic Abortions, Bellevue Hospital 1935-1945," A JOG 53 (June 1947): 1012. [BACK]

58. Joseph B. DeLee, The Principles and Practice of Obstetrics , 2d ed. (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1916), 1045; E. A. Weiss, "Some Moral and Ethical Aspects of Feticide," AJO 67 (January 1913): 76, 73; Walter B. Dorsett, "Criminal Abortion in Its Broadest Sense," JAMA 51 (September 19, 1908): 957. See also Edward P. Davis, "Therapeutic Abortion," Therapeutic Gazette 43 (June 15, 1919): 389-390. [BACK]

59. "Is Abortion Justifiable in the Insane Pregnant?" JAMA 38 (January 4, 1902): 69; Response in "Queries and Minor Notes. Is Abortion Justifiable in the Insane Pregnant?" JAMA 38 (January 18, 1902): 213. R. Finley Gayle commented that "older physicians" had aborted women for eugenic reasons in "The Psychiatric Consideration of Abortion," Southern Medicine and Surgery 91 (April 1929): 251. On eugenics, see Gordon, Woman's Body, Woman's Right , 118-132; Mark H. Hailer, Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1963), 95-143. [BACK]

60. "Pregnancy from Rape Does Not Justify Abortion," JAMA 43 (August 6, 1904): 413. [BACK]

61. "Therapeutic Abortion," JAMA 92 (February 16 1929): 581. [BACK]

62. H. Douglas Singer, "Mental Disease and the Induction of Abortion," JAMA 91 (December 29, 1928): 2042-2044; Gayle, "The Psychiatric Consideration of Abortion," 252-254. [BACK]

63. "Pregnancy and Contracted Pelvis," JAMA 38 (February 8, 1902): 433. [BACK]

63. "Pregnancy and Contracted Pelvis," JAMA 38 (February 8, 1902): 433.

64. Ibid. Professor H.J. Boldt believed that the patient with contracted pelvis should decide whether to have an abortion or a cesarean section. H.J. Boldt, "The Treatment of Abortion," JAMA 46 (March 17, 1906): 791. [BACK]

65. Judith Walzer Leavitt, "The Growth of Medical Authority, Technology, and Morals in Turn-of-the-Century Obstetrics," Medical Anthropology Quarterly 1 (September 1987): 230-255; Carey Culbertson, "Therapeutic Abortion

and Sterilization," The Surgical Clinics of Chicago 1 (1917): 608; Evelyn Fine, "'Belly Ripping Has Become a Mania': A History of the Cesarean Section Operation in Twentieth Century America" (master's thesis, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Department of the History of Science, 1982), 4-6, 8-12, 42. [BACK]

66. On choosing the family physician, George Rosen, The Structure of American Medical Practice, 1875-1941 , edited by Charles E. Rosenberg (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983), 22. Quotations from Becker, "Medical, Ethical, and Forensic Aspects," 624; E. F. Fish, "Criminal Abortion," Milwaukee Medical Journal 17 (April 1909): 107-108. See also Dorsett, "Criminal Abortion in Its Broadest Sense," 958. [BACK]

67. "The Case of Robert Thompson," JAMA 92 (February 16, 1929): 579. Similar networks in Chicago are analyzed further in chapter 5 of this volume. [BACK]

68. For examples, "Medicolegal. Revocation of License for Conviction of Offense Involving Moral Turpitude," JAMA 68 (February 10, 1917): 485; "Medical News. INDIANA. Sentenced for Illegal Operation," JAMA 93 (July 13, 1929): 125. [BACK]

69. Judith Walzer Leavitt has similarly argued for the importance of analyzing nineteenth-century rural medical practice in terms of its location within the domestic domain in "'A Worrying Profession': The Domestic Environment of Medical Practice in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 69 (spring 1995): 1-29. [BACK]

70. Kate Simon, Bronx Primitive: Portraits in a Childhood (New York: Harper and Row, Perennial Library, 1982), 68-70, quotation on 70. From the context, I conclude that this doctor practiced during the 1920s, perhaps into the 1930s and longer. See also B. Liber, "As a Doctor Sees It," BCR 2 (February-March 1918): 10. [BACK]

71. Becker, "The Medical, Ethical, and Forensic Aspects of Fatal Criminal Abortion," 624. [BACK]

72. In this particular case, Aiken was convicted but appealed his case to the state Supreme Court of Illinois, which reversed the conviction and remanded it back. I do not know if he was retried. Aiken v. the People , 183 Ilk 215 (1899); Transcript of Aiken v. the People , 183 Ilk 215 (1899), Case Files, vault no. 8105, Supreme Court of Illinois, Record Series 901. [BACK]

73. Denslow Lewis, "Facts Regarding Criminal Abortion," JAMA 35 (October 13, 1900): 945; Mary Dixon-Jones, "Criminal Abortion—Its Evil and Its Sad Consequences," continued, WMJ 3 (September 1894): 66; W.W. Parker, "In Opposition to Woman Doctors in Insane Asylums," JAMA 22 (March 31, 1894): 479. [BACK]

74. Rudolph W. Holmes in "Symposium on Criminal Abortion," JAMA 43 (December 17, 1904): 1891; "Criminal Advertisements," JAMA 37 (August 10, 1901): 393. Post Office officials used classified advertisements to investigate and prosecute midwives and doctors for abortion advertising in 1912. Dr. Margaret Livingston had advertised herself as a "specialist for diseases of women." See Govt. Ex. 9 in U.S. v. Margaret Livingston , November 22, 1912, Case no. 5084, Criminal Docket Book no. 8 (Criminal Case Files), Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, Record Group 21, Records of the District Courts of the United States, National Archives—Great Lakes Region, Chicago, Illinois. For

examples of nineteenth-century advertisements, see Mohr, Abortion in America , 51, 52, 54, 56, 57. [BACK]

75. See Charlotte G. Borst, Catching Babies: The Professionalization of Childbirth, 1870-1920 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995). [BACK]

76. I have identified sixty-one abortionists in the Chicago area between 1890 and 1930. Thirty-eight were physicians, twenty-three midwives. [BACK]

77. Grace Abbott, "The Midwife in Chicago," The American Journal of Sociology 20 (March 1915): 687. Nationally, midwives had delivered half the country's babies in 1900, but only 15 percent by 1930. Leavitt, Brought to Bed , 12, graph; Judy Barrett Litoff, American Midwives: 1860 to the Present (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1978), 141. [BACK]

78. In the St. Louis study, a large proportion of the abortions were self-induced (thirty, or 36 percent). I calculated the percentages from the data presented in table I in Royston. G. D. Royston, "A Statistical Study of the Causes of Abortion," AJOG 76 (October 1917): 573. [BACK]

79. Marie E. Kopp, Birth Control in Practice: Analysis often Thousand Case Histories of the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau (1933; reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1972), table 8. [BACK]

80. Jerome E. Bates and Edward Zawadzki, appendix C in Criminal Abortion: A Study in Medical Sociology . (Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1964), 202. In the last decade of this study, it is unlikely that any midwives would still have been practicing, but, unfortunately, the authors did not break down their findings by decade. [BACK]

81. Caroline Hedger reported that 57 of 363 Chicago midwives (or 6 percent, my calculation) were "suspected of practicing abortion." F. Elisabeth Crowell investigated 500 New York midwives in 1906 and found 176 midwives who had been convicted of abortion or agreed to perform one (35 percent, my calculation) and suspected over half the midwives practiced abortion. The 1908 study of Chicago midwives found 49 out of 223 midwives who "agreed to operate" and concluded that "at least one-third should be classified as criminal." The Baltimore study found almost one third of the midwives (48 of 150) were "suspected of criminal practice." A 1912 study of Massachusetts found that 5 percent (5 of 91) of the midwives were suspected of performing abortions. Caroline Hedger, ''Investigation of 363 Midwives in Chicago," Transactions of the American Association for the Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality 3 (1912): 264, table 3; F. Elisabeth Crowell, "The Midwives of New York," Charities and the Commons 17 (January 1907): 667-677, reprint in Judy Barrett Litoff, The American Midwife Debate: A Sourcebook on Its Modern Origins (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 44; Rudolph W. Holmes et al., "The Midwives of Chicago," JAMA 50 (April 25, 1908): 1347-1348; Mary Sherwood, "The Midwives of Baltimore," JAMA 52 (June 19, 1909): 2010; James Lincoln Huntington, "Midwives in Massachusetts," Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 167 (October 17, 1912): 547. [BACK]

82. Recorded statement of Emily Projahn and testimony of Earnest Projahn, Inquest on Emily Projahn, October 10, 1916, case no. 26-12-1916, Medical Records Department. [BACK]

83. Of twenty-one cases where it can be determined where the operation

occurred, all but three took place in the physician's office (which in some cases was the doctor's home). The other three were induced in hospitals run by the doctor. [BACK]

84. Inquest on Viola Koepping, June 7, 1929, case no. 246-6-29, Medical Records Department. [BACK]

85. People v. Rongetti 331 Ill. 581 (1928), p. 584; "Woman Confesses Murder of Baby," Chicago Daily News , [July] 1928, Abortionists Files, HHFC. See also Joseph G. Stern in Chicago Tribune , January 10, 1929, Abortionists Files, HHFC. [BACK]

86. There are twenty cases with information on fees paid to Chicago doctors for abortions between 1890 and 1930. The average fee stated to prospective patients would be higher than what doctors actually received. [BACK]

87. Inquest on Ester Reed, June 9, 1914, case no. 73771, Medical Records Department. [BACK]

88. McKee, "Abortion," 1334; Frank A. Higgins, "The Propriety, Indications, and Methods for the Termination of Pregnancy," JAMA 43 (November 19, 1904): 1533; Frederick J. Taussig, The Prevention and Treatment of Abortion (St. Louis: C. V. Mosby, 1910), 91-121; Taussig, Abortion , 352-354, 322-304. [BACK]

89. Ten Chicago physicians who performed abortions used instruments of some kind, perhaps uterine sounds to open the cervix or curettes to scrape out the uterus. For illustrations of instruments, see Taussig, The Prevention and Treatment of Abortion , 78, 92, 120. [BACK]

90. Inquest on Edna Lamb, February 19, 1917, case no. 43-3-1917, Medical Records Department. [BACK]

91. Catherine Heidman as quoted by Harry Golcher in Inquest on Elsie Golcher, February 16, 1932, case no. 225-2-32, Medical Records Department. [BACK]

92. Of thirty-eight identified abortion providers in the Chicago area, twenty-seven are identified as Regulars. Five of these physicians had graduated from irregular schools, but each of them was identified as a Regular in the directory published by the AMA. I have therefore counted them as Regulars, but even if they were subtracted, the majority of the physician-abortionists in this sample would still be Regulars. That Homeopaths and Eclectics now considered themselves Regulars and the AMA described them as such, despite their education, demonstrates the process of consolidation of all sects into Regulars in the early twentieth century. Biographical data found in American Medical Directory 1912-1940 (Chicago: American Medical Association); Polk's Medical and Surgical Register of the United States (1896); Chicago Medical Society, History of Medicine and Surgery and Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago (Chicago: Biographical Publishing, 1922). [BACK]

93. Mary Elizabeth Fiorenza, "Midwifery and the Law in Illinois and Wisconsin, 1877 to 1917" (master's thesis, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1985), 35-36. Holmes et al., "The Midwives of Chicago," 1346, 1347, table 1. The African American population in Chicago before World War I was small; in 1913 African Americans made up only 2.5 percent of Chicago's population. Louise DeKoven Bowen, "The Colored People of Chicago" (Juvenile Protective Association, 1913) Jane Addams Collection, reel 54, Department of Special Collections, The University Library, University of Illinois-Chicago. [BACK]

94. Inquest on Rosie Kawera, June 15, 1916, case no. 152-5-1916, Medical Records Department. [BACK]

95. "Infanticide," Chicago Times , December 13, 1888, p. 1. [BACK]

96. On the issue of refusing male physicians during childbirth, see Abbott, "The Midwife in Chicago," 685. [BACK]

97. Inquest on Kawera; Inquest on Frauciszka Gawlik, February 19, 1916, case no. 27-3-1916, Medical Records Department. On this issue, see Abbott, "The Midwife in Chicago," 684-685; Litoff, American Midwives , 27-30; Eugene Declerq, "The Nature and Style of Practice of Immigrant Midwives in Early Twentieth-Century Massachusetts," Journal of Social History 19 (1985): 113-129. In Catching Babies , Charlotte Borst points out the preference of immigrant women for doctors who were either foreign-born themselves or children of the foreign-born and who understood their culture and language. [BACK]

98. Hedger, "Investigation of 363 Midwives in Chicago," 264, table 3; Jane Pacht Brickman, "Public Health, Midwives, and Nurses, 1880-1930" in Nursing History: New Perspectives, New Possibilities , edited by Ellen Condliffe Lagemann (New York: Teacher's College Press, 1983), 71. I have calculated the average fee for an abortion charged by the midwives from the figures given in the 1910 report. The fees ranged from $10 to $50. Chicago Vice Commission, The Social Evil in Chicago , 225-227. [BACK]

99. There were twelve cases with information on fees paid to midwives for abortions between 1900 and 1930. The range was $4 to $35, and the most frequent fee was $25. [BACK]

100. Inquest on Kawera; People v. Wyherk , 347 Ill. 28 (1931), p. 30; Inquest on Matilda Olson, April 30, 1918, case no. 289-4-1918, Medical Records Department. On check-ups by midwives, see Hedger, "Investigation of 363 Midwives in Chicago," 264; Litoff, American Midwives , 28-29. [BACK]

101. Chicago Vice Commission, The Social Evil in Chicago , 225; Inquest on Esther Stark, June 12, 1917, case no. 65-6-1917, Medical Records Department. Also see Inquest on Bertha Dombrowski, February 23, 1917, case no. 223-3-1917, Medical Records Department; Holmes et al., "The Midwives of Chicago," 1349. [BACK]

102. Chicago Vice Commission, The Social Evil in Chicago , 225-227. [BACK]

103. First quotation is in Holmes et al., "The Midwives of Chicago," 1349. Last quotation is in testimony of Robert Crelly in Inquest on Kissell. See also Abbott, "The Midwife in Chicago," 691; People v. Patrick , 277 Ill. 210 (1917), p. 212; "Officials Plan Fight to Curb Abortion Evil," n.p., June 7, 1915, Abortionists Files, HHFC. [BACK]

104. Quotations from Transcript of People v. Wyherk , 347 Ill. 28 (1931) Case Files, vault no. 45804, Supreme Court of Illinois, Record Series 901; Styskal in Inquest on Margaret B. Winter, November 13, 1916, case no. 274-11-1916, Medical Records Department; Haisler in Inquest on Catherine Mau, March 12, 1928, case no. 390-3-1928, Medical Records Department. [BACK]

105. Litoff, American Midwives , 139. For a table showing the national distribution of midwives, see Louis S. Reed, Midwives, Chiropodists, and Optometrists: Their Place in Medical Care (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1932), 5-6, 67, table 1A. [BACK]

106. Cook County Coroner's Quadrennial Report, 1908-1922 , p. 20, Municipal Reference Collection. [BACK]

107. Maternal Mortality in Fifteen States , 103. [BACK]

108. Transcript of People v. Hagenow , 236 Ill. 514 (1908), Case Files, vault no. 31202, Supreme Court of Illinois, Record Series 901; People v. Hagenow , 334 Ill. 341 (1929). I do not know how long Hagenow was in prison, but in 1907 she had been convicted and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment (a conviction upheld by the Illinois State Supreme Court). [BACK]

109. On maternal mortality see Irvine Loudon, "Maternal Mortality: 1880-1950. Some Regional and International Comparisons," Social History of Medicine 1 (August 1988): 186, figure A, 210-211; Joyce Antler and Daniel M. Fox, "The Movement toward a Safe Maternity: Physician Accountability in New York City, 1915-1940," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 50 (1976): 569-595, reprint in Sickness and Health in America: Readings in the History of Medicine and Public Health , edited by Judith Walzer Leavitt and Ronald L. Numbers (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978), 375-376, 386. For a different view of how trends in maternal mortality changed over time, see Edward Shorter, A History of Women's Bodies (New York: Basic Books, 1982), 130-138, 193-195. [BACK]

110. The 14. percent figure is the sum of abortions categorized in the study as "induced," which includes both self-induced abortions and "criminal" abortions induced by others (11 percent), and those counted as "type not reported" (3 percent) because the researchers suspected that the latter were also induced abortions. It is a mistake to assume as some scholars have that illegal abortions were responsible for the total proportion of maternal deaths assigned to abortion (25 percent), because this total includes deaths following spontaneous abortions, or miscarriages (8 percent), and deaths following therapeutic abortions (3 percent). These latter figures show the dangers of medical intervention. The report discusses the problem of physicians curetting when they should not. Furthermore, it is incorrect to assume that all septic abortion cases were illegal abortions, because physicians responding to spontaneous abortions or performing therapeutic abortions also introduced infections and caused deaths. Finally, the international classification list of maternal mortality cannot be relied upon either because of the way it assigned abortions to other causes and included cases that should not have been. The handful of "certified" criminal abortions were assigned to ''homicide." Maternal Mortality in Fifteen States , 103-115. [BACK]

111. Dorothy Reed Mendenhall, "Prenatal and Natal Conditions in Wisconsin," Wisconsin Medical Journal 15 (March 1917) : 353, as cited in Leavitt, Brought to Bed , 56-57, 231 n; Antler and Fox, "The Movement toward a Safe Maternity," 381; Charles R. King, "The New York Maternal Mortality Study: A Conflict of Professionalization," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 65 (winter 1991): 482, 484, 489; Shorter concludes that midwives and doctors were "about equally septic" in attending deliveries, in A History of Women's Bodies , 137. Loudon finds that home deliveries tended to be safer, whether by M.D. or midwife, than hospital deliveries, in "Maternal Mortality," 219-221. [BACK]

112. Cook County data in "Officials Plan Fight to Curb Abortion Evil," June 7, 1915, no name of newspaper, Abortionists Files, HHFC; Becker, "The Medical, Ethical, and Forensic Aspects of Fatal Criminal Abortion," 620; Calvin Schmid, Social Saga of Two Cities: An Ecological and Statistical Study of

Social Trends in Minneapolis and St. Paul (Minneapolis: Minneapolis Council of Social Agencies, 1937), 410-411. [BACK]

113. Taussig, Abortion , 222-238, quotation on 22-226. Taussig believed nonphysicians to be more responsible for infections. Taussig summarizes the history of the debate around curetting as a treatment for miscarriage and criminal abortion cases on pages 156-158. Specialists disagreed over whether or not to intervene and whether to use the curette or other methods. Some believed too many general practitioners lacked gynecological expertise, yet actively intervened in all abortion cases with the curetee. H.J. Boldt, "The Treatment of Abortion," JAMA 46 (March 17, 1906): 792; Discussion of Frederick J. Taussig, "What Shall We Teach the General Practitioner Concerning the Treatment of Abortion?" JAMA 52 (May 8, 1909): 1530-1531. [BACK]

114. Lester C. Hall in Frank A. Higgins, "The Propriety, Indications, and Methods for the Termination of Pregnancy," 1534. The experience of abortion in the Soviet Union, which legalized abortion in 1920, showed that abortion could be safe. Paul Lublinsky, "Birth Control in Soviet Russia," BCR 12 (May 1928): 143; Frederick J. Taussig, "The Abortion Problem in Russia," AJOG 22 (July 1931): 134-139. [BACK]

115. Rosemary Stevens, American Medicine and the Public Interest (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), 78-82, 96, 127-128; Ronald L. Numbers, Almost Persuaded: American Physicians and Compulsory Health Insurance, 1912-1920 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 4-5; Leavitt, Brought to Bed , 163-168. [BACK]

116. Others have made this argument about attendants during childbirth; Antler and Fox, "The Movement toward a Safe Maternity," 375-392; Leavitt, Brought to Bed , chap. 6; King, "The New York Maternal Mortality Study," 484-, 489-491. Today, legal abortion is much safer than childbirth. The Centers for Disease Control reported that the risk of a woman dying as a result of childbirth was seven times higher than the risk of a woman who had an abortion. Cited in Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, Abortion and Woman's Choice: The State, Sexuality, and Reproductive Freedom , rev. ed. (1984; reprint Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990), 310. [BACK]


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