London was a colorful place in the 1790s, full of vices that the Victorians took great pains to either criticize or euphemize in their histories of England: alcoholism, casual sex, venereal disease, child abandonment, vagrancy, unwed motherhood, and the list continues. To contemporaries, these were all areas of concern but Read more…
Today’s episode is part of our sex series 2.0 and a continuation of one of our earliest episodes, Selling Sex: 19th Century New York City Prostitution and Brothels. In that episode, Sarah and I discussed the vibrant sexual culture in New York City during the Gilded Age, roughly 1870 to Read more…
Have you been tested? Averill and Elizabeth take a look at the British imperial policy of blaming–and locking up–women for outbreaks of syphilis. Transcript for Locked Up and Poxxed: THE Venereal Disease and Women who Sold Sex in the Victorian British Empire Written by Averill Earls, PhD Starring Elizabeth Garner Read more…
Victoria Woodhull was an advocate of free love, an outspoken advocate for women’s rights and suffrage, a Spiritualist medium, a stockbroker, maybe a sex worker, an all-around force of nature. She might be one of the most controversial women in American history, which means she is one of our favorites. Read more…
At the Women’s Marches across the U.S. on January 21st, 2017, there were hundreds–maybe thousands–of women in their 60s, 70s, and 80s who held up signs that conveyed their frustration with still needing to fight for rights like birth control and abortion. This is a battle that has waged for Read more…
Sarah and Elizabeth discuss methods of family limitation in Early America. Just in case you need some tips.
What happens when Communist states want to control the reproductive functions of women’s bodies?
Averill and Marissa discuss abortion and birth control in 20th century Japan and Germany.
Marissa and Averill discuss the wild, weird, and sometimes dangerous methods of family limitation in the pre-modern world.