Lizzie Borden Society Forum

It does seem like there were several people who were in a position to know about the hostility in the Borden home. And about the behavior of both of the Borden sisters. Hiram Harrington had lived with them, the seamstress who was brought into the house to work for them, other family members on both sides who had stayed with them over the years or had a lot of contact with them, their maids and hired hands, and friends like Alice Russell were aware of it. It seems like the whole town was aware of it. Word travels. But who were the outsiders Lizzie referred to? Whoever it was they knew an awful lot about what was going on in the household. The story of the half house also reminds me just how spoiled Emma and Lizzie were. Andrew bought this half house for Abby's family to live in. They did not make any money from it. They used it as a home. And Lizzie says what her father did for Abby's people he ought to do for her and her sister. He had given them a home to live in. One they didn't have to pay for or contribute anything to. And he also then gave them a house that they made rent money off of that they were free to keep for themselves. But they sold it back to their father for more money because they couldn't be bothered to keep up with the properties. Spoiled.

Q. Now, tell me once more, if you please, the particulars of that trouble that you had with your mother four or five years ago ---
A. Her father's house on Forth Street was for sale---

Q. Whose father's house?
A. Mrs. Borden's father's house. She had a step mother and a half sister, Mrs. Borden did, and this house was left to the step mother and half sister, if I understand it right, and the house was for sale. The stepmother, Mrs. Oliver Gray, wanted to sell it, and my father brought [sic] out the Widow Gray's share. She did not tell me, and he did not tell me, but some outsiders said that he gave it to her. Put it in her name. I said if he gave that to her, he ought to give us something. Told Mrs. Borden so. She did not care anything about the house herself. She wanted it so this half sister could have a home, because she had married a man who was not doing the best he could, and she thought her sister was having a very hard time and wanted her to have a home. And we always thought she persuaded father to buy it. At any rate he did buy it, and I am quite sure she did persuade him. I said what he did for her people he ought to do for his own children. So he gave us grandfather's house. That was all the trouble we had.

Q. You have not stated any trouble between you and her?
A. I said there was feeling four or five years ago when I stopped calling her mother. I told you that yesterday.

Q. That is all there is to it then?
A. Yes, sir.

Q. You had no words with your stepmother then?
A. I talked with her about it and said what he did for her he ought to do for us; that is all the words we had said.

Q. That is the occasion of his giving you the house that you sold back to him?
A. Yes, sir.

Our Lizzie was a piece of work, wasn't she? A spoiled little brat. Makes me even surer that she did the deed, for money, and out of childish spite.

Allen wrote:…
Q. Now, tell me once more, if you please, the particulars of that trouble that you had with your mother four or five years ago ---
A. Her father's house on Forth Street was for sale---

Q. Whose father's house?
A. Mrs. Borden's father's house. She had a step mother and a half sister, Mrs. Borden did, and this house was left to the step mother and half sister, if I understand it right, and the house was for sale. The stepmother, Mrs. Oliver Gray, wanted to sell it, and my father brought [sic] out the Widow Gray's share. She did not tell me, and he did not tell me, but some outsiders said that he gave it to her. Put it in her name. I said if he gave that to her, he ought to give us something. Told Mrs. Borden so. She did not care anything about the house herself. She wanted it so this half sister could have a home, because she had married a man who was not doing the best he could, and she thought her sister was having a very hard time and wanted her to have a home. And we always thought she persuaded father to buy it. At any rate he did buy it, and I am quite sure she did persuade him. I said what he did for her people he ought to do for his own children. So he gave us grandfather's house. That was all the trouble we had.

Q. You have not stated any trouble between you and her?
A. I said there was feeling four or five years ago when I stopped calling her mother. I told you that yesterday.

Q. That is all there is to it then?
A. Yes, sir.

Q. You had no words with your stepmother then?
A. I talked with her about it and said what he did for her he ought to do for us; that is all the words we had said.

Q. That is the occasion of his giving you the house that you sold back to him?
A. Yes, sir.

Why in the world would Lizzie and Emma think that their father should do for them what he did for Abby? Abby was his WIFE for heaven’s sake!!! Furthermore, if Andrew did put the house in Abby’s name, then Abby simply fulfilled her own wishes by giving the house to her family. Why would Abby or Andrew feel the need to tell Lizzie about something that was strictly between the two of them. It was really none of Lizzie’s business.

In my opinion, Lizzie and Emma were spoiled rotten; they were spoiled to such a degree that they became greedy, selfish brats! I personally think Lizzie was greedier and more selfish than Emma was, because, according to the statements above, it was Lizzie who ‘talked’ with Abby about her childish wanting of being treated the same as Abby; and it was Lizzie who began calling Abby, ‘Mrs. Borden’.

I think Lizzie was frustrated that the family had enough money to live comfortably, yet lived like a lower middle class family. She possibly thought of the day that she would have control of the money, and all the things she would do with it. When she saw some of the inheritance going to people who were not even related to the family except through her step-mother, she was angry. OK...you stingy man, you can't spend on your own daughter, but you give a freaking house to virtual strangers??? I want something too! Speculating further, she may have realized that years of mistreating Abby may come back to haunt her if her father died first and the wealth went to Mrs. Borden...

It has always seemed strange to me that Lizzie got so upset over a half of a house...bought so that a widow and her family wouldn't be on the streets.

I have said this before, I don't think I would have liked Lizzie. First impressions are important; when I first read her inquest testimony, from start to finish, I had the strong impression of a greedy, selfish woman who thought very highly of herself. Even when she had her all her father's money, she still was mentally disturbed; walking off with two painted porcelain plates from Tilden Thurber & Co, while a limousine waited to drive her back to Fall River with her booty.

Now, on the other hand...IF Mr. Borden had died first, and Abby had inherited all his money, would she have provided for her step-daughters? In those days, there was no welfare, no public assistance, and a woman's only hedge against poverty and homelessness was marriage. That wasn't happening anytime soon.

I think Lizzie put on a good face socially, at church and with her charity works. I also think she portrayed herself as the victim.

Really-- BFD if Andrew ensured his wife's family had a roof over their head. Abby did not live a lavish lifestyle-- she never went to Europe! She got an allowance the same as the 'girls' and used this money for necessary house hold things-- not, that we know of, new dresses.

Poor Abby. In what I think was a loveless marriage, living with 2 harridans and working like a servant herself.

Aamartin wrote:I think Lizzie put on a good face socially, at church and with her charity works. I also think she portrayed herself as the victim. ...

I agree.

Aamartin wrote:... Poor Abby. In what I think was a loveless marriage, living with 2 harridans and working like a servant herself.

Out of curiosity, why do you feel the marriage between Andrew and Abby was loveless?

twinsrwe wrote:

Aamartin wrote:I think Lizzie put on a good face socially, at church and with her charity works. I also think she portrayed herself as the victim. ...

I agree.

Aamartin wrote:... Poor Abby. In what I think was a loveless marriage, living with 2 harridans and working like a servant herself.

Out of curiosity, why do you feel the marriage between Andrew and Abby was loveless?

I think many marriages back then were 'loveless' People married to have kids, have someone clean and cook for them, to have someone provide for them, Love? It was an added extra. No divorce back then...Love? Most would be happy with "comfortable with each other"

There were marriages of convenience. Many people did marry just because it was expected of them. Divorce did happen in rare instances. If a spouse could show extreme cruelty or adultery. It was rare but it happened. Especially in the bigger cities. But I also don't believe everyone got married for convenience. People still married for love. Without any real hard evidence of what the relationship was between Andrew and Abby I don't think we will ever truly know. Andrew and Sarah married on Christmas day. That seems a little more like marrying for love, a little romantic. Without being there I don't think we can ever really say.

Allen wrote:… Without any real hard evidence of what the relationship was between Andrew and Abby I don't think we will ever truly know. Andrew and Sarah married on Christmas day. That seems a little more like marrying for love, a little romantic. Without being there I don't think we can ever really say.

I agree, Allen, without any evidence of what the relationship between Andrew and Abby was like, we are never going to truly know. Besides, the fact that Andrew and Sarah were married on Christmas Day, what evidence do we have that he loved Sarah, and only married Abby for convenience?

I personally think that Andrew did love Abby; most likely not in the same way he loved Sarah, but according to testimony given by Sarah B. Whitehead at the Inquest, her mother’s share of the house was sold to Abby.

Testimony given by Sarah B. Whitehead at the Inquest:

Q. What is it in, real estate or personal property?
A. It is in real estate.

Q. Where is it?
A. It is the house I live in.

Q. What is the value of it, about?
A. Well, I think when it was sold it brought $3000.

Q. It already belonged to the three of you?
A. No, my father left half to me, and half to my mother; and my mother sold her part to my sister.

Q. Your sister, Mrs. Borden?
A. Yes sir.

Q. So it belonged to your sister and you?
A. Yes sir. She bought it to keep it in the family.

Obviously, Lizzie was telling the truth about Andrew buying out the Widow Gray's share of the house, and having it put in Abby’s name. This action on Andrew’s part tells me that he loved Abby very much; he loved her enough to provide a place for her half sister to live in. I really don’t think Andrew would have bought out the Widow Gray's share of the house if he had married Abby solely for the convenience of having someone to raise his kids and clean his house.

I to have often wondered about the relationship between Abby & Andrew. I think they probably had feelings for each other and at the beginning there was hope of being able to have the girls accept Abby. However I think Lizzie was influenced by Emma. Emma was probably jealous of her and remembering her real mother saw her as an intruder. I'm sure she passed a lot of these feelings onto Lizzie. As always, this is only my opinion and not based on any written testimony.

I agree, Nadzieja. I have always thought Emma was a huge influence in the way Lizzie changed from accepting Abby, when she was a young girl, to her dislike of her as an adult. I also think there was a lot more to Emma's promise of 'taking care of little Lizzie', than we are lead to believe.

I agree with what twinsrwe and nadzieja had to say. I also think that Emma influenced Lizzie's opinion of Abby. Lizzie was very young when Abby married Andrew. Emma was old enough to remember her mother. I think Emma poisoned Lizzie against her to some degree.

Lizzie was a 4yo to be exact.

Aamartin wrote:... Poor Abby. In what I think was a loveless marriage, living with 2 harridans and working like a servant herself.

Out of curiosity, why do you feel the marriage between Andrew and Abby was loveless?[/quote]

Just a feeling, instinct. I have nothing to back it up... Abby was young enough to have had a child of her own once married, yet she never did. I have often wondered why.

I have also wondered if Andrew stuck up for her to E&L.

Abby was 37 years old when she married Andrew, and he was 43 years old. That is still young enough to have a child. Though she would have been considered a spinster to have never been married by that age. Sarah died in 1863 and Lizzie had been born in 1860. When Sarah gave birth to Lizzie she was about the same age that Abby was at the time of her marriage. Maybe Abby could not have any children of her own. Birth control was not used by the mainstream back then. If the mother was considered to frail too have a child either abstinence was recommended or interestingly enough the rhythm method. But for a long time there was some misconception about when a woman was considered most fertile. She might have been happy to take on a ready made family. Until she realized the girls despised her. Or possibly they decided that at that stage in life, and with two children already in the household, there was no need to start over with having more children. Back then the older a woman was when she gave birth the bigger the danger it was considered to be for her health. Sarah had died of what was termed uterine congestion. And Andrew had already lost one wife and been left with the children. There are many possibilities.

Aamartin wrote:... Just a feeling, instinct. I have nothing to back it up... Abby was young enough to have had a child of her own once married, yet she never did. I have often wondered why.

I have also wondered if Andrew stuck up for her to E&L.

Thank you for your explanation, Aamartin.

I agree with Allen, birth control was not used in those days. Most likely, Abby just could not have children; this was as common in the 1800’s as it is today. Just because the union between Andrew and Abby did not produce a child, does not mean they had a loveless marriage.

I think Andrew did stick up for Abby, in his own way. When Abby had several items stolen, Andrew put the key to their bedroom door lock on the mantle – in plain sight. I’ve always thought this was his way of letting the ‘girls’ know that he knew who took those items. By the same token, when Andrew bought out the Widow Gray's share of her house, he didn’t renege by making Abby sell the house; he bought another house for his spoiled brats. To me, these are good examples of Andrew sticking up for Abby.

Great thread. I'm happy to have found it whilst looking back a few months in time. I would like to add, though, that contraception was indeed used in the 1860s when Abby and Andrew married. There was a rubber pessary and a thing called a "womb veil" that were advertised in women's magazines and could be purchased by mail order or in some pharmacies. Whether most women of that time felt comfortable about routinely inserting these things into their own vaginas is a question for another day. Men, of course, had condoms made of rubber or sheep's intestines. Other forms of birth control (sponges soaked in various liquids or oils) or even a rudimentary rhythm method were used as far back as ancient Egypt.

Of course, just because such means were available doesn't say they were available to Abby and Andrew Borden, or that they were even aware of them. Death in "childbed," infant mortality and miscarriage were all a sad fact of life in those days, just as they are today in parts of the world where modern medicine is either unknown or is, for reason, unavailable to people. It seems to me that if Andrew were at all sensitized to the subject by his first wife's death, he and Abby might have talked about the dangers of childbearing at her (for the times) advanced age. Maybe Abby feared pregnancy and was happy to discover that Andrew suffered from ED and was glad to be let off the hook. Who knows? They did appear to share a bed, though. Doesn't mean they did anything but sleep in it, but it does suggest more than a mere marriage of convenience.


Edited to add: My new avatar is a photo, taken about 1905, of my Irish paternal grandmother, whose name was Maggie. :)

And a very lovely avatar it is, too!

Thank you. Maggie was what they used to call "a looker," and something of a free spirit, too. I wish I could have known her but, alas, she died from complications of ALS a few months before I was born.

I have seen the advertisements for such things in old newspapers and magazines. I've also read medical journals of the time that advocate just using the rhythm method because anything else is unsanitary and prone to cause infection. It's hard to say if because it was advertised anyone actually used these devices. It's also a fact that in the nineteenth century some doctors would bring a woman to orgasm, either manually or mechanically, to alleviate her mental stress and frustration. But I don't think I'd venture to say either Lizzie or Abby ever had such a doctor's visit.

Ha! Yes, the treatment for "hysteria." What was the name of the indy movie that had that as its focus? Seems I rented it through Netflix within the last year or so. Good cast.

It would indeed be interesting to know how many women actually did use all the gadgets available to them. I have the feeling many did. Sequential childbirth was not fun (especially without a camera crew and PR staff around to glamorize it every step of the way). Many women felt so trapped by it that they would do damn near anything to prevent another birth -- look at the response Margaret Sanger got when she opened her clinics. The Havelock Ellis crowd certainly promoted contraception to a certain well-heeled circle of cognoscenti, both for their own comfort and to limit the growth of an immigrant population they feared would get out of hand (see eugenics). In spite of the Comstock Laws that came along in the 1870s to curtail the "indecent" dissemination (no pun intended) of information about birth control, women figured stuff out and did what they could. That was what Margaret Sanger was up against, as I know you know. Just mentioning this for others here who might not be as aware of the fascinating history of birth control in this country.

Museum Displays Contraceptives from Past Eras
http://womensenews.org/story/reproducti ... uFGxhAo7IU

Mara wrote:Ha! Yes, the treatment for "hysteria." What was the name of the indy movie that had that as its focus? Seems I rented it through Netflix within the last year or so. Good cast.

It would indeed be interesting to know how many women actually did use all the gadgets available to them. I have the feeling many did. Sequential childbirth was not fun (especially without a camera crew and PR staff around to glamorize it every step of the way). Many women felt so trapped by it that they would do damn near anything to prevent another birth -- look at the response Margaret Sanger got when she opened her clinics. The Havelock Ellis crowd certainly promoted contraception to a certain well-heeled circle of cognoscenti, both for their own comfort and to limit the growth of an immigrant population they feared would get out of hand (see eugenics). In spite of the Comstock Laws that came along in the 1870s to curtail the "indecent" dissemination (no pun intended) of information about birth control, women figured stuff out and did what they could. That was what Margaret Sanger was up against, as I know you know. Just mentioning this for others here who might not be as aware of the fascinating history of birth control in this country.

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Mara wrote:Ha! Yes, the treatment for "hysteria." What was the name of the indy movie that had that as its focus? Seems I rented it through Netflix within the last year or so. Good cast.

It would indeed be interesting to know how many women actually did use all the gadgets available to them. I have the feeling many did. Sequential childbirth was not fun (especially without a camera crew and PR staff around to glamorize it every step of the way). Many women felt so trapped by it that they would do damn near anything to prevent another birth -- look at the response Margaret Sanger got when she opened her clinics. The Havelock Ellis crowd certainly promoted contraception to a certain well-heeled circle of cognoscenti, both for their own comfort and to limit the growth of an immigrant population they feared would get out of hand (see eugenics). In spite of the Comstock Laws that came along in the 1870s to curtail the "indecent" dissemination (no pun intended) of information about birth control, women figured stuff out and did what they could. That was what Margaret Sanger was up against, as I know you know. Just mentioning this for others here who might not be as aware of the fascinating history of birth control in this country.

As an aside, the clinic Sanger opened was established around 1916. This was almost 25 years after the murders. Up until then information for birth control was limited to the public. The use of contraception was a touchy subject. Most of society was against it. There was mention of it being used if the health of the woman was frail and giving birth was risky. The rhythm method or abstinence is what is generally pushed in most of the medical journals and home remedy books. Other than that up until the early twentieth century the use of birth control was a taboo subject. Although I'm sure many families did privately try their own different methods for preventing unwanted pregnancies. Abstinence was probably still the leading method.

Havelock Ellis studied and wrote about homosexuality and transgender sexuality in the late nineteenth century. He was indeed also a supporter of the science of eugenics, which is founded on the idea of selective breeding. It is the belief that those who have defective traits should be discouraged in producing off spring. That those who have desirable traits should be induced to breed more. It's a pretty distasteful subject for me. Hitler was also a fan of the science of eugenics and we see what happened there.

You're right that Sanger's clinics were a much later event. The fact is, though, that even poor, uneducated women flocked to them in spite of any taboos their mothers would have recognized twenty years earlier. Wealthy women had for a long time been exposed to a different European view of birth control and abortion and could even have supplies sent to them from European friends and relations. Where did the merchant class fit into this? I don't know. While it's true that laws were passed criminalizing even the spreading of information about birth control, it was not women who pushed for this, and it wasn't until the 1870s that these laws took effect nationally in the US.

Before and after, there is plenty of evidence for women using all kinds of methods (some reasonable, some not so much) to prevent conception, or even to abort a pregnancy. We were talking about the early 1860s, when Abby and Andrew were first married and perhaps contemplating procreation. Yes, it was all taboo. Anything about sex and personal hygiene was, "in polite society," unless you were training a child to care for themselves properly with or without chambermaids. In less polite society, midwives quietly helped other women learn how to prevent conception. In rural areas where animal husbandry was an art form, women may have had more innate understanding of how watching their ovulation and lactation schedules could work to their advantage in planning pregnancies. They were likely to know about abortifacient herbs, too.

I'm with you about eugenics. It's a deeply troubling thing to me that something I consider valuable -- modern birth control -- owes much in this country to the oligarchs of the early 1900s who financed its distribution in the paranoid (at least) belief that it would limit expansion of the "inferior classes." In fact, though, the women of this class embraced family planning for their own health and comfort. To end a grim paragraph with a smile, they were not concerned that the Biddles were going to take over and ruin everything for nice people.

Abortifacients have been around for a very long time. One of the reasons the spreading of information about contraceptives was banned was not only because it was considered taboo, but many of these methods could induce serious illnesses and infection. Self induced abortions had a very real chance of leading to the death of the mother. A failed self induced abortion could lead to a baby being born permanently unhealthy. The methods were crude and quite often far from hygienic. Even in the 1860's the use of birth control was frowned upon for many reasons by society even as flying in the face of God if nothing else. I've done my homework as well in this aspect of women's history. It's a fact that while many aspects of sexuality and reproduction were not talked about in polite society, it was a very different matter behind closed doors. The Victorians were not all quite the proper prudes that everyone believes them to be. They were aware of sexuality, problems with unwanted reproduction, sexually transmitted disease, etc. The use of douching in the nineteenth century was understood to help avoid unwanted pregnancy. Such examples as the "he's at homes" that wives would use while husbands were making their living on ships show they were aware of sexuality. The problem with limited public information is that it leads to limited access to the methods available. People were often forced to improvise. And practically speaking not everyone had a mid wife handy. Some mothers never spoke to their children about such delicate matters at all. So without access to ready information many woman still chose the methods of abstinence and rhythm until something else was made available to them. Which accounts for the onrush of business at the clinics.

I wrote a comment, had second thoughts and deleted it. I'll rephrase it. Ms. Sanger was very much a believer in eugenics. The poor, uneducated, minorities, and mentally ill should not reproduce. Those who take her words out of context are misleading and inflammatory, BUT so are those who try to justify and twist her words to fit a more politically correct modern idea. Bottom line, she has said over and over again that the poor, sickly, and retarded should not reproduce. She was for racial hygiene in it's purest form.

The following (A Plan for Peace, Margaret Sanger) was published in Birth Control Review (April 1932, pp. 107-108):

A Plan for Peace by MARGARET SANGER

First, put into action President Wilson's fourteen points, upon which terms Germany and Austria surrendered to the Allies in 1918. Second, have Congress set up a special department for the study of population problems and appoint a Parliament of Population, the directors representing the various branches of science: this body to direct and control the population through birth rates and immigration, and to direct its distribution over the country according to national needs consistent with taste, fitness and interest of individuals.

The main objects of the Population Congress would be:

a) to raise the level and increase the general intelligence of population.
b) to increase the population slowly by keeping the birth rate at its present level of fifteen per thousand,decreasing the death rate below its present mark of 11 per thousand.
c) to keep the doors of immigration closed to the entrance of certain aliens whose condition is known to be detrimental to the stamina of the race, such as feeble minded, idiots, morons, insane, syphilitic, epileptic,criminal, professional prostitutes, and others in this class barred by the immigration laws of 1924.
d) to apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.
e) to insure the country against future burdens of maintenance for numerous offspring as may be born of feeble minded parents, by pensioning all persons with transmissible disease who voluntarily consent to sterilization.
f) to give certain dysgenic groups in our population their choice of segregation or sterilization.
g) to apportion farm lands and homesteads for these segregated persons where they would be taught to work under competent instructors for the period of their entire lives.
The first step would thus be to control the intake and output of morons, mental defectives, epileptics.

The second step would be to take an inventory of the secondary group such as illiterates, paupers, unemployables,criminals, prostitutes, dope-fiends; classify them in special departments under government medical protection,and segregate them on farms and open spaces as long as necessary for the strengthening and development of moral conduct.

Having corralled this enormous part of our population and placed it on a basis of health instead of punishment, it is safe to say that fifteen or twenty millions of our population would then be organized into soldiers of defense---defending the unborn against their own disabilities.

The third step would be to give special attention to the mothers' health, to see that women who are suffering from tuberculosis, heart or kidney disease, toxic goitre, gonorrhea, or any disease where the condition of pregnancy disturbs their health are placed under public health nurses to instruct them in practical, scientific methods of contraception in order to safeguard their lives---thus reducing maternal mortality.

The above steps may seem to place emphasis on a health program instead of on tariffs, moratoriums and debts, but I believe that national health is the first essential factor in any program for universal peace.

With the future citizen safeguarded from hereditary taints, with five million mental and moral degenerates segregated, with ten million women and ten million children receiving adequate care, we could then turn our attention to the basic needs for international peace.There would then be a definite effort to make population increase slowly and at a specified rate, in order to accommodate and adjust increasing numbers to the best social and economic system.

In the meantime we should organize and join an International League of Low Birth Rate Nations to secure and maintain World Peace.


“Plan for Peace” from Birth Control Review (April 1932, pp. 107-108)

Article 1. The purpose of the American Baby Code shall be to provide for a better distribution of babies… and to protect society against the propagation and increase of the unfit.
Article 4. No woman shall have the legal right to bear a child, and no man shall have the right to become a father, without a permit…
Article 6. No permit for parenthood shall be valid for more than one birth.

PossumPie, we agree. I know that Sanger tapped the eugenics movement for her purposes and believed herself to be doing a wonderful thing. It has long been believed that Sanger simply latched onto the eugenics movement because that's where the money was, and she was desperate to get her contraceptive gospel preached even at that moral cost. Long ago, I subscribed to this convenient theory, which sanitizes a disgraceful aspect of the history of women's control over their reproductive rights. That's why I said I regretted that the contraceptive advances Sanger made in this country came at such an expense. There are some in the African-American community to this very day who believe that clinics such as those operated by Planned Parenthood have genocide at their core. When viewed in the light of the Sanger manifesto which FactFinder has reproduced for us above, and considering the history of racism in this country, that's understandable.

I believe we are far afield now in discussing this in the context of Lizzie Borden, who was long dead when Sanger published the Plan for Peace. This is another of those occasions on which I think to myself how nice it would be to be able to talk to you all in person. We're pretty smart cookies, if I do say so myself, and I really like to hang out with smart cookies.

Just a quick word about abortifacients.Several herbs associated with the female reproductive system were employed more to help regulate a woman's menstrual cycle than to outright cause an abortion, though that was certainly also done with herbs like Pennyroyal and Tansy. I have a pretty Vitex agnus castus tree on my property, the small black seeds from which have long been said to provide some hormonal stability to a woman's cycle, enabling her to more successfully pinpoint her most fertile period if she wanted to avoid pregnancy. This may be hogwash, of course, but that's the lore, and why this tree is also called Chasteberry.

Mara wrote:PossumPie, we agree. I know that Sanger tapped the eugenics movement for her purposes and believed herself to be doing a wonderful thing. It has long been believed that Sanger simply latched onto the eugenics movement because that's where the money was, and she was desperate to get her contraceptive gospel preached even at that moral cost. Long ago, I subscribed to this convenient theory, which sanitizes a disgraceful aspect of the history of women's control over their reproductive rights. That's why I said I regretted that the contraceptive advances Sanger made in this country came at such an expense. There are some in the African-American community to this very day who believe that clinics such as those operated by Planned Parenthood have genocide at their core. When viewed in the light of the Sanger manifesto which FactFinder has reproduced for us above, and considering the history of racism in this country, that's understandable.

I believe we are far afield now in discussing this in the context of Lizzie Borden, who was long dead when Sanger published the Plan for Peace. This is another of those occasions on which I think to myself how nice it would be to be able to talk to you all in person. We're pretty smart cookies, if I do say so myself, and I really like to hang out with smart cookies.

I agree Mara, I wish we all lived in the same town, and could meet at my house once a week for Coffee, Biscotti, and intelligent talk. This sounds horribly condescending, but I have very few intelligent people around that I can talk about science, philosophy, logic, etc. with. The faculty room at the school where I currently teach is filled with discussions about who's sleeping with who, and what students will fail out for sure. Disappointing from teachers. My dream is to get into a University to teach, where (perhaps) the conversations will be sightly more academic. I fear I'm outnumbered on this forum with people more liberal in their thinking than I am, but that is OK, I'm always up for a challenge!

If a group of us ever wants to go to the Villisca house for an overnight-- we can congregate at my house the night before. I Have lots of room!

PossumPie, some of my best friends are conservatives ;) In fact, sometimes I'm surprisingly conservative myself. Mostly, I hate those labels. Why restrict one's thinking to a set of preconditions that filter (and distort) the information we receive? Before you know it, you've carved out neural pathways that make it almost impossible to access all the brain matter you have to work with. I see no fun in that. As to finding more stimulating intellectual conversation in university environments, good luck with that. In my experience, most peer group discussion topics revolve around budgets and tenure -- and who is sleeping with whom!

Aamartin, that's a generous offer! So that's why the Villisca murders have interest for you. Right around the corner, eh?

Two things first: Mara, I totally agree, I hate labels. I think it stuffs you into a box & never lets you out to have new ideas or to be able to change your mind. Second: Aamartin-- Did you see the newest issue of The Hatchet--It has an article on The Villisca House. I know the people who went & it really is a good article. Thanks for the invite!

OK--If you've read other posts, I have to just put down what I learned in the books about the working women of the past generations. Some of these women were interviewed & were quite candid in their remarks. Believe it or not most of them knew very little or nothing about sexual relations. Of course they learned fast and I'm sure once married would talk to each other. I got the impression most didn't talk about these things unless you were married. One girl who was married and pregnant went over to her in laws to visit. Her father in law wouldn't let her in because she was "showing" and there were young kids there & he didn't want them to see her.
On a personal note, I was married in the early 70's. A family planning clinic had opened at our hospital & I went there. OMG you wouldn't believe the fall out I got from going to this place. From all the older generation of aunts etc... it was if I was spitting in the face of God. I was literally going against the church. As far as I was concerned it was between me & my husband not the entire family or the church. It was an eye opener for me, I guess I've just always followed my own path and always will.

I too wish we were all closer, I would love to get together & just talk over all kinds of things.

Nadzieja, thanks for your revealing post. We should probably have a thread for just exactly these kinds of exchanges. It helps to build community and allows us to take some short-cuts in our on-topic discussions because we don't as often have to back up and explain where we're coming from.

I sure do sympathize with you about the experience you relate. Glad you stood up for yourself in the face of all that grief. I can confirm that it was once very difficult for young women to learn about their own sexuality. Apart from little pamphlets written by different manufacturers of menstrual hygiene products, there was nothing, not even in encyclopedias, and so-called marriage manuals where a joke. On the subject of personal experience with birth control, when I was in college in the mid-to-late '60s, "the pill" existed -- in fact, at one point in my experimental treatment for acne years earlier, I had been on a form of it without even realizing it! -- but few physicians would prescribe it, or any form of birth control, for unmarried women. Sometimes even married women were out of luck unless their husbands came with them to the exam and agreed to it. Also, of course, abortion was illegal, a correlation with the lack of access to effective birth control that I always found counter-intuitive.

I read a (good) book called 'The Mirror' by Marlys Millhiser in which a young woman is transported back in time to her grandmother's body.... In the book a local prostitute told her to use a penny as a sort if diaphragm. They were bigger back then

Mara wrote:Ha! Yes, the treatment for "hysteria." What was the name of the indy movie that had that as its focus? Seems I rented it through Netflix within the last year or so. Good cast.

i just mentioned it in another thread yesterday. i saw it a month or two ago and thought it was a good movie. it's called hysteria.

one of my favorite parts was when the eccentric electrical gadget inventor shouted 'AHOY! AHOY!' into what was supposed to be one of the few early phones. i'd read bell had considered it. thank god he settled on hello as the standard phone greeting instead!

That's the movie! Whew. Now I can sleep. ;)

Quote Aamartin. 'They were bigger back then.' What were 'bigger', asks she innocently?

pennies!!!