The Progressive Era shaped the way we think about women's reproductive rights, and Prof. Barbara Schneider's book Corporal Rhetoric investigates all the ways. It tells how motherhood went from a natural experience to a pathogenic one, how the eugenics movement gathered steam, and how the medical profession changed.

Essential Reading:

Barbara Schneider, Corporal Rhetoric: Regulating Reproduction in the Progressive Era (2021).

Additional Reading:

Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction and the Meaning of Liberty (1998).

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