Childbirth in the nineteenth century usually happened at home. And it was treacherous. Traumatic injuries were common and left women permanently disabled or in chronic pain. One in every fifty mothers died, and that figure was higher for poor and minority women. Child mortality rates, however, decreased throughout the twentieth century and pregnancy became more routine. Physicians improved standards and childbirths increasingly occurred in hospitals where emergency procedures could be followed safely and quickly. But a decrease in child mortality obscured the fact that mothers continued to agonize or die at similar rates. Physicians saved babies but not mothers. Why? Corporal Rhetoric: Regulating Reproduction in the Progressive Era explains such stubborn mortality rates by arguing that women lost control of childbirth in the early twentieth century. As male obstetricians replaced female midwives, the idea of childbirth as a natural and feminine ritual became a pathology treated by men.
The politics of childbirth go beyond maternity wards and home births. At the heart of Corporal Rhetoric is social anxiety. Barbara Schneider argues that reproduction stoked larger fears about the nation and who would compose it. She shows how “progressive” activists used reproduction as a rhetorical instrument for their various causes. For Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes, who ruled that states had the right to regulate reproduction, it served the cause of eugenics. For President Theodore Roosevelt, the fear of race suicide led him to not have a large brood himself, but to promote the same for American families. For Margaret Sanger, the terror of self-induced abortions gave rise to the American birth control movement. For psychologist and mother of twelve Lillian Gilbreth, large families and a more populous society made for better labor forces, more efficient organizations, and greater productivity. Reproduction, and who reproduced, had serious implications for society. Schneider’s ability to weave together assorted personalities and ideas makes Corporal Rhetoric an essential text for any scholar of the period.
The efficiency movement played an integral part in women’s reproductive experiences. A good example is provided by Schneider’s coverage of the Flexner report, a 1910 summary of recommendations for medical education. The report aimed to train modern physicians in clinical environments and professionalize medical practice with licensing, regulation, and common instruction. Funded by the Carnegie Endowment, the report favored large institutions with access to laboratories and clinical settings at the expense of smaller institutions who closed their own medical programs, with women’s colleges among the first to shutter and historically Black colleges soon to follow. Steeped in the language of efficiency, the Flexner report was a bigoted and paternalistic reorganization of higher education that excluded African Americans and women from advanced health services.
Schneider’s study of the Children’s Bureau is another important contribution and helps to connect the many women activists who established settlement houses, consumer advocacy groups, labor reform movements, and suffrage campaigns. Schneider shows how child protection and parenting inspired other reforms. The first White House Conference on Children and Youth took place in 1909 with the support of the National Child Labor Committee, the National Congress of Mothers, and the Federation of Women’s Clubs among other organizations. The initial excitement collided with the grind of federal politics, and it took three years for the Children’s Bureau to come into being. Delays persisted, and legislators meanwhile restricted the bureau from intervening in domestic matters. This reflected anxieties men had about women, and specifically the fear that women would upset the paternalistic family system. Still, the bureau did groundbreaking research, which informed sociological studies, medical practice, and the culture of parenting. It also generated additional activism and, despite some opposition, made child welfare a duty of the state.
Corporal Rhetoric, as the name suggests, examines Progressive Era bodies through the texts and language of the time. The book’s methodology uses feminist historiography to show where power over reproductive rights took root, and who wielded control. Ignoring the part that men play in reproduction is not an oversight by Schneider. When Holmes delivered his opinion on state regulation of reproduction, she writes, “it was the fallopian tubes, not the vas deferens, he named for cutting” (9). Women must be the focus, she argues, because their reproductive ability creates a “threat to political, economic, and disciplinary structures and produces a tremendous rhetorical activity to exercise control” (10). Schneider’s writing tethers feminist theory about women’s bodies to various texts and genres, giving shape to the categories of identity found within. Doing so not only offers an immersive view of women’s activism in the early twentieth century, it offers a way to rethink our present condition.
The relevance of Corporal Rhetoric to today’s politics is unmissable. I began reading the book in 2021, shortly after the Texas legislature passed the Texas Heartbeat Act, a ban on abortions after an embryo registers cardiac activity. Since then, other states have considered comparable restrictions and the Supreme Court will likely decide the constitutionality of these laws in the coming year. For anyone unsure of the consequences these laws might have, Corporal Rhetoric presents a history replete with examples. Our own time does not seem entirely different from the early twentieth century. Political careers are made arguing over reproductive rights, activists of all stripes take to the bully pulpit to make their case, and academics and medical industry experts extoll their version of “best practice.” Schneider’s book encourages us to consider the language, technologies, education, drugs, and spaces where healthcare is provided. We should equally consider the causes, campaigns, and texts that inform us because, as her book demonstrates, the victories for women’s liberation and child protections came through the rhetoric surrounding women’s bodies.
