Digital Highlights: Safeguards

Warnings from the front matter of "The Lady's Own Book."

In 1877, in England, Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh, who would become notorious for refusing to take a religious oath to take his seat in Parliament in 1880, were prosecuted for publishing and distributing a book on birth control.

In 1847, in Michigan, Dr. Z.J. Brown published The Lady’s Own Book, or, Female Safeguard; the title goes on to specify that Dr. Brown intends talking about “Generation, Sterility, Impotency, Female Complaints, the Diseases of Infants and Children…” as well as a host of other topics all covered “…in a plain, yet chaste, style…” Continue reading