Difference between revisions of "328 2010--Week 8 Questions/Comments"
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I think that Mary Ann is right on point. Women during this time had little access to health care, especially poor and working class women. I think it is good to keep in mind that it was usually only the mid to upper class who had access to health care and doctors because they could afford for it. Also, since this was the period of Comstock Laws, women were unable to access information about birth control which made pregnancy a very real, yet fearful thing because of the risks that were involved. I believe that these women were writing simply out of need for information they could not access elsewhere. These women display just a snapshot of the reality of pregnancy during this period, while also echoing the concerns of women who were now expected to be completely responsible for both the home and the children. -abratchi | I think that Mary Ann is right on point. Women during this time had little access to health care, especially poor and working class women. I think it is good to keep in mind that it was usually only the mid to upper class who had access to health care and doctors because they could afford for it. Also, since this was the period of Comstock Laws, women were unable to access information about birth control which made pregnancy a very real, yet fearful thing because of the risks that were involved. I believe that these women were writing simply out of need for information they could not access elsewhere. These women display just a snapshot of the reality of pregnancy during this period, while also echoing the concerns of women who were now expected to be completely responsible for both the home and the children. -abratchi | ||
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| + | I agree with Mary Ann as well. We do have also remove ourselves from the modern notions of child birth and child rearing and remember that it was quite life threatening. It was not uncommon for women to have one child after another as well because of the lack of birth control. It must have been very comforting to these women to have a Federal agency such as the Children’s Bureau (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Children%27s_Bureau) to guide them. In the aftermath of the Great War, I gather that many women turned to Children’s Bureau for help. I looked up some more information on the Bureau on our favorite Wikipedia and found out that it was created by President Taft In 1912 and that Julia Lathrop was the first head of the Bureau. I wonder if Taft appointed her because he thought that as a woman she was more qualified to run the Bureau or if she was simply THE person for the job. –Caryn Levine | ||
== Excerpt from "Passing" by Nella Larsen == | == Excerpt from "Passing" by Nella Larsen == | ||
