An Intersectional Archaeology of Women’s Reproductive Rights in Early Twentieth-Century Easton, Maryland

Abstract

The early 20th century laid much of the basis for today’s landscape of reproductive politics. This article evaluates the reproductive landscape of Easton, Maryland, in the early 20th century, where the appearance of a ca. 1903 advertising booklet for Chichester’s English Pennyroyal Pills and children’s toys on the site of a white middle-class home raises questions about the ways intersections of race, class, and gender constrained reproductive choices amid segregation and the rise of both the birth-control and eugenics movements. An intersectional lens facilitates the exploration of these intersections at the household, neighborhood, and national levels to compare the reproductive realities for white and African American women in this period and the particular local manifestations of these realities.