Katharine Dexter McCormick Pioneer for Women's Rights

Subjects:

• Women's Studies » Women's Issues in Politics & Law
• Women's Studies » Women's Health
• History » American History (General)
• Health/Medicine » Public Health

Reviews:

• Katharine Dexter McCormick's story has never before been so fully told. McCormick came to champion women's rights through her mother's commitment to the early suffragists....Her scientific frame of mind, tenacity of spirit, and resolute belief in her own ideas as she battled Stanley McCormick's domineering mother not only shed light on her character, but also reveal new insights about the many internecine disputes of the psychiatric profession....Recommended. All levels/collections.
  —Choice March 2004
• [W]ell researched, thorough, and professional.
  —The Historian Spring 2005

• Endorsement From John Ahouse
  Curator, American Literature Specialized Libraries Doheny Memorial Library, University of Southern California: Armond Fields's meticulous biography allows us to witness McCormick's rise from a priveleged Chicago childhood to an exceptional education at all-male M.I.T., through a troubled marriage, into her years of daring activism, both political and scientific, on behalf of women's suffrage and reproductive rights. This book greatly expands our picture of those times and will find its place in libraries and universities as a valued source for future research.
• Endorsement From T. Coraghessan Boyle
  Professor of English, University of Southern California: Armond Fields has produced one of the truly necessary biographies of our time, a life of one of the twentieth century's most mysterious and determined feminists, Katharine Dexter McCormick. Katharine's story, from her rebellion against an all-male educational system at M.I.T. to her disastrous marriage to Stanley McCormick to her friendship with Margaret Sanger and her funding of Dr. Gregory Pincus' efforts to come up with a contraceptive pill that would help give women control over their own bodies for the first time in human history, is the stuff of compelling drama. Beyond its significance as a vital link in the history of the women's movement, Fields's book is a thumping good read as well.
• Endorsement From Mary Lake Polan
  Professor and Chairman, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
  Stanford Univeristy School of Medicine: Katharine Dexter McCormick is an outstanding role model and Armond Fields' book opens her life for all of us.

Table of Contents:

• Preface
• The Formative Years
• Marriage and Madness
• Women's Suffrage
• The League of Women Voters
• Dr. Brill
• The League of Women Voters
• Birth Control
• Dr. Kempf, the Trial, and Aftermath
• Birth Control
• The Pill
• Final Years
• Research Sources
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index