Own. That is what started my historical brain in thinking, how did we get to this point and did it exist historically . So i started to do that project. This project now is sort of a sequel to the first project. Because i discovered in my first book that the history of miscarriage i stopped right around 1900. I realized there was a lot more to the story because by 1900, we still will were not going to a doctor during pregnancy. I was really curious as to win that started, because i thought it was going to happen earlier. That is why i started looking at the development of prenatal care and why exactly women thought that was a good idea. It was not just doctors saying you should come to us. Historically doctors have tried that for many centuries for a variety of reasons and it does not always convince people. I wanted to investigate why women started going to the doctors while pregnant. Steve they did not go to doctors in the 19th century . Shannon no and doctors were not , even trying to get women throughout the 19th century. Pregnancy was seen as something you learn about from your mother perhaps. If there were any difficulties, you might seek out a female midwife. But through most of the 19th century physicians werent really interested. It did not seem like a business. They were certainly interested in trying to get into the business of childbirth, but they did not see a place for themselves in pregnancy. And women, it would have seemed foreign if we went back to say,ody in the 1850s to you should see a doctor. It was not seen as a medical thing. It was a woman thing. It was a natural thing. Steve everything from the normal cycles women go to the pregnancy and the trimesters was just handed down from generation to generation . Shannon absolutely. Keep in mind this is a time long before urine tests and ultrasounds. For many women, the signs of pregnancy, they would not know they were for sure pregnant until possibly the fourth month when they would feel the child. Because the common signs we use today to know that you are pregnant, particularly the cessation of menstruation is also a sign of malnourishment. Which many women throughout the 19th century in america had. So if a woman stopped having her period, that was not a guarantee she was pregnant. Many women would treat that as well health ill health. When we think about nine months all the things you are going through and why would you seek out medical care, one thing to note in the 19th century is it was not a ninemonth pregnancy. It was a much shorter pregnancy because women would not even be sure until they would feel the child with them. So if a baby was breach, if a csection was necessary, what would they do . Shannon if the baby was breach, many midwives were welltrained to turn the baby or deliver the baby. One of the things is there are lots of nonmedical ways to deliver a breech baby. There are some hospitals today getting back to that. Certainly there are some instances where csection would be used, but only if it was seen as the mother had no chance of living. That was the only time do a csection. Because surgery at that time especially prior to 1870 before , antiseptics, survival rate of surgery is very low. It would only be if the physician and the family thinks there is a chance to save the child, the woman has lost a lot of blood from something else, maybe it has been a very prolonged labor, and there is no chance of saving the woman. Then they might do a csection. That was sort of it. There was very little csection prior to 1920. Steve i am not sure if you can answer this, but genuinely speaking, how did society view women that were about to deliver a baby . Were there any stigmas or social norms . Shannon there was some. So one of the things i looked at in my research was i wanted to look through womens personal writings to see how they described being pregnant, and miscarriage and delivery. I have a few instances where there is one woman who is upper class, middle upper class living in boston. And her and her husband are living with her husbands parents. She has a lot of interaction with her motherinlaw. This is around the 1860s. And she at eight feels herself as a modern woman and she wants to go out and do her daily business throughout her pregnancy. Once she gets to seven months, her motherinlaw starts making a lot of comments about you should not go out in public. This is not you should not be seeing this way. There was some stigma about being publicly visibly pregnant. But we have to keep in mind that was very classbased. Certainly women of lower classes dont have that option. If they are working, they need to keep working as long as they can. They are not going to feel like, i cannot go out in public. They will think i need to feed my family so ill go to work. That stigma was very classbased. But i think that commonly we think of, especially the word confinement was used quite a bit. They would often talk about her being in confinement. And i think today we think that duringan she was shut in her whole pregnancy. For one, i have seen a variety of women writing during their pregnancy that they did not change their lives that much. Steve the diaries, how did you find them . Shannon a lot of digging. When i started the project, i was very committed. I wanted to get womens voices. I wanted to see those stories. So, i went to a variety of archives. Some of them were womens archives. So i knew that they had collected as many womens voices as they can. I would find a family collection. For example i have one couple connecticut but , the husband traveled a lot for business. He owned a manufacturing business. There were just hundreds of letters between them as a couple. I would just start looking. I would sit down with their family trees so i would know which birth, when they were giving birth so i could know when she was pregnant to see how she was describing her pregnancy to her husband. And also because of looking for miscarriages, i would see if there was a gap of four years between children. Then there would be a possibility of a miscarriage. I would just start reading the letters. I love that sort of stuff. The social history of reading peoples lives i find fascinating. It took a long time, but i loved it. Steve some things never change because some women have very easy pregnancies and multiple births. Others cannot bear children. How was that viewed in the 19th century . Were women expected to . And if they didnt have babies, how where they viewed . Shannon it depends on class and certain group. But yes i would say there was a , lot wrapped up in womens social role and her fertility. If a woman did not have any children then it is not , necessarily that she faced a stigma, could not go out in public those sorts of things. , but we do find women writing in their letters and diaries about trying and feeling anguish about not being able to have children. Some of that is social stigma and some of that is personal desire. The other thing to note is there was not a lot of control of fertility. If a woman could have children, she may not have wanted more than two or three, but after the 1870s and 1880s, Birth Control was illegal in this country. And so there was not a lot of there were not very many ways for a woman to control it. I have many stories where women are after six, seven, eight, nine children, they write about being exhausted. And if they do not want to or they cannot figure out how to stop it. One couple, her husband is in the army in the 1870s. They are out in indian territory, current day ft. Sill, oklahoma, and she just leaves and goes to her parents house in ohio. She leaves her children and has and has been behind. He writes her a letter saying arent you coming home . , she says you know what is can happen if i come home, i am going to get pregnant again. I just cant do that right now. That is the only thing she can do is put distance between them. Because there are no other options for her to stop being pregnant. Steve that is the extent of Family Planning . Shannon it is. The 19th century is fascinating because around 1850, there is a revolution in Family Planning. You have the vulcanization of rubber, which introduces cheap and effective condoms and diaphragms. Prior, you could get condoms but they were made of animal skins or intestines. Which was a layperson process, so they cost a lot of money, they were hard to get, often imported from france. Rubber increases the available types of contraception. Also there are Drug Companies sprouting up. One thing they find profitable in the 1850s and 1860s is to make solutions for postcoital douching, which is a common Birth Control practice. There is a lot of products that crop up in the 1850s and 1860s. Backlash,ewhat as a legislation gets passed in the 1870s tamping down on the availability of Birth Control. There is a Golden Moment of Birth Control, then it gets squashed pretty quickly. For the last third of the century it is hard to get legal Birth Control. Which means there is an underground market, but you dont know how much about the safety or efficacy of those products. Steve when did that change . Shannon it started to change a little bit with Margaret Sanger in the 1920s. Slowly she and other Birth Control advocate start to chip away. There is a federal law, and there is a lot of state law. The federal law was a postal law about mailing contraception and information. But a bunch of states also passed laws and they range from making it illegal to sell contraception to making it illegal to talk about or even use contraception. And so it takes from the 1920s all the way until the before the 1970s last law is overturned. Steve lets go back to the 1850s to the turnofthecentury. Did people talk about sex . Where do they get information . How did all of this evolve and develop . Shannon that is another part of the contraception revolution. There is also a growth in print media and a growth because of urbanization. People are flocking to the cities. That is the growth of a few different things. The first is public sexuality. You get red light districts in boston and new york. So there is a new public sexuality in the u. S. But also there is a new market for Domestic Health guides, which have been around since colonial america. But there is a real big print boom in the middle of the 19th century. Often these would include as much as they could, how to treat your child for a cold, but also they would teach things like withdrawal, the rhythm method. Here is how to make your own postcoital douching solution. And there is quite a bit of talk about sexuality. It is very interesting because it is 19th century language so it is often polite writing. So it is not quite the same words we would use today. But it is still very clear they would talk about the union between a husband and a wife and how often you should have it, what is good for your health. There are some Health Advocates in the middle of the 18th century saying you should only have it once a month, otherwise you will get too taxed. There is quite a bit of public sexuality, which is one of the reasons the backlash happens. There is a lot of antivice organizations that form to combat this new public sexuality. Steve when you teach this 19th century history to the 21st century students, what is their reaction . Shannon it is fascinating. As i mentioned, i am interested in the personal stories so i like to use those in class and have them think about, ok it is , a married couple who already had six kids. They are trying to figure out how to stop having sex. This is their options. What do you think they are going to do . We go through those scenarios , but they find it very fascinating. Steve what did they do . Shannon it depends. We have some Historical Records from diaries of them trying the rhythm method, which is a woman would mark when she has her period and find her safe time and plan around that. There are some women, one woman who talks actually the woman who left to go to ohio, she writes one letter back to her husband and says the only option they have is withdrawal, and she doesnt feel comfortable with it for religious reasons. That also seems to be a popular method. There is a range of herbal remedies and teas you could drink after sex to theoretically prevent conception. Steve any stories you have taken away . Because reading those letters, does it seem like you are eavesdropping into the personal lives of these couples . Shannon i guess in one way. But one of the things i was really proud about in publishing my book, especially this book on miscarriage, was to pay respect to these women because i find their stories really fascinating and their struggles really fascinating. I want to be able to use them to help us think about how to think about pregnancy and miscarriage today. I love using these stories. One of the more surprising was found was a couple women who were overjoyed in the event of a miscarriage. Because, again, they had little in terms of controlling their fertility. So i have one woman who is newly married, right after the 1873 panic and her husband lost a lot of money. They are scraping. They had to move. They were moving or living in new york, and they had to move to yonkers. She was very depressed about that. She gets pregnant. She talks about how depressed she is getting pregnant. Then she has a miscarriage, and she opens her diary with i am so happy now. It is something i did not expect going in. But i really like to use these stories to spark conversations today about how there should be a range of emotion around miscarriage, and we should not expect everyone to be sad or depressed about miscarriage. Certainly many women are said d, but also we need to recognize that for some women it is ok. It is a relief. Steve based on your research and the women you have studied and they can be transported to where they are today, how they view our Society Today . Shannon gosh, that is a big question. I think a lot of them would find it fascinating. Some of the women i think we would like to say they are more expect forn than we the 19th century in terms of taking control over their lives, their families. A lot of them would look at the ability to control your family fertilitywise as a great thing. A lot of them would probably be very shocked with the public nature of all sorts of things today. I love the idea if i could give a twitter account to one of these women, what would they say. That is a great student assignment. Maybe i will try that. [laughter] steve students at the university of new mexico. Thank you for being with us. Shannon thank you so much. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer on sunday on American History tv on cspan3, we continue our coverage of the 75th anniversary of dday. At 1 00 p. M. , listen to past american president s who traveled to normandy to honor the fallen, starting with jimmy carter in 1978. He is followed by Ronald Reagan in 1984, bill clinton in 1994, george w. Bush in 2004, and barack obama in 2014. And then at 4 00 p. M. Eastern on film,merica, the 1944 dday to germany. We got we could use it as a was, but we found that it pretty badly destroyed by the germans themselves. They destroyed the docks, which we thought we could use. Recall,ook them, if i two months before we could bring a ship in. Announcer at 6 30 p. M. , world war ii veteran john ron describes how his company was beach,d from to omaha the constant fire into the cries of the wounded. Most of it was medic, but a few of it was mama, and that type of thing. The cries of the wounded and dying were sort of haunting, but they were downed out by the rifle and machine gun fire coming from our right. Announcer at 8 00 p. M. , President Trump and the first lady joined the french president , emmanuel macron, for the dday 75th Anniversary Ceremony at normandy american ceremony cemetery. Start sunday at 1 00 p. M. On American History tv on cspan3. This weekend on the civil war, Virginia Tech professor paul quigley talks about Jefferson Daviss political opponents in the south. Here is a preview. So davis, his position was always, we are in this together, we want to win the war, so we need to Group Resources together and do what is necessary to win against the union, all military resources, all military personnel should be under the control of the confederate government. And Jefferson Davis was the commanderinchief. Of course, the states did not like that, when it seemed to hurt them. One of the issues that crept up time and time again is when the territory of a particular state came under attack by union forces, the state governors and many others within those states would complain, why are our boys from georgia and North Carolina and wherever, why are they fighting in virginia or out west or wherever they were, when they should be here, the coastline is under attack, why cant we use our own men to defend our own territory . Example, in up, for february of 1862 after the fall of Roanoke Island in North Carolina, davis tried to explain to the state that it was not going to be possible to protect every mile of confederate coastline, that would be about 3500 miles of confederate coastline. That is without even taking into account the internal borders. So davis kept saying, we cannot protect them, we have to think about the big picture, we have to send the troops and resources where they are going to be most valuable to the cause of the whole. Announcer learn more about Jefferson Daviss political opponents in the south, today at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on the civil war. You are watching American History tv, where we explore our nations past, saturdays and sundays on cspan3. Next historian , Rudolph Daniels talks about his book, the Great Railroad war United StatesRailway Operations during world war i. He argues that the ability to move troops, equipment and ammunition at an accelerated rate