plik

xxxix

Chronology of Motherhood

1570

.—Queen Nefertari of Egypt defies cul-

tural conventions by serving as adviser to her hus-
band, King Ahmose, and co-rules Egypt with her
son after her husband’s death.

1473

.—Queen Hatsheput, a co-regent of Egypt

along with her minor stepson since 1479, declares
herself Pharaoh. Her tenure as ruler is the longest in
Egyptian history for a female.

Circa 1250

.—The Romans begin celebrating

mothers by honoring the Mother Goddess Cybele
each March.

350

.—Greek philosopher and empiricist Aris-

totle generates the theory that a woman’s uterus
travels throughout her body in response to inter-
nal forces that include the woman’s own emotional
state. Aristotle also posits that women are imperfect
men who have never truly developed physically.

1405—French writer and single mother Christine
de Pizan publishes The Book of the City of Ladies
in an effort to rebut character attacks on women
by presenting them as mothers, wives, and political
and social leaders through the eyes of Lady Reason,
Lady Rectitude, and Lady Justice.

1533—Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII,
becomes Queen of England. Later the same year she
gives birth to Elizabeth I, who becomes one of the
best-loved English monarchs of all time. Three years
after Elizabeth’s birth, Boleyn is beheaded for high
treason. In reality, her only crime is that she fails to
provide the king with a male heir.

1568—The first incidence of planned family coloni-
zation in North America begins with the arrival of
225 Spanish settlers in what is modern-day South
Carolina.

1587—One day after her arrival at Roanoke Island,
British immigrant Eleanor White Dare gives birth
to daughter Virginia, the first English child born in
America.

1607—Twelve-year-old Pocahontas, the daughter
of Chief Powhattan, saves the life of Englishman
John Smith. In 1614, Pocahontas marries English-
man John Rolfe and gives birth to a son.

1608—Anne Forrest and her maid, Anne Burras,
are the first Englishwomen to arrive in Jamestown,
Virginia. Forrest’s fate is unknown, but Burras mar-
ries John Laydon and bears four daughters.

1620—Arriving on the Mayflower, 13-year-old
Mary Chilton is the first English female to set foot
on Plymouth Rock. Her arrival is depicted in the
painting The Landing of the Pilgrims. Chilton mar-
ries fellow Pilgrim John Winslow and gives birth to
10 children.

1630—Nurse  and  midwife  Tryntje  Jones  immi-
grates  to  the  United  States  from  the  Netherlands
and  becomes  the  first  female  to  practice  medicine
in America.

1632—Commonly known as “The Woman’s Law-
yer,”  The  Lawes  and  Resolutions  of  Women’s
Rights:  A  Methodical  Collection  of  Such  Statutes
and  Customes,  With  the  Cases,  Opinions,  Argu-
ments  and  Points  of  Learning  in  the  Law,  as  Do
Properly Concerne Women becomes the first Eng-
lish-language  book  to  be  published    on  the  rights
of women. The author, who is known only as T. E.,
offers  a  detailed  summary  of  marriage,  divorce,
courtship, and custody laws.

1637—A pregnant Anne Hutchinson, who ulti-
mately gives birth to 15 children, is convicted of
sedition in Boston because of her religious beliefs.
She and her family are banished to Rhode Island.

1650—The poems of Anne Dudley Bradstreet, the
mother of eight, are published without her knowl-
edge in London, earning her a place in history as
the first American female poet to be published in
England.

1680—Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha defends the
divine right of kings and the patriarchal system,
which withholds political rights from women and
prevents mothers from having authority over them-
selves and their children.

1689—John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government
is published posthumously, refuting Robert Film-
er’s arguments. Locke contends that mothers have
equal authority with fathers over the children they
have created.

1692 —The Salem Witch Trials begin in Massachu-
setts. Mary Easty, the mother of seven, is among

the victims. She and seven other accused witches are
hanged on September 22.

1702—After the death of her brother William III,
Queen Anne succeeds to the English throne. None
of  her  17  children  survive  her,  and  her  German
nephew,  George  III,  becomes  the  king  of  England
when she dies in 1714. His subsequent actions lead
the American colonies to rebel against the Mother
Country  in  1776,    creating  the  United  States  of
America.

1704—On February 29, mothers in the settle-
ment of Deerfield, Massachusetts, watch in horror
as French and Abenaki attackers kill 25 children.
Many victims are infants who are killed by bashing
their heads against hard objects.

1716—The State of New York issues its first licenses
to midwives.

1773—After helping to disguise the men who take
part in the Boston Tea Party as Mohawk Indians,
Sarah Bradlee Fulton becomes known as the Mother
of the Boston Tea Party. During the Revolution, Ful-
ton serves as a courier for American troops.

1776—On March 31, as the Continental Congress
considers the ramifications of creating a nation, Abi-
gail Adams writes to her husband John, a delegate
and future president, chiding him to “remember the
ladies and be more generous and favorable to them
than your ancestors.” Four of the Adams’s six chil-
dren live to adulthood, and John Quincy became
the sixth president of the United States in 1824.

1776—Although she never has children of her
own, Mother Ann Lee becomes the matriarch and
founder of the Shaker Colony in New York’s Albany
County.

1776–1777—During  the  desolate  winter  at  Valley
Forge,  Pennsylvania,  when  American  troops  are
starving, Catherine Littlefield Greene remains with
her  husband,  Major  General  Nathanael  Greene.
Over  the  next  eight  years,  Greene  bears  five  chil-
dren, naming the first two after George and Martha
Washington.

Chronology of Motherhood

1784—Midwife Martha Ballard, who gave birth to
nine children, dies at the age of 77. She leaves a
diary chronicling her lengthy career and depicting
the daily lives of women in 18th-century America.

1789—Known  as  “Lady  Washington,”  Martha
Washington, who has survived both of the children
from  her  first  marriage,  moves  into  presidential
headquarters with her husband and two grandchil-
dren  when  George  Washington  becomes  the  first
president of the United States.

1790—Along with other women, mothers who
meet suffrage requirements are enfranchised in New
Jersey. Woman suffrage is rescinded in the state in
1807.

1792—Mary Wollstonecraft, a British writer living
in  France,  publishes  A  Vindication  of  the  Rights
of Women to refute the patriarchal argument that
women do not deserve political rights because they
are  inherently  incapable  of  rationality.  Five  years
later  Wollstonecraft  gives  birth  to  daughter  Mary
who pens the classic Frankenstein in 1818.

1793—Catherine  Littlefield  Greene,  the  widow  of
General Nathanael Greene and the mother of five
children,  proposes  that  her  boarder  Eli  Whitney
invent  the  cotton  gin.  Whitney’s  invention  revo-
lutionizes  the  cotton  industry  and  inadvertently
increases  the  demand  for  slaves  in  the  American
South.

1797—Mother and daughter philanthropists Isa-
bella Graham and Joanna Graham Bethune estab-
lish the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows and
Small Children in New York City.

1800—Abigail Adams becomes the first in a succes-
sion of First Ladies to live in the White House. Her
husband John loses the election to his friend and
nemesis Thomas Jefferson, and the Adams family
returns to Massachusetts after only a few months in
Washington, D.C.

1805—Weeks after giving birth, Sacajawea, a Sho-
shone, begins serving as an unofficial guide for the
Lewis and Clark Expedition. The nursing mother

leads the explorers across thousands of miles from
the Dakotas to the Rocky Mountains.

1811—During a 3,500-mile trek from Missouri to
Oregon, Marie Dorian, gives birth to her third child
while serving as a guide to fur-trading magnate John
Jacob Astor.

1812—American missionary Ann Hasseltine Judson
gives birth to two children while serving in Burma.
Neither child survives.

1819—Kaahumanu, the favorite wife of King Kame-
hameha of Hawaii, inherits his throne, along with
their son Liholiho (Kamehameha II). She establishes
the first legal code of the islands, which include the
right to trial by jury.

1821—Lucretia Mott, the mother of six children,
is officially recognized as a minister by the Society
of Friends. An active abolitionist, Mott soon real-
izes that women are discriminated against within
the movement.

1821—A strong supporter of British writer Mary
Wollstonecraft, Hannah Mather Crocker, a Bosto-
nian mother of ten, publishes Observations on the
Real Rights of Women.

1824—Mary Randolph, a member of the Virginia
elite, publishes the first American cookbook. Of her
eight children, only four survive to adulthood.

1826—Thomas Jefferson dies at Monticello after
using his prodigious legal skills to write a will leaving
his estate directly to his daughter Martha, bypassing
the existing mandate that married women’s inheri-
tances become the property of their husbands.

1827—Former  slave  Sojourner  Truth  convinces
a  court  of  law  that  her  son  Peter  has  illegally
been  transported  to  Alabama  as  a  slave  in  viola-
tion  of  New  York’s  1810  law  ensuring  gradual
emancipation.

1828—Sarah Buell Hale, the widowed mother
of five young children, begins publishing Ladies’
Magazine.

Chronology of Motherhood

xli

1832—The Boston Lying-In Hospital is founded as
a training ground for physicians. Unlike the poor
women who become patients, the city’s more afflu-
ent women continue to give birth at home.

1836—Angelina Grimké, who has relocated from
Charleston, South Carolina, to Philadelphia, Penn-
sylvania, issues An Appeal to the Christian Women
of the South in which she draws attention to the
fact that large numbers of black children are sired
by white slave owners. Southerners are so incensed
by her accusations that postmasters ban the book
throughout the South.

1837—Queen Victoria of England succeeds to the
British throne at the age of 18. The mother of nine
children, Victoria’s reign of 64 years is the longest
in British history.

1838—In Alexandria, Virginia, a slave woman
strangles two of her four children to prevent their
being sold into slavery. The other children are res-
cued before they suffer a similar fate.

1843—Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes generates heated
debate by arguing that many new mothers are dying
from puerperal fever because physicians spread germs
by not washing their hands between seeing patients.

1847—Scottish physician James Simpson is the first
to use anesthesia to mitigate the pain of childbirth.

1847—In Vienna, a study is released indicating that
the death rate in male-operated maternity rates is
437 percent higher than in a similar ward run by
midwives.

1847—A daughter is born to abolitionists Abby
Kelly and Stephen Symonds Foster. The couple
agrees that she will continue to lecture on slavery
and women’s rights while he remains at home with
baby daughter Alla.

1848—After meeting at the London Anti Slavery
Convention where women are hidden behind a cur-
tain and prohibited from voting, Americans Eliza-
beth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott make plans
to hold a women’s rights convention. The Seneca

Falls Convention has significant impact on the life
of mothers, demanding that public attention be paid
to women’s issues ranging from suffrage to the right
of married women to control their own property.

1848—New York becomes the first state to pass a
comprehensive Married Women’s Property Act. The
act is motivated not by a desire to extend the scope
of women rights but by the desire of fathers to see
daughters rather than sons-in-law inherit property.

1849—Elizabeth Blackwell, a graduate of New
York’s Geneva Medical College, is forced to attend
classes for midwives and nurses when she arrives
in Paris to begin postgraduate studies. In England,
Blackwell is greeted cordially by the medical com-
munity with the exception of both males and females
who work in the department of female diseases.

1850—Oregon passes the Land Donation Act, per-
mitting a married woman to hold one-half of a cou-
ple’s allotted 640 acreage in her own name. Single
women are also allowed to hold 320 acres.

1851—British philosopher and economist John Stu-
art Mill and Harriet Taylor, who later becomes his
wife, publish “The Enfranchisement of Women.”
Mill is a strong advocate of birth control and insists
that men do themselves a disservice by subjugat-
ing women and depriving society of all that women
have to offer.

1852—Abolitionist and mother of six, Harriet
Beecher Stowe publishes the antislavery novel,
Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The book is credited with being
a direct cause of the Civil War.

1852—Feminist Amelia Bloomer launches a cam-
paign to win the right for wives of abusive husbands
to obtain divorces.

1854—Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton  testifies  before  the
New  York  legislature  about  the  need  for  married
women  to  gain  additional  control  of  inheritances
and any wages they earn.

1855—Known as “Jennie June,” Jane Cunningham
Croly, a New York Tribune reporter and the mother

xlii

Chronology of Motherhood

of five, becomes the first American woman to work
behind the desk of a major newspaper.

1855—Physicians Margaret and Emily Blackwell
open the New York Infirmary for Women and Chil-
dren with an all-female staff. Located in the Elev-
enth Ward, their clients are mostly immigrants.
Throughout its history, the infirmary serves as a sig-
nificant training ground for female physicians.

1862—German-born Dr. Marie Zakrzewska opens
the New England Hospital for Women and Chil-
dren in Boston. As in the New York Infirmary for
Women and Children, the staff of the Boston hospi-
tal is composed entirely of females.

1867—After losing her husband and four children
in a yellow fever epidemic, Mary Harris Jones, who
becomes known as Mother Jones, devotes her life to
improving working conditions in the United States.

1870—Louisa May Alcott publishes Little Women
in two parts. Volume I follows the lives of Jo March
and  her  sisters  Meg,  Beth,  and  Amy  through  the
trials  of  growing  up  without  their  father,  who  is
serving as a Union chaplain during the Civil War.
Volume II depicts the lives of the surviving sisters
as the eldest marries and gives birth to twins. Two
sequels  further  chronicle  the  adventures  of  the
March family.

1870—On  December  10,  the  Wyoming  Territory
grants  women  legal  equality,  giving  females  the
right to vote, own property, sign contracts, sue and
be  sued,  and  serve  on  juries.  The  Utah  Territory
follows suit, and Eliza A. Swain becomes the first
women in the entire world to cast her vote in a gen-
eral election.

1872—Jane Wells invents the baby jumper, provid-
ing mothers with a means of entertaining babies
who are not yet walking.

1874—Jennie Jerome, a member of New York’s
elite, marries Lord Randolph Churchill. Later that
year, she gives birth to a son, whom she names Win-
ston. He grows up to be one of the foremost states-
men of the 20

century.

1879—In  Copenhagen,  Denmark,  Henrik  Ibsen
publishes  the  play,  A  Doll’s  House,  in  which  his
protagonist Nora Helmer challenges her husband’s
contention  that  her  most  important  role  in  life  is
that of wife and mother by insisting that her chief
purpose is to be “a reasonable human being, just as
you are.”

1880—Based on the rationale that mothers have a
serious stake in the education of their children, the
women of New York are granted the right to vote
in school board elections.

1881—The  first  birth  control  clinic  in  the  world
opens  in  the  Netherlands.  Interested  parties  flock
to  the  Netherlands  to  observe  the  clinic,  which
becomes the model for clinics in other countries.

1881—At Harvard, Williamina Fleming, a single
mother, becomes the first female hired to do math-
ematical calculations. She is subsequently able to
identify and classify some 10,000 celestial bodies.

1889—Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr open
Hull House in Chicago to serve the needs of immi-
grant mothers and their children.

1891—Impressionist  painter  Mary  Cassatt,  an
American,  holds  a  one-woman  show  in  Paris.
Although  she  never  became  a  mother,  Cassatt’s
favorite subjects are mothers and children.

1892—Charlotte Perkins Stetson (Gilman) pub-
lishes the short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,”
which is ostensibly based on her own experiences
with postpartum depression.

1897—Led by Alice McLellan Birney and Phoebe
Apperson Hearst, the National Congress of Moth-
ers is held in Washington, D.C. Although the two
women expect a turnout of only 500 or so, more
than 2,000 people attend the conference. This
group forms the foundation for the Parent–Teach-
ers Association.

1900—According to government reports, one-half
of all babies born in the United States at the turn of
the century are delivered by midwives.

Chronology of Motherhood

xliii

1902—Britain establishes a licensing and oversight
board for midwives with the passage of the English
Midwives Act.

1905—Dancer Isadora Duncan flaunts social mores
by giving birth to a child out of wedlock. In 1913,
she refuses to marry the father of her second child.
Both  children  are  later  killed  in  an  accident,  and
Duncan  is  killed  in  a  freak  accident  in  France  in
1926  when  her  fashionably  long  scarf  becomes
entangled in an automobile wheel.

1906—New York public health official Dr. Jose-
phine Baker encourages new mothers to breastfeed
their babies in order to avoid exposing them to milk
that may be contaminated.

1907—Women’s rights advocates in Austria launch a
campaign to win six weeks’ maternity leave for new
mothers and 10 weeks’ leave for nursing mothers.

1907—After the death of her financier husband,
Russell Sage, Margaret Slocum Sage, establishes the
Russell Sage Foundation and spends the rest of her
life being active in philanthropic causes and docu-
menting the history of women.

1908—Julia Ward Howe, the mother of six and
the author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,”
becomes the first woman to be inducted into the
American Academy of Arts and Letters.

1909—Writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman publishes
Herland, a female utopian novel in which the bur-
dens of motherhood are ostensibly lifted by institut-
ing communal nurseries and kitchens.

1910—Writer Kathleen Norris chronicles the living
and working condition of Irish immigrants to the
United States in Mother.

1911—The new social insurance program in Great
Britain provides for maternity allowances in a lim-
ited number of cases.

1912—After 10,000 female mill employees join a
strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, 35 mothers are
charged with “child neglect.” Charges are later

dropped, and the women are instrumental in the
strike’s success. Widowed mother Mary Heaton
Vorse uses the strike to launch a career as an Ameri-
can labor journalist.

1912—Throughout the United States, debates rage
concerning the rights of mothers to maintain cus-
tody in divorce cases, and legislators begin address-
ing the issue of government aid for mothers who are
impoverished in cases of divorce and desertion.

1912—Although she never gives birth to a single
child, Juliet Gordon Low finds a way to mother gen-
erations of young girls by founding the Girl Scouts
in Savannah, Georgia.

1914—Congress establishes the second Sunday in
May of each year as Mother’s Day.

1914—Birth control activist Margaret Sanger,
whose mother had experienced 18 pregnancies, is
arrested for including information on birth control
in The Woman Rebel.

1914—Katharine Anthony, a niece of suffragist
Susan B. Anthony, reveals in her study of the impact
of harsh working conditions on Philadelphia moth-
ers that 370 mothers have experienced the deaths
of 437 babies.

1915—Norway passes the Castberg Law, which
provides for children born to “unmarried parents”
to carry the father’s name and inherit his property
as long as paternity is not disputed.

1916—Margaret Sanger and her sister, Ethel Byrne,
open a birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New York.
After ten days in which they see more than 500
women, most of them poor immigrants, officials
shut down the clinic.

1916—Russian-American anarchist Emma Gold-
man argues that her free speech rights have been
violated when she is arrested for publicly advocat-
ing birth control.

1917—Government officials actively recruit Ameri-
can women to fill a variety of jobs necessary to the

xliv

Chronology of Motherhood

war effort when the United States enters World War
I on April 6.

1917—The Delaware legislature creates the Moth-
er’s Pension Fund.

1918—The name of Margaret Sanger’s organization
is changed from the National Birth Control League
to the Voluntary Parenthood League.

1918—The Maternity Center Association is
founded to promote better maternity care in the
United States.

1919—Divorce rates soar, and the number of sin-
gle mothers in the United States rises drastically in
response  to  incidences  of  soldiers  infecting  their
wives  with  sexually  transmitted  diseases  (STDs),
which  they  have  contracted  abroad  during  World
War I.

1919—World War I ends with an Allied victory, and
acknowledgment of the numerous contributions
of women during the war leads Austria, Canada,
Ireland, Poland, and the United Kingdom to grant
woman suffrage.

1920—The United States Congress passes the Nine-
teenth Amendment, guaranteeing American women
the right to vote. Women in Germany, Luxembourg,
and the Netherlands are also enfranchised.

1921—In an effort to reduce American infant mor-
tality rates, Congress passes the Sheppard Towner
Act, which appropriates matching funds for states
to establish maternity clinics. The act is repealed
six years later, but Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal
includes programs that continue this battle.

1921—General Mills creates Betty Crocker, an ide-
alized homemaker, as a marketing tool.

1923—Suffragist Alice Paul’s proposal for an Equal
Rights Amendment (ERA) to the United States
Constitution, which would mandate equal rights
for women, is introduced in Congress. The ERA is
revived during the women’s movement of the 1960s,
but opponents manage to block ratification.

1924—The mother of four sons, Nellie Tayloe
Ross, a Democrat from Wyoming, becomes the
first female governor in the United States after her
husband, Governor William Ross, dies of complica-
tions from an appendectomy.

1925—Studies indicate that high infant mortality
rates in immigrant sections of Pennsylvania and in
poor areas of the Deep South are often the result
of expectant mothers being overworked, malnour-
ished, and neglected by the medical profession.

1929—In  October,  the  beginning  of  the  Great
Depression ushers in a period of intense stress for
American  mothers  who  are  sometimes  unable  to
feed  their  children  and  who  are  often  separated
from  family  members  who  hit  the  road  to  find
work.

1932—Twenty-month-old Charles Lindbergh, the
child of aviator Charles Lindbergh and writer Anne
Morrow Lindbergh, is kidnapped and subsequently
murdered, leading the United States government to
make kidnapping a federal crime.

1932–1945—Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Presi-
dent Franklin Roosevelt and the mother of five chil-
dren, assumes unprecedented duties as First Lady
because of her husband’s physical frailties that
resulted from a bout with polio in 1921.

1933—Dr. Gracie Langdon becomes the Child Care
Director  of  Franklin  Roosevelt’s  Works  Project
Administration,  undertaking  the  responsibility  for
establishing  2,000  government-funded  childcare
centers.

1934—A distinctly different kind of mother–daugh-
ter relationship is depicted when Fannie Hurt’s Imi-
tation of Life becomes a movie. The film focuses
on a young biracial woman who rejects her African
American mother in order to pass as white in a soci-
ety that discriminates against those whose African
American ancestry is discernible.

1935—The notorious criminal “Ma” Barker, who
has formed a bank-robbing gang with her three
sons, is gunned down in a shootout in Florida.

Chronology of Motherhood

xlv

1936—Clare Booth Luce’s play, The Women,
addresses the issue of single mothers displaced in
their husband’s affections by younger women.

1938—Maria von Trapp escapes from occupied
Austria with her husband, Captain Georg von
Trapp, and seven stepchildren. Maria gives birth to
three children after the escape. In 1959, a fictional-
ized version of their story is turned into a play, The
Sound of Music, which in turn becomes an award-
winning movie in 1965.

1939—Anna Mary Robertson Moses, better known
as Grandma Moses, begins painting at the age of
80. Over the course of the next 20 years, she com-
pletes 1,500 works.

1940—In New York, Mary Margaret McBride
begins hosting a radio show that targets mothers
and other homemakers.

1941—Grieving mothers respond with outrage when
the Japanese attack the American Naval Base at
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, killing 2,403
people. Congress declares war on Japan on Decem-
ber 11, and the lives of American mothers change as
their sons and husbands join the military, and Amer-
ican women enter the work world in droves.

1942—Rationing begins in May, and mothers lead
the patriotic campaign to conserve essential war
materials.

1942—The  government  begins  actively  recruiting
nurses to serve in the military and intensifies efforts
to  identify  women  who  chose  to  remain  at  home
and  raise  families  after  graduating  from  nursing
schools.

1943—Mothers  who  lose  sons  in  World  War  II
become  known  as  Gold  Star  Mothers.  Alleta  Sul-
livan loses five sons at once when the USS Juneau is
sunk during a naval battle in Guadalcanal. The fol-
lowing year, their story receives national attention
with the releases of the movie, The Sullivans. The
United  States  subsequently  institutes  a  Sole  Survi-
vor Policy to protect surviving siblings after a fam-
ily member is lost in war.

1943—Susan B. Anthony II, a journalist and
niece of the noted suffragist, publishes Out of the
Kitchen—Into the Wars chronicling the participa-
tion of American women, many of them mothers,
during World War II.

1945—For the first time in American history, Con-
gress holds debates on drafting women to serve as
military nurses. The Nurses Selective Service Act
passes Congress but becomes moot when the war
ends in April.

1946—In order to reunite families, Congress passes
the War Brides Act, allowing the foreign wives of
American military personnel to enter the country.

1950—French  feminist  philosopher  Simone  de
Beauvoir  publishes  The  Second  Sex  in  which  she
argues  that  women  are  always  defined  as  “the
other”  because  males  are  considered  “the  norm.”
During the following decades, this work continues
to have significant impact on the emerging women’s
movement.

1952—Elizabeth II becomes Queen of England. She
gives birth to Prince Charles, the heir apparent and
the eldest of her four children, in 1948.

1952—Marion Donovan invents the disposable
diaper. Her initial diaper is made from a folded-up
shower curtain and absorbent padding.

1952—The Voluntary Parenthood Leagues changes
its named to Planned Parenthood Association and
continues to be a major force in family planning.

1953—On January 19, actress Lucille Ball becomes
the most famous mother in television history by giv-
ing birth to Little Ricky on the popular sitcom I
Love Lucy. The show garners a 72-percent audi-
ence share. That same night, Ball gives birth to her
real-life son, Desi Arnaz, Jr.

1953—Ethel Rosenberg, the mother of two small
children, is executed for espionage along with her
husband Julius. The case continues to arouse con-
troversy for decades, and many people believe Ethel,
unlike her husband, was innocent of the crime.

xlvi

Chronology of Motherhood

1955—In August, 14-year-old Emmett Till is bru-
tally  murdered  by  segregationists  while  visiting
relatives in Money, Mississippi. His mother, Mamie
Till Mobley,  allows  Jet  to publish photographs of
her  son’s  mutilated  body  so  that  Americans  can
understand the impact of violence against innocent
African American children. Two men confess to the
murder, but they are never brought to justice.

1956—In Illinois, a group of seven nursing mothers
found the La Leche League to promote breastfeed-
ing. The group, which evolves into an international
organization, continues to promote the health
benefits of nursing and provides advice to nursing
mothers.

1957—Writer Better Friedan polls her former class-
mates from Smith College to determine whether
or not they are fulfilled as mothers and wives. She
finds widespread dissatisfaction, and identifies this
phenomenon as “the problem that has no name.”

1957—In Little Rock, Arkansas, Daisy Bates, a
newspaper publisher, serves as a mentor for the
nine African American students who integrate Cen-
tral High School. Her civil rights activities earn her
numerous awards and the eternal gratitude of Afri-
can American mothers who dream that their chil-
dren will be able to live in a more equal society.

1958—The Childbirth Without Pain Association
introduces the Lamaze method of childbirth to the
United States, encouraging American mothers to
experience childbirth naturally.

1959—Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the
Sun, a tale of transitioning family life in the African
American community, wins the New York Drama
Critics Circle Award.

1959—At age 41, Phyllis Diller, the mother of five,
launches a career as a stand-up comic and becomes
one of the best loved American comediennes.

1960—The birth control pill is approved by the
Food and Drug Administration. Since the pill is the
most effective birth control method available to
date, it promotes more efficient family planning.

1962—The publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent
Spring helps to launch the environmentalist move-
ment in the United States, geared in large part
toward making life safer for future generations.

1962—Europe  experiences  an  outbreak  of  birth
defects  caused  by  pregnant  women  taking  thalid-
omide  to  control  morning  sickness.  In  the  United
States,  Dr.  Frances  Oldham  Kelsey  of  the  Federal
Drug Administration manages to keep the drug off
the market.

1963—Jackie Kennedy becomes the only First Lady
in American history to be pregnant in the White
House. She gives birth on August 7, but Patrick
Bouvier Kennedy dies two days later.

1963—Betty Friedan launches the Second Wave of
the women’s movement with the publication of The
Feminine Mystique, arguing that women are dissat-
isfied with their lives because their individual iden-
tities have been submerged by their roles as wives
and mothers.

1963—President John F. Kennedy establishes the
President’s Commission on the Status of Women.
States. The commission identifies major issues and
concerns that affect the lives of American women.

1963—On Sunday, September 15, four African
American mothers lose daughters to civil rights vio-
lence when a bomb explodes at a Birmingham, Ala-
bama, church.

1965—Based on the grounds of privacy within mar-
riage, the Supreme Court holds in Griswold v. Con-
necticut that married couples have a constitutional
right to obtain birth control.

1967—Anne Moore invents the Snugli, which
allows parents to carry infants close to their bod-
ies while leaving their arms free. The young mother
becomes a multimillionaire as sales soar.

1968—In Boston, Massachusetts, members of Moth-
ers for Adequate Welfare campaign for increased aid
to mothers of small children by chaining themselves
to furniture inside a welfare office.

Chronology of Motherhood

xlvii

1968—On April 4, Coretta Scott King, the mother
of four children, becomes a widow when civil rights
leader the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is
assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

1968—Pope  Paul  VI  announces  that  the  only
method  of  birth  control  supported  by  the  Catho-
lic  Church  is  the  rhythm  method,  which  involves
abstaining  from  sexual  intercourse  on  days  when
women are fertile. Determined to engage in respon-
sible family planning, many Catholic women ignore
the dictates of the Church.

1968—Singer and actress Diahann Carroll, who
plays a single mother on the sitcom Julia, becomes
the first African American to headline a regular
series on American television.

1970—Affectionately known as “the grandmother
of the Jewish people,” Russian-born Golda Meir,
who grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, becomes
the prime minister of Israel.

1971—Congress passes new legislation that awards
federal subsidies for both public and private child-
care centers.

1972—In Reed v. Reed, the Supreme Court deter-
mines that fathers should no longer be given pre-
cedence over mothers when managing estates of
minor children. The case clears the way for a new
examination of legal discrimination on the basis of
sex according to the Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment.

1973—In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court holds
that the right of privacy guarantees pregnant women
a constitutional right to obtain an abortion within
the first three months of a pregnancy. Roe proves to
be one of the most controversial cases in the Court’s
history, and so-called pro-life advocates launch a
campaign to have the decision overturned.

1975—The year is proclaimed the International
Year of the Woman, and international and national
groups launch a series of programs aimed at
improving the quality of life for women and their
children.

1975—The first World Conference on Women is
held in Mexico City, Mexico, aimed at improving
the lives and status of women around the world.
Future conferences are held at five-year intervals in
a number of other cities.

1976—In Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri
v. Danforth, the Supreme Court decides that a mar-
ried woman does not have to obtain her husband’s
consent to obtain an abortion.

1976—In General Electric v. Gilbert, the Supreme
Court upholds the right of employers to exclude
pregnancy from benefit plans, legitimizing the
practice of employers paying benefits for the preg-
nant wives of male employees but not for pregnant
female employees.

1976—Congress passes the Hyde Amendment,
stipulating that poor women cannot use Medicaid
funds to pay for abortions except in cases of rape
and endangerment to the life of the mother.

1976—The  publication  of  Adrienne  Rich’s  Of
Woman  Born  opens  debates  on  the  differences
between  motherhood  as  experience  and  moth-
erhood  as  an  ideal  espoused  by  the  institution  of
patriarchy.

1977—The inauguration of Georgian Jimmy Carter
draws public attention to his colorful mother, “Miss
Lillian.” At the same time, Carter’s wife Rosalynn
proves to be a hands-on mother to their young
daughter Amy.

1978—Congress passes the Pregnancy Discrimina-
tion Act as an amendment to the Civil Rights Act
of 1964, banning workplace discrimination against
pregnant women and essentially overturning the
Supreme Court’s actions two years earlier in Gen-
eral Electric v. Gilbert.

1979—The United Nations General Assembly
sponsors the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which
produces an international bill of rights for women,
specifying behavior that constitutes discrimination
and offering solutions for dealing with violations.

xlviii

Chronology of Motherhood

1979—In  the  wake  of  a  scandal  over  advertising
of  prepared  infant  formulas  in  developing  coun-
tries, the International Baby Food Action Network
(IBFAN)  is  created  to  force  the  manufacturers  of
baby food formulas to cease unethical practices.

1979—The groundbreaking film, Kramer v. Kramer,
highlights changing perceptions of the roles of both
mothers and fathers.

1979—China  establishes  a  one-child-per-couple
policy  designed  to  limit  population  growth.  The
policy  proves  to  be  detrimental  to  female  infants
who  become  the  victims  of  infanticide.  Other  girl
babies are abandoned or put up for adoption.

1980—After her daughter is killed by an inebriated
driver with three prior convictions, Candy Lightner
founds Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD),
which becomes Mothers Against Drunk Driving in
1984. The group is devoted to keeping drunk driv-
ers off the road and educating the public about the
dangers of drinking and driving.

1980—The first in vitro fertilization clinic opens in
Norfolk, Virginia.

1981—Republican  Sandra  Day  O’Connor,  the
mother  of  three  sons,  becomes  the  first  woman
to serve on the United States Supreme Court. She
finds  her  niche  by  becoming  the  important  swing
vote in a number of cases dealing with women and
children.

1981–1988—The elections of Ronald Reagan and
George H. W. Bush are marked by a period of
strong conservatism in the United States. “Reagan-
ism” results in significant cuts to programs designed
to help poor women and their minor children, and
views on abortion become a litmus test for federal
judicial appointments.

1984—Running with Minnesota Democrat Walter
Mondale, Geraldine Ferraro, a Democratic Con-
gresswoman from New York and the mother of
three children, becomes the first women in Ameri-
can history to be considered a viable candidate on a
major party ticket.

1984—A group of Canadian feminists establish
Mothers Are Women to celebrate a mother’s right
to decide to serve as the primary caregiver for her
child.

1985—Congress passes legislation mandating the
creation of state programs to collect child support
from delinquent fathers.

1985—Divorced mother of two, Wilma Mankiller
becomes the first female Chief of the Cherokee
Nation.

1986—Teacher Christa McAuliffe, the mother of
two young children, is killed when the space shuttle
Challenger explodes shortly after liftoff.

1986—The issue of surrogate motherhood receives
national  attention  when  Mary  Beth  Whitehead,
who has received $10,000 to serve as a surrogate
for  William  and  Elizabeth  Stern,  reneges  on  the
agreement.  Ultimately,  a  judge  places  “Baby  M”
with Stern, who is her biological father, and Eliza-
beth Stern adopts her.

1987—The World Health Organization launches
the Safe Motherhood Initiative designed to slash
maternal mortality in half by the year 2000.

1988—The State of California passes legislation
guaranteeing job security for mothers who take
maternity leave.

1988—Toni Morrison’s Beloved wins the Pulitzer
Prize. Based on a true story, the novel tells the story
of Sethe, a slave woman who kills her daughter to
prevent her from becoming a slave.

1989—In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services,
the conservative Supreme Court allots states greater
control over access to abortions without overturn-
ing Roe v. Wade, as had been predicted.

1990—For the first time, the term “mommy track”
is used to describe professional women who choose
a slower career track that allows them more time
with their families over an ambitious fast-track to
success.

Chronology of Motherhood

xlix

1991—To celebrate and encourage the contribu-
tions of midwives to maternal and child health, the
first International Day of the Midwife is held on
May 5 and becomes an annual tradition.

1991—In  Rust  v.  Sullivan,  the  Supreme  Court
upholds  the  Reagan/Bush  policy  of  forbidding
health care professionals receiving federal funds to
inform clients about abortion rights. This so-called
“gag  rule”  is  one  of  the  first  conservative  poli-
cies overturned by Democrat Bill Clinton when he
assumes office in January 1993.

1992—The  year  is  designated  the  Year  of  the
Woman in the United States as women are elected
to  political  office  at  all  levels  of  government  and
begin  using  that  power  to  fight  for  the  rights  of
women and children.

1992—The first Take Our Daughters to Work Day
is held on April 28 in the United States to encourage
young girls to recognize that their career possibili-
ties are limitless.

1993—Congress passes the Family and Medical
Leave Act, which allows both parents to take time
off to care for a new or adopted baby or a sick
child.

1993—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the mother of two,
becomes the second woman to serve on the Supreme
Court. A Democrat, Ginsburg tends to be support-
ive of women’s issues.

1994—Abortion provider Dr. John Byard Britton
and clinic escort Lieutenant Colonel James Barrett
are murdered at a family planning clinic by radical
pro-lifer Paul Hill.

1994—Congress passes the Violence Against
Women Act, making it a federal offense to travel
across state lines to commit violent acts against a
spouse or domestic partner.

1995—The Fourth World Conference on Women is
held in Beijing, China, generating the Platform for
Action designed to empower women throughout
the world.

1996—Democrat Madeleine Albright, the mother
of three daughters, becomes the first female Secre-
tary of State in American history.

1996—First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton pub-
lishes It Takes a Village in which she argues that
raising children should be a societal responsibility.

1998—The Association for Research on Mother-
ing is established as the first feminist international
organization exclusively devoted to motherhood.

2001—Former First Lady and popular grand-
mother figure Barbara Bush becomes only the sec-
ond woman in American history to become both
the wife and mother of a president.

2002—The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity
Commission (HREOC) opens an investigation into
the possibility of establishing a national policy on
paid maternity leave.

2002—A  group  of  mothers  in  New  York  found
Mothers  Ought  To  Have  Equal  Rights  (MOTH-
ERS)  designed  to  promote  economic  security  and
political clout for mothers and others who serve as
primary caregivers for children.

2004—Australia passes the lump sum Maternity
Allowance and Baby Bonus to assist new parents at
the time of a child’s birth.

2005—The Save the Mothers Program establishes a
Master’s Degree Program in Public Health Leader-
ship in Uganda under the leadership of the Intersave
Canada Board in an effort to improve the experi-
ence of motherhood in developing countries.

2006—Author Leslie Morgan Steiner publishes the
Mommy Wars, which includes interviews with 26
mothers who discuss their personal perceptions of
motherhood in the 21st century.

2007—The  World  Health  Organization  celebrates
the  20th  anniversary  of  its  Safe  Motherhood  Ini-
tiative as part of an ongoing effort to improve the
health  of  pregnant  women  and  decrease  maternal
mortality levels.

Chronology of Motherhood

2007—Former First Lady and current Senator from
New York Hillary Rodham Clinton announces her
bid for the presidency and becomes the most viable
female candidate for high elected office in American
history.

2008—Governor of Alaska and the mother of five,
Sarah Palin becomes the first Republican female to
be considered a viable candidate for the office of
Vice President.

2009—Michelle Obama, the mother of two young
daughters, becomes the first African American First
Lady of the United States.

2009—Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the mother
of an adult daughter, is sworn in as the third female
Secretary of State in American history.

Elizabeth Purdy

Independent Scholar

Chronology of Motherhood