Russell Shorto Quote
There, she identified a recurring cycle that kept women in a downward spiral: families that were already poor and struggling to stay alive kept having more babies, dragging them down still further. In the 1870s she became the country’s first advocate for contraception, and one of the first anywhere. In the midst of a society and a medical profession that were rigorously Victorian in their attitudes about sex, she had patients conduct trials of contraceptives and concluded that the pessary, a kind of diaphragm, was the most effective birth control device.
Russell Shorto
There, she identified a recurring cycle that kept women in a downward spiral: families that were already poor and struggling to stay alive kept having more babies, dragging them down still further. In the 1870s she became the country’s first advocate for contraception, and one of the first anywhere. In the midst of a society and a medical profession that were rigorously Victorian in their attitudes about sex, she had patients conduct trials of contraceptives and concluded that the pessary, a kind of diaphragm, was the most effective birth control device.
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About Russell Shorto
In November 2017, he published Revolution Song: A Story of American Freedom, which tells the story of the American Revolution through the eyes of six Americans from vastly different walks of life.
His most recent work is Smalltime: A Story of My Family and the Mob, published in February 2021. The book is a memoir, covering Shorto's own family history and his ancestors involvement in the American Mafia in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
In 2022, Shorto founded, and became Director of, the New Amsterdam Project at the New-York Historical Society, with a mission to promote awareness of New York's Dutch origins.