SHC Lecturer: Madeleine Ware
Lecture Title: "Abortion Things, Techniques, and Technologies in Pre-Roe South Carolina"

Please join us online for a special SHC virtual-only lecture presented by Madeleine Ware. Ware's talk will examine the techniques and tools of illegal abortions in South Carolina from the late nineteenth-century to Roe v. Wade (1973). By focusing on common items found in households and shops, such as rubber tubing, herbs, and turpentine alongside medical obstetrical objects, this research uncovers the continuance of centuries of intergenerational technical-medical knowledge in the US South particularly by Black laywomen health providers. In doing so, this talk reshapes historical understandings of what constitutes medical technologies and expands existing definitions of reproductive healthcare providers.

Madeleine Ware is a PhD candidate in the Program in the History of Science and Medicine at Yale University. Her dissertation, “Clench and Release: Defining Healthy Womanhood through Pelvic Floor Techniques and Technologies, 1880s–1950s,” analyzes the overlapping cultures of beauty, commercialized fitness, sexual disability, and women’s healthcare through a history of pelvic floor strengthening techniques and technologies. She is also committed to examining understudied histories of reproductive healthcare, technologies, and justice in her home state, South Carolina, as well as in her new home, Connecticut.

Join us on September 10th at noon for Ms. Ware's lecture. Once you register, you will receive a confirmation email with a Zoom link attached.