scholarly journals Anarcha, Betsey, Lucy, and the women whose names were not recorded: The legacy of J Marion Sims

2020 ◽  
pp. 0310057X2096660
Author(s):  
Monica Cronin

In April 2018, a statue commemorating J Marion Sims was removed from Central Park, New York, and relocated to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, where he is buried. In 1849, Sims developed a repeatable surgical solution for obstetric fistula, a debilitating condition caused by prolonged, obstructed labour, which damages the vaginal wall, resulting in permanent leakage via the vagina from either the bowel or bladder and sometimes both. Initially, Sims appears worthy of widespread adulation. There are several commemorative statues of him, he has been afforded the title of the ‘father of modern gynaecology’, and for 37 years, the American Urogynecological Society held an annual eponymous lecture, among other honours. Obstetric fistula rendered women social pariahs, unable to engage fully in either domestic or public life. Sims was able to create a reliably repeatable surgical solution but did so through ongoing experimentation on enslaved women. One of these women, Anarcha, was operated on at least 30 times without the use of anaesthesia over a four-year period, despite the availability of anaesthesia for the majority of the experimentation period. Over 170 years later, Sims’ story retains its relevance because it represents a clear point at which race, gender and class intersect with medicine. This paper will use Sims’ own account to drive the narrative, then examine matters of agency, ethics and consent that come from it, to show that his work, and subsequent renown, were only possible because of the inherent violence of chattel slavery and other systemic forms of oppression.

2005 ◽  
Vol 156 (8) ◽  
pp. 288-296
Author(s):  
Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani

In the first half of the 19th century scientific philosophers in the United States, such as Emerson and Thoreau, began to pursue the relationship between man and nature. Painters from the Hudson River School discovered the rural spaces to the north of New York and began to celebrate the American landscape in their paintings. In many places at this time garden societies were founded, which generated widespread support for the creation of park enclosures While the first such were cemeteries with the character of parks, housing developments on the peripheries of towns were later set in generous park landscapes. However, the centres of the growing American cities also need green spaces and the so-called «park movement»reached a first high point with New York's Central Park. It was not only an experimental field for modern urban elements, but even today is a force of social cohesion.


Soil Horizons ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald W. Olson

Author(s):  
Daina Ramey Berry ◽  
Nakia D. Parker

This chapter analyzes the lives of enslaved women in the nineteenth-century United States and the Caribbean, an era characterized by the massive expansion of the institution of chattel slavery. Framing the discussion through the themes of labor, commodification, sexuality, and resistance, this chapter highlights the wide range of lived experiences of enslaved women in the Atlantic World. Enslaved women’s productive and reproductive labor fueled the global machinery of capitalism and the market economy. Although enslaved women endured the constant exploitation and commodification of their bodies, many actively resisted their enslavement and carved out supportive and sustaining familial, marital, and kinship bonds. In addition, this essay explains how white, native, and black women could be complicit in the perpetuation of chattel slavery as enslavers and slave traders. Considering women in their roles as the oppressed and the oppressors contributes and expands historical understandings of gender and sexuality in relation to slavery.


1867 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 233-IN1
Author(s):  
William H. Grant
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meleesa Joy Schultz ◽  
Triveni Nanda

The risk of uterine rupture during attempted trial of labor after caesarean delivery (TOLAC) is well documented. However, vaginal rupture (in the absence of obstructed labour) is exceptionally uncommon. Below is described the rare case of a 37-year-old multiparous woman attempting TOLAC, who suffered a vaginal—rather than uterine—rupture, during the first stage of spontaneous labour. This case is an important reminder to obstetricians that concealed ruptures of both the vagina and uterus do occur and must be considered in clinical situations where another explanation is not apparent.


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