Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race Before Roe v Wade

by Rickie Solinger

Overview

Rickie Solinger provides the first published analyses of maternity home programs for unwed mothers from 1945 to 1965, and examines how nascent cultural and political constructs such as the "population bomb" and the "sexual revolution" reinforced racially-specific public policy initiatives. Such initiatives encouraged white women to relinquish their babies, spawning a flourishing adoption market, while they subjected black women to social welfare policies which assumed they would keep their babies and aimed to prevent them from having more.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415904483
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	02/13/1992
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Rickie Solinger is also the author of The Abortionist: A Woman Against the Law and editor of Abortion Wars: A Half Century of Struggle, 1950-2000. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Table of Contents

Preface, Introduction: Female and Fertile in the Fifties, Chapter 1. The Stick and the Carrot: Public Meanings of Black and White Single Pregnancy in the Pre-Roe v. Wade Era, Chapter 2. The Making of the Matriarchy'': The Persistence of Biological Explanations for Black Single Pregnancy, Chapter 3. The Girl Nobody Loved: Psychological Explanations for White Single Pregnancy, Chapter 4. Behind the Fence: Maternity Homes, 1945-65, Chapter 5. The Disposition of Illegitimate Babies I: The Postwar Adoption Mandate, Chapter 6. The Disposition of Illegitimate Babies II: A Taxpayers' Issue, Chapter 7. The Population Bomb and the Sexual Revolution: Toward Choice, Notes, Bibliographic Essay, Bibliography, Index

Editorial Reviews

"A stunning but troubling book that illuminates the deeply racialized terrain on which the politics of women's reproductive capacities and decisions have been played out. Contributing mightily to contemporary social policy debates, this rich history of single pregnancy from 1945 to 1965 warns us that reproductive rights must not only guard each woman's choice to contracept or to terminate a pregnancy, but also must win honor and social support for each woman's choice to become a mother." — Gwendolyn Mink, author of Welfare's End
"It is impossible to read Wake Up Little Susie without understanding that racism as well as a deeply felt distrust of women as mothers—magnified when the women are not formally subordinated to husbands—makes such odd national passions possible." — Bernice L. Hausman, Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering, vol 4.1

From the Publisher

This book documents the ways in which race shaped the experience of unwed pregnancy in the 1950s and 1960s. It analyzes the cultural meaning of unwed pregnancy for white and black women and emphasizes the added complications of race and class in the study of gender. Solinger is also author and editor of other books on abortion. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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