Bodily Autonomy in 19th Century American Women’s Writing

Bodily Autonomy in 19th Century American Women’s Writing: A Cornucopia of Pharmacopoeia investigates literary and autobiographical texts by nineteenth century American women, examining how women used herbal remedies to maintain bodily autonomy and how that autonomy was progressively eroded with the rise of plant-based tropane solanaceae alkaloids, and later, synthetic and anaesthetic drugs.

Once chemists distilled alkaloids from plants, women's bodily autonomy became increasingly threatened and regulated by patriarchal ideologies at familial, state, and federal levels—threats compounded by the rise of pharmaceuticals, the medical profession, and asylums. In asylum settings especially, these forces converged to strip women of bodily autonomy entirely, a loss further intensified by the introduction of anaesthetics. Few studies engage directly with nineteenth-century American literature and autobiography as critical sources for understanding these dynamics. This book addresses that gap by examining how literary and autobiographical texts from the period depict women's efforts to secure bodily autonomy in the face of restrictive legal, medical, and social systems.

This volume is written for a broad audience: students, teacher-scholars, and researchers interested in nineteenth-century American women's bodily autonomy. It is suitable for medical humanities courses, classes examining historical practices in law, medicine, psychiatry, ethics, chemistry, botany, as well as courses on American cultural practices such as American Studies.