This book was very interesting. I was a lot of information but also very historical and descriptive almost too much at times. However, I don't think that you could describe the trials and tribulations without being so descriptive. I believe that this happened so much during this time and maybe even much worse. It was a very good book.

As this is a very timely topic, I will be purchasing this book for my library. However , I dont think that it was a great book. As with most books about lesser known historical figures, there was a lot of filler that I dont think was really necessary.

This book is so well written and so compelling that I could hardly put it down. Its very detailed iand can be long winded but tells the story of Madam Restell so thoroughly. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in biographies or women way ahead of their time.

The content in this book was fascinating and definitely published at the right time given the current national situation, but it was a bit dry- factual but dense. I was hoping this was written with a lean towards creative non-fiction to ease the blow of the content a bit.

While the topic sounded very interesting, the writing was very dry. I kept waiting for Syrett to hit his stride and make the story really come alive, but it just didn't click for me. I thought I would have a hard time setting this book down, as I usually do with a history book, but it didn't happen with this one.

This biography highlights the 19th-century reproductive healthcare provider known as Madame Restell. Operating clinics in New York City, she offered services including contraception, pregnancy care, childbirth, and abortions. As society shifted, she drew criticism as a threat to traditional views on women's roles. New abortion restrictions put her at legal risk. Her numerous trials parallel today's battles over reproductive freedom.

This easy-to-read book is full of factual information about Madame Restell, her competitors, and her critics, effectively recreating the era when men increasingly sought to take over women's healthcare from traditional female providers.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

Nicholas Syrett provides an academic rendering of the legendary and infamous Madame Restell who defied society’s conventions by brashly advertising her contraceptive and abortion services in New York newspapers beginning in 1839. By the mid-century, with rising opposition to women’s reproductive care, she had been arrested multiple times and spent a year in prison. Despite the clamor of voices who decried her practice, clients streamed to her door, and no client ever died in her care.

Syrett examines the evolution of the struggles over women’s reproductive rights, explaining how abortion had been unregulated until 1830 when New York laws criminalized the procedure. Syrett notes how traditionally women trained with skilled midwives to assist one another in birth, but that changed when male doctors in the United Kingdom and France developed the medical fields of obstetrics and gynecology and argued that their scientific training was superior to the midwifery practiced by women. Syrett makes clear that the right to choose has been used by men as a tool to control women for centuries. It is a battle that continues today.

Syrett draws a detailed portrait of Madame Restell — feminist, social justice warrior, mother, wife and shrewd businesswoman — set against the backdrop of antebellum and Gilded Age New York. Thank you The New Press and Net Galley for providing me with an advance copy of this timely biography of a remarkable woman lost to history.

The Trials of Madame Restell: Nineteenth-Century America’s Most Infamous Female Physician and the Campaign to Make Abortion a Crime, by Nicholas L Syrett.

Thank you to The New Press and NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy of this book.

In 1839, when Madame Restell started her career, early term “abortion” (before “quickening,” a very imprecise measure of the start of life) had been criminalized for just a decade, but these rarely enforced laws made providing abortions only a misdemeanor. By 1872, abortion at any stage of pregnancy had become a felony, with both the provider and the recipient charged, as well as anyone who had helped access this service.

The author, Nicholas L. Syrett, is Associate Dean and Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Kansas. Trained as an historian, he uses the case study of Madame Restell’s notorious career to explain many trends, attitudes and political and professional interests that led to the criminal view and punishment of abortion, as well as contraception. (I did not realize that it was not until 1965 that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that married couples had a constitutional right to use contraception.)

The story of Madame Restell (real name: Ann Trow) provides an unusually rich source of information on how abortion, practiced by trained women for centuries, became a hotly contentious cause of medical men and obscenity activists. While based in New York, her experience reflects much of what was happening in other parts of antebellum America. Not only was she well-known even beyond her home state, but she seems to have flaunted the riches she earned through her work, making her an easy target for obsessed reformers like Anthony Comstock, and the increasingly professionalized male medical establishment. In fact, the American Medical Association, founded in 1847, made anti-abortion one of their first causes.

Syrett’s book is rich with information on the role of newspapers, whose editors wrote scorching editorials about Madame R., even as they ran her advertisements on their inner pages. He also describes the changing role of middle class women, who wanted to limit their family size as they moved to cities and embraced attitudes about the individuality of children, preferring to give more to fewer offspring rather than raise the large families still needed in agrarian America.

Perhaps because of his academic background, the author seems to go into too much detail about many events, especially the actual trials of Madame Restell, and there is repetition of information, most noticeably the importance and difficulty in defining “quickening” of life. Although this may not be a book for the casual reader, those interested in U.S. social history, and especially of women’s reproductive rights, will find this an intriguing story that can, unfortunately, be applied to contemporary events.

Wonderful and interesting telling of the woman who not only gave abortions, but advertised them! I'd previously read MADAME RESTELL, which I also enjoyed. The two books, however, cover a lot of the same material, so I'm not sure if reading both makes sense.

Incredible research about Ann Loham, better known as Madame Restell. Although it was very detailed about her profession as a female physician and the consequences of her practice, it was very readable. I felt that it could be incorporated as a text in a variety of college courses. The background on the attitudes toward female autonomy and abortion are very relevant to our current controversy. The author does a great job of developing her character vs presenting her as a stereotype. The background of the time period he provided put her story into a memorable context.

Thank you for the chance to learn about a pioneering woman! I had not known about Madame Restell prior to reading this book. Women who try to better the world for others should be recognized. Thanks for the chance to learn of her trials.

I have never heard of this woman and it's too bad because all women should know her story! She was a pioneer in the field of women's medicine and condemned for it. She fought most of her life for the rights of women and their rights to their choices for their bodies. The author painstakingly did his research and gives light to a remarkable woman. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.