The Catholic University of America
HIST 682 Graduate Colloquium
“Shaping Population: Fertility, Contraception, Eugenics and Population Policy in Western Europe and the United States, 1870-1970”
Professors Jerry Z. Muller and Leslie Woodcock Tentler
FUTURE
Gibbons B-12
Mondays, 6:10-8:00pm
Theme: The decline of fertility in late-nineteenth and twentieth century Europe and the United States is one of the most striking and significant phenomena of the age. Why it came about, how it was perceived and interpreted, and how churches, intellectuals, social movements, and governments reacted to it is the subject of this graduate colloquium. The course explores the links between topics usually dealt with separately under the rubrics of demographic, political, social, economic, cultural, familial, religious and gender history; and it examines the usefulness of a comparative historical perspective.
Requirements: Students are expected to come to class each week having read the assigned reading and prepared to discuss it critically.
A paper of 12-15 pages exploring at greater length the historical literature on one of the topics covered by the course, due no later than December 4.
A take-home final examination of 12-15 pages which will synthesize the material dealt with over the course of the semester, will be distributed on December 4, and will be due one week later.
Final grades will be based upon the paper, the take-home final examination, and oral contributions in class.
Schedule of Classes and Readings
Works marked with an asterisks are included in the course booklet.
Works marked R are on reserve in Mullen Library.
Aug. 28: Introductory Session
Sept.11: What happened and why (1)
Gillis, John R., Louise Tilly and David Levine (eds.), The European Experience of Declining Fertility (Cambridge, MA, Blackwells, 1992): “Introduction: The Quiet Revolution” and George Alter, “Theories of Fertility Decline: A Nonspecialist’s Guide to the Current Debate.”*
and Degler, Carl, At Odds: Women and the Family in America from the Revolution to the Present (Oxford UP, 1980), chapters VIII-XII R
Sept. 18: What happened and why (2)
Szreter, Simon, Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain, 1860-1940 (Cambridge UP, 1996), Chapters 1, 8-10.*
Recommended:
Teitelbaum, Michael S., The British fertility decline. Demographic transition in the crucible of the industrial revolution (Princeton, 1984)
Szreter, Simon and Eilidh Garrett, “Reproduction, Compositional Demography, and Economic Growth: Family Planning Long Before the Fertility Decline,” Population and Development Review, 26 (1) (March, 2000), pp.45-80.
Sept. 25: Neo-Malthusianism, Birth Control, and the “Rationalization of Sex”, 1870-1945
Janet Farrell Brodie, Contraception and Abortion in Nineteenth-Century America (Cornell University Press, 1994, available in paperback. ISBN 0-8014-8433-2.) R
and Soloway, Richard, Birth Control and the Population Question in England, 1877-1930 (North Carolina, 1982), Ch. 3, 8-10.*
and Andrea Tone, "Contraceptive Consumers: Gender and the Political Economy of Birth Control in the 1930s," Journal of Social History 29:3 (June 1996): 485-506.*
Recommended:
J.M. Ray and F.G. Gosling, "American Physicians and Birth Control, 1936-1947," Journal of Social History 18 (1985): 399-408.
Carol R. McCann, Birth Control Politics in the United States 1916-1945 (Cornell University Press, 1994).
James C. Mohr, Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy (Oxford University Press, 1978).
Kennedy, David, Birth Control in America : The Career of Margaret Sanger
Chesler, Ellen, Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America (New York, 1992)
Cohen, Deborah A., “Private lives in public spaces: Marie Stopes, the Mothers’ Clinics and the practice of contraception,” History Workshop, 1993, pp.95-116.
Fisher, Kate, “‘She was quite satisfied with the arrangements I made’: Gender and Birth Control in Britain, 1920-50,” Past and Present, #169 (November, 2000), pp.161-193 (oral history investigation of role of men in contraception)
Oct. 2: The Churches and Contraception to WWII
Noonan, John T., Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists (Harvard UP, 1986), Chapters II (Scriptural Sources of Doctrine), VIII (Rationale of the Prohibition), XIII (The Spread of Birth Control: The Responses of the Bishops and the Pope); XV (The Doctrine and the Context) R
L.W. Tentler, "'The Abominable Crime of Onan': Catholic Pastoral Practice and Family Limitation, 1873-1919." (manuscript)*
Soloway, Richard, Birth Control and the Population Question in England, 1877-1930 (North Carolina, 1982), ch.5, 11*
Alan Graeber, "Birth Control and the Lutherans: The Missouri Synod as a Case Study," in Janet Wilson James, ed. Women in American Religion (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980): 229-252. *
Oct. 16: Pronatalism in Germany, Britain, France
Teitelbaum, Michael S. and Jay M. Winter, The Fear of Population Decline (Academic Press, 1985), pp.13-98*
Antoine Prost, “Catholic Conservatives, Population, and the Family in Twentieth Century France, “ in Teitelbaum, Michael S. and Jay M. Winter (eds.), Population and Resources in Western Intellectual Traditions (Cambridge UP, 1988), pp. 147-164.*
Schneider, William, Quality and quantity: the quest for biological regeneration in twentieth-century France (Cambridge, 1990), ch.2*
Weindling, Paul, Health, Race and German Politics Between National Unification and Nazism, 1870-1945 Cambridge, 1989), pp.241-269, 416-23* find substitute
Oct. 23: Eugenics Movements
Soloway, Richard, Demography and Degeneration: Eugenics and the Declining Birthrate in Twentieth-Century Britain (Chapel Hill, 1990 or 1995)
and selections from Adams, Mark B, ed., The Wellborn Science: Eugenics in Germany, France, Brazil, and Russia (Oxford, 1990): Mark B. Adams, “Toward a Comparative History of Eugenics,” pp.217-232; Sheila Faith Weiss, “The Race Hygiene Movement in Germany, 1904-1945”, pp.8-68.*
Recommended: Kevles, Daniel J. In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (New York, 1985)
Shaw, George Bernard, “Preface” to Man and Superman
Oct. 30: Government Policies in Interwar Europe
Mazower, Mark, Dark Continent: Europe's twentieth century (New York, 1999), ch.3, “Healthy Bodies, Sick Bodies”*
De Grazia, Victoria s: Women in Fascist ItVictoria, How Fascism Ruled Women: Italy, 1922-45 (California,1992), Chapters 3 (Motherhood) and 4 (The Family versus the State)
Quine, Maria Sophia, Population Politics in Twentieth-Century Europe : Fascist Dictatorships and Liberal Democracies (London, 1996), ch. 2 “French Pronatalismecommended: 1998 0-8018-5876-3,”*
Weindling, Paul, Health, Race and German Politics Between National Unification and Nazism, 1870-1945 , pp., 480-551* find substitute
and Glass, D.V., Populations Policies and Movements in Europe (London, 1940), ch.VII on Scandanavia*
Nov. 6: From fear of underpopulation to overpopulation after WWII
Critchlow, Donald, Intended Consequences: Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal Govrnment in Modern America (Oxford UP, 1999), pp.3-112. R
and Teitelbaum, Michael S. and Jay M. Winter, The Fear of Population Decline (Academic Press, 1985), ch.4-5.*
Recommended:
Rainwater, Lee et al, Workingman’s Wife: Her Personality, World and Life Style (New York, 1959)
Rainwater, Lee, And the Poor Get Children: Sex, Contraception, and Family Planning in the Working Class (Chicago, 1960)
Rainwater, Lee, Family Design: Marital Sexuality, Family Size, and Contraception (Chicago, 1965)
Nov. 13: The Pill
Asbell, Bernard, The Pill: A Biography of the Drug that Changed the World (New York, 1995) (get at area libraries or buy online)
Recommended: Watkins, Elizabeth S., On the Pill: A social history of oral contraceptives, 1950-1970 (Johns Hopkins, 1998), Chapter 3 ("Sex, Population, and the Pill")
Nov. 20: The Catholic Debate, from Casti Connubi to Humanae Vitae
Noonan, Contraception, pp.438-475. R
John A. Ryan, "The Moral Teaching of the Encyclical," American Ecclesiastical Review March 1931.*
John A. O'Brien, Legitimate Birth Control (Our Sunday Visitor, 1934).*
selections from Michael Novak, ed., The Experience of Marriage (Macmillan, 1964).*
Recommended:
Edgar Schmiedeler, O. S. B. Twenty-Five Years of Uncontrol (Our Sunday Visitor, 1943).
"Marriage, Love, Children," Jubilee, Dec. 1963, June 1964. Two important articles by laity and letters in response.
Nov. 27: The American Catholic Reaction to Humanae Vitae
Humanae Vitae (available on the Internet)
Majority report of the papal birth control commission*
Andrew Greeley, "Is Catholic Sexual Teaching Coming Apart?" The Critic 30:4 (March-April 1972): 30-35.*
Gregory Baum, "Catholic Sexual Morality: A New Start," The Ecumenist 11:3 (March-April 1973): 33-38.*
Critchlow, Donald, Intended Consequences (Oxford, 1999), pp.113-132. R
Noonan, Contraception, Appendix to Expanded edition, pp.535-554. R
Dec. 4: Final Class: Questions Raised by the Course
David Lodge, Souls and Bodies (British title, How Far Can You Go? (New York, 1980)
Nicholas Eberstadt, “The Population Implosion,” The Public Interest, 1997*
Recommended: David Frum, How We Got Here: The 70s: The Decade that Brought You Modern Life (for better or worse) (New York, 2000), pp.188-201.
The following books are available for purchase at the CUA Book Store
Brodie, Janet Farrell Contraception and Abortion in Nineteenth-Century America (Cornell University Press, 1994, 0-8014-8433-2.)
De Grazia, Victoria s: Women in Fascist ItVictoria, How Fascism Ruled Women: Italy, 1922-45 (1992), Chapters 3 (Motherhood) and 4 (The Family versus the State) (California, 1992, 0520074572)
David Lodge, Souls and Bodies (Penguin, 0140130187)
Soloway, Richard, Demography and Degeneration: Eugenics and the Declining Birthrate in Twentieth-Century Britain (Chapel Hill, 1995, 0737262613)
Further Readings
The journal, Population and Development Review regularly publishes articles on the history of demographic behavior, the history of government population policy, and the history of the social scientific study of population, as well as on contemporary trends.
