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The nearly forgotten story of the American Plan, a government program to regulate women’s bodies and sexuality—and how they fought back—told through the lens of one of its survivors
“A consistently surprising page-turner . . . a brilliant study of the way social anxieties have historically congealed in state control over women’s bodies and behavior.”—New York Times Book Review
Nina McCall was one of many women unfairly imprisoned by the United States government throughout the twentieth century. Tens, probably hundreds, of thousands of women and girls were locked up—usually without due process—simply because officials suspected these women were prostitutes, carrying STIs, or just “promiscuous.”
This discriminatory program, dubbed the “American Plan,” lasted from the 1910s into the 1950s, implicating a number of luminaries, including Eleanor Roosevelt, John D. Rockefeller Jr., Earl Warren, and even Eliot Ness, while laying the foundation for the modern system of women’s prisons. In some places, vestiges of the Plan lingered into the 1960s and 1970s, and the laws that undergirded it remain on the books to this day.
Nina McCall’s story provides crucial insight into the lives of countless other women incarcerated under the American Plan. Stern demonstrates the pain and shame felt by these women and details the multitude of mortifications they endured, both during and after their internment. Yet thousands of incarcerated women rioted, fought back against their oppressors, or burned their detention facilities to the ground; they jumped out of windows or leapt from moving trains or scaled barbed-wire fences in order to escape. And, as Nina McCall did, they sued their captors. In an age of renewed activism surrounding harassment, health care, prisons, women’s rights, and the power of the state, this virtually lost chapter of our history is vital reading.
The Trials of Nina McCall Sex, Surveillance, and the Decades-Long Government Plan to Imprison "Promiscuous" Women
by STERN, SCOTT W.Format: Paperback
Pub. Date: 2019-02-26
Publisher(s): Beacon Press
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Summary
Author Biography
Scott W. Stern is a graduate of Yale University, with a BA and MA in American Studies, summa cum laude. His thesis, on the American Plan, won Yale’s Norman Holmes Pearson Prize. A native of Pittsburgh, Stern is continuing his studies at Yale Law School.
Table of Contents
AUTHOR’S NOTE
INTRODUCTION
“Young Lady, Do You Mean to Call Me a Liar?”
CHAPTER 1
“Willing to Go to Jail for Such a Cause”
CHAPTER 2
“Less Fortunate Sisters”
CHAPTER 3
“Waging War on the Women”
CHAPTER 4
“Reaching the Whole Country”
CHAPTER 5
“It Was Too Late”
CHAPTER 6
“Why Should a Woman Be Imprisoned for a Disease?”
CHAPTER 7
“We Will Get Even Yet”
CHAPTER 8
“When Righteous Women Arise”
CHAPTER 9
“Hunting for Girls”
CHAPTER 10
“We Defeat Ourselves”
CHAPTER 11
“The Situation Seems to Be Getting Worse”
CHAPTER 12
“A Total War”
CHAPTER 13
“Venereal Disease Was Not Our Concern”
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
INDEX
INTRODUCTION
“Young Lady, Do You Mean to Call Me a Liar?”
CHAPTER 1
“Willing to Go to Jail for Such a Cause”
CHAPTER 2
“Less Fortunate Sisters”
CHAPTER 3
“Waging War on the Women”
CHAPTER 4
“Reaching the Whole Country”
CHAPTER 5
“It Was Too Late”
CHAPTER 6
“Why Should a Woman Be Imprisoned for a Disease?”
CHAPTER 7
“We Will Get Even Yet”
CHAPTER 8
“When Righteous Women Arise”
CHAPTER 9
“Hunting for Girls”
CHAPTER 10
“We Defeat Ourselves”
CHAPTER 11
“The Situation Seems to Be Getting Worse”
CHAPTER 12
“A Total War”
CHAPTER 13
“Venereal Disease Was Not Our Concern”
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
INDEX
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