Proving Pregnancy: Gender, Law, and Medical Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century America

Proving Pregnancy

GENDER AND AMERICAN CULTURE

Martha Jones, editor

Mary Kelley, editor

Editorial Advisory Board

Annelise Orleck

Janice A. Radway

Robert Reid-Pharr

Noliwe Rooks

Emerita Board Members

Thadious M. Davis

Linda K. Kerber

Annette Kolodny

Nell Irvin Painter

Guided by feminist and antiracist perspectives, this series examines the construction and influence of gender and sexuality within the full range of America’s cultures. Investigating in deep context the ways in which gender works with and against such markers as race, class, and region, the series presents outstanding interdisciplinary scholarship, including works in history, literary studies, religion, folklore, and the visual arts. In so doing, Gender and American Culture seeks to reveal how identity and community are shaped by gender and sexuality.

A complete list of books published in Gender and American Culture is available at https://uncpress.org/series/gender-and-american-culture.

FELICITY M. TURNER

Proving Pregnancy

Gender, Law, and Medical Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century America

The University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

This book was published with the assistance of the Lilian R. Furst Fund of the University of North Carolina Press.

© 2022 The University of North Carolina Press

All rights reserved

Set in Arno Pro by Westchester Publishing Services

Manufactured in the United States of America

The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Turner, Felicity M., author.

Title: Proving pregnancy : gender, law, and medical knowledge in nineteenth-century America / Felicity M. Turner.

Other titles: Gender & American culture.

Description: Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press,

[2022]

| Series: Gender & American culture | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022015148 | ISBN 9781469669694 (cloth ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781469669700 (paperback ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781469669717 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Infanticide—Law and legislation—United States—History—19th century. | Human reproduction—Law and legislation—United States—History—19th century. | Human body—Law and legislation—United States—History—19th century. | Women’s rights—United States—History—19th century. | Sex discrimination—Law and legislation—United States—History—19th century. | Pregnancy—Signs and diagnosis. | Intangible property.

Classification: LCC KF9309 .T87 2022

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022015148

Cover illustration: White sheet © iStock.com/William_Potter;

blood spot © iStock.com/sjharmon.

For my parents

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: An Anatomy of Knowledge

CHAPTER ONE

Calling the Midwife

CHAPTER TWO

The Physician and the Corpse

CHAPTER THREE

Slavery, Civilization, and the Body Politic

CHAPTER FOUR

Freedom and the Reconstruction of Bodies

CHAPTER FIVE

From Midwives to Physicians

CHAPTER SIX

From Bodies to Minds

Conclusion: The Emergence of Rights

Appendix

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Illustrations

3.1 A Woman Throws Her Child from a Third Story Window, Joseph Jones, The Slaveholder Abroad, 1860 71

4.1 The Modern Medea, Harper’s Weekly, May 18, 1867 92

Acknowledgments

Although I have spent the past decade writing and thinking about childbirth, I bring no personal experience to the subject matter. Nonetheless, I think it fair to say that this book has endured a particularly protracted and painful birth, a fitting (and alliterative) metaphor for a book about pregnancy. But, if my readers will indulge me and allow me to belabor the metaphor just a little further, this is a book strewn with fetal remains and the corpses of newborns, not little bundles of joy. I, however, take enormous delight in thanking all of those who have helped me to reach this point. After all of this time, I look forward to leaving the corpses behind.

This book began, really, in the Antipodes. If it had a gestational moment—and, like the nineteenth-century people I study, I am deeply reticent about drawing any firm conclusions about the particular moment of conception—it was somewhere at Monash University in the early nineties, deep in the bowels of a stuffy seminar room in the Menzies Building. Tony Wood, the resident U.S. historian, never finished his lectures on time, a legacy that has shaped my career in ways for which, I hope, the students I teach today are sincerely grateful. But, nonetheless, Tony was a deeply devoted teacher, and asked me had I ever considered doing more work in U.S. history. The thought had never crossed my mind. Through Tony, I eventually found my way to John Salmond, my mentor at La Trobe. I am grateful to John for many things, not the least of which was his strategic rearranging of the seating arrangements for dessert at Bill Breen’s place many years ago. In doing so, he placed me opposite Laura Edwards. Laura prodded me to apply for graduate school at Duke. She has been prodding me ever since. Long after I finished my PhD, John and I continued to meet for lunch every time I visited Melbourne. We had one such lunch planned when I returned in the winter of 2013. Life being what it is, I found myself attending his memorial service instead. I had never seen so many people fill a room to say goodbye. John’s reach was vast.

At Duke University, the dissertation on which this book is based was capably steered to completion by Holly Brewer, Sarah Deutsch, Laura Edwards, Pete Sigal, and Priscilla Wald. I enjoyed working with and learning from each of them. My book is richer for their critical and incisive feedback when this project was just an idea in my mind. Laura served as my adviser at Duke but has continued to mentor—and prod—me throughout my career, serving as my constant sounding board as I negotiate academia. Beyond that, she encouraged me to continue plugging away on this manuscript even when, or particularly when, I found myself utterly frustrated by it. For as long as I have known her, I have considered her one of my most valuable critics. She has also been one of my most steadfast supporters, remaining enduringly consistent in her sage advice since the evening I first met her.

I could not have made it through my years at Duke without the camaraderie and support of many friends and colleagues. I was a rookie when I arrived, overwhelmed by the lush green of Durham, North Carolina (no one had mentioned to me that the place was a forest) and the humidity that hit me like a wall when I stepped off the plane. My memories of my trips to the United States were filled with cities like the one I had just left. I’m not sure what I thought I was signing up for when I applied for and then accepted an offer to attend graduate school in America. Honestly, I had absolutely no idea. Just as the weather and the college town (and the lack of a city) overwhelmed me, so too did the expectations, at least initially. Thanks to those who showed me the ropes, answered all of my foolish questions, and provided support along the way. In particular, I extend my thanks to Eric Brandom, Jenny Crowley, Mitch Fraas, Katharine French-Fuller, Heidi Guisto, Cynthia Greenlee, Kelly Kennington, Treva Lindsey, Anne-Marie Angelo, Jacob Remes, Orion Teal, and Eric Weber. I owe special thanks to Paula Pears Hastings and Kristin Wintersteen, whose friendship helped keep me sane on many occasions throughout those years.

I was later fortunate enough to enjoy a year as a postdoctoral fellow at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney in Australia. I thank my colleagues Georgiana Banita, Blake Gilpin, Malcolm Jorgenson, Brendon O’Connor, Maria Ponomarenko, Allison Pugh, Rebecca Sheehan, and David Smith for making my time there so enjoyable and productive. Beyond the Centre’s environs, I found sympathetic fellow travelers in the University of Sydney Department of History. I thank the Department, and particularly the Americanists—Frances Clarke, Michael McDonnell, Stephen Robertson, and Shane White—for providing me with the opportunity to share my work with them on multiple occasions.

The Institute of Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin Law School welcomed me to the Midwest for a postdoctoral fellowship. Howie Erlanger was instrumental in supporting my experience throughout that year, suggesting upon my arrival that I might find a (second) home in the FemSem working group hosted by the Sociology Department. I did, indeed, make many friends amongst that group, and it was there that I met Zakiya Luna, whose friendship helped make my first experience of a Midwestern winter just that much more bearable. At the Law School, Nancy Buenger and Mitra Sharafi took an interest in my work. Mitra has continued to support and encourage me over the years. For that ongoing encouragement, I am deeply grateful.

At Indiana University in Bloomington, I thank the Maurer School of Law and the Department of History for providing a welcoming environment in which to work. In particular, I thank Michael Grossberg, Jay Krishnan, Ethan Michelson, and Amrita Chakrabarti Myers for supporting this project. Michael Grossberg, especially, has continued to maintain an active interest in my career, and for that, I truly thank him. At the Maurer School of Law, Sophia Wilson, my fellow postdoc, and her family opened their home to me on more than one occasion. Her husband is a great cook, and their generosity ensured I did not want for decent food that year. Krista Maglen and Pedro Machado, both in the Department of History, helped me find a piece of Melbourne in Bloomington—a rare treat. I still cherish my memories of a day of backyard cricket and pavlova. Someone may even have taken a stab at making sausage rolls. For the late-night board games, general camaraderie, and support, all of which were much appreciated, I thank Susan Eckelmann Berghel, Nicole Florvil, and David Prior.

At Georgia Southern, I give thanks to my many colleagues in the Department of History. They have provided me with a congenial and supportive environment in which to finish this manuscript. At an early stage, Chris Curtis recognized that I needed time and money to write. He made an effort to help me find both, a tall order at a teaching-intensive institution. Chris Hendricks provided valuable feedback on an early draft of chapter one. Jim Todesca, in turn, cast his eagle eye over an early draft of chapter six. As he is a stickler for accurate endnotes, there is an endnote in this book especially for Jim. Jon Bryant has been an early and enthusiastic supporter of my work, for which I am very grateful. The A team—Allison Belzer, Alena Pirok, and Amy Potter—keep me laughing, in a good way. Laughs have been sorely needed in recent months. I am also thankful to my colleague, Kurt Knoerl, who swooped in to save the day when last minute assistance was needed with the graphics for this book. Most recently, my fellow Dukie, Corinna Zeltsman, has kept me firmly grounded, reminding me, always, to get my head out of the sky and keep my feet firmly planted on the ground. Finally, my undergraduate research assistants, Destinee Andrews, Sarah DeMott, and Grace Klein, all made invaluable contributions to the completion of this work.

I would be remiss if I did not thank the librarians at Georgia Southern who made this all possible. Without the support of Lane Library at Georgia Southern University, this book could not have been completed. In addition to doing what libraries do—finding every book; locating every article; fulfilling every purchase request; letting me know when they have home-baked goods to share—the staff at Lane have always been willing to help and, more importantly, to do so with a smile. In particular, I wish to thank Lee Bareford, Beth Burnett, Vivian Bynoe, Doug Frazier, Ann Fuller, Kelli Anne Gecawich, Caroline Hopkinson, Melissa Jackson, Lauren McMillan, Kristi Smith, and Carol Yarley.

Beyond the librarians at Georgia Southern, I am deeply grateful for the archives, repositories, and libraries across the country that have aided me in my research. In particular, I thank the library staff at Duke, particularly Kelley Lawton, Carson Holloway, and the now retired Margaret Brill. I thank the archivists and staff at the many other depositories and libraries I visited, including the Connecticut State Archives, the North Carolina Office of Archives and History, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, the Illinois State Archives, the Newberry Library in Chicago, the U.S. Library of Congress, and the various regional depositories in the Illinois Regional Archives Depository system.

Over the years, I have benefited from the feedback of colleagues and friends, flung far and wide. For their generosity and support, I offer especial thanks to Rabia Belt, Holly Brewer, Ari Bryen, Cathleen Cahill, Clare Corbould, Cornelia Hughes Dayton, Adam Domby, Nora Doyle, Signe Fourmy, Kelly Kennington, Adriane Lentz-Smith, Kate Masur, Nate Holdren, Dylan Penningroth, Gautham Rao, Cassia Roth, Jim Schmidt, Rachel Shelden, Elizabeth Parish Smith, Karen Tani, Lisa Tetrault, Barbara Welke, and Kim Welch. In different ways, all have supported and encouraged this project along. Kate and Jim, at different stages, took the time to read and provide feedback upon the manuscript in its entirety. Ari and Kim, in turn, offered me their home as a summer writing retreat in Nashville for two subsequent years, an offer that came at a time when the manuscript—and my weary mind—sorely needed it. For a quiet place in which to think and write, I am eternally grateful. Kim also introduced me to Sara McDougall, my writing partner in crime, a fitting description given our shared research interest. With Sara, I have enjoyed discussing and writing about all things infanticide. For her friendship and support, I truly thank her.

The history of medicine community, to which I arrived late, has also welcomed me with open arms. Jacqueline Antonovich talked with me in depth one summer about medical pluralism and the term’s use, or not, in U.S. histories of U.S. medicine. Lauren MacIvor Thompson read early drafts of parts of this work and has been a great cheerleader for as long as I have known her. Deirdre Cooper Owens has always taken a keen interest, supporting my work at every step. For that, I owe her many thanks. Both Jonathan Jones and Christopher Willoughby provided me with valuable references at critical stages.

I am sincerely grateful to the two anonymous readers for the University of North Carolina Press. Their valuable feedback has only helped me to sharpen my argument. Any remaining faults are my own. I am also deeply grateful to Chuck Grench at the press, who first showed an interest in this project. And I am appreciative to Debbie Gershenowitz for picking up the baton. I extend my sincere and heartfelt thanks to the both of them.

Portions of chapter one previously appeared as The Contradictions of Reform: Prosecuting Infant Murder in the Nineteenth-Century United States, Law and History Review 39, no. 2 (2021): 277–97, and the content is reproduced with the permission of Cambridge University Press. Portions of chapter four previously appeared as Rights and the Ambiguities of Law: Infanticide in the Nineteenth-Century U.S. South, Journal of the Civil War Era 4, no. 3 (2014): 350–72, and that content is reproduced with permission of UNC Press. Part of chapter six previously appeared as A Woman of ‘Weak Mind’: Gender, Race, and Mental Competency in the Reconstruction Era, in Freedoms Gained and Lost: Reconstruction and Its Meanings 150 Years Later, eds. Adam Domby and Simon Lewis (New York: Fordham University Press, 2022), and is republished by permission of Fordham University Press.

Most importantly, this manuscript could not have been completed without the financial support of numerous foundations and libraries. The United States Centre, the University of Wisconsin Law School, and the Maurer School of Law at Indiana University in Bloomington all provided long-term fellowships that enabled me to dedicate myself to this work fulltime. For additional grants, fellowships, and awards, I thank Duke University, Armstrong State University, the Coordinating Council for Women in History, the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation, the Illinois State Historical Society, the Newberry Library, the American Historical Association, and the North Caroliniana Society.

Friends, both in the Antipodes and the United States, have long cheered for the completion of this project. In Australia and New Zealand, Catherine, Maree, and Bec have been there for the long haul. We have known each other since high school, and now we are spread across three countries. Something binds us together still after all of these years. My personal view is that it is a shared love of cheese, chocolate, and gossip. In Savannah, Jane Elwell is a great friend. Her support has been particularly valued in the past year.

Finally, I give thanks to my family. There is a word, apparently in Welsh, that loosely translated means heartsickness. I don’t know if this claim is accurate or just a fiction of the internet, but it seems to me that the English language is definitely poorer for the absence of such a word. In order to migrate, one must become accustomed to living with absence, to constantly brushing it away or hiding it underneath the rug as if in doing so, you can ignore its presence. Pushing that absence away becomes easier to do the longer you stay, but the presence of absence remains nonetheless. Heartsickness seems an apt word for capturing the feeling of what those of us who choose to emigrate live with every day, buried somewhere deep below the surface of our enthusiastic embrace of our new homelands.

The enduring support of my family has made that absence so much easier to bear. I have missed every birthday and (almost) every Christmas for the past seventeen years because I decided to go to grad school in the United States. When I left almost two decades ago, it seemed like I wasn’t giving up too much and I was an intrepid explorer heading off into the bold unknown. These days I wonder if I would make the same decision. Seventeen years of birthdays, football games, and school plays is a lot to miss. To Megan, Paul, Sam, Josie, Annie, Andrew, Joanie, Sonny, Isla, and Heidi, I thank you all for the photos, the handmade cards (and yes, they hold pride of place in my office although some of you have long since graduated beyond the handmade card phase), the video chats, the gift parcels, and for always supporting my choice.

For my parents, this book is dedicated to you. My dad has always been the weepy one, turning away at the airport to hide his tears every time I leave. But he has supported me, nonetheless, because he has always understood this history gig is what I want to do, even if tax accounting meant a much more secure retirement fund. My mother, in contrast, is the stalwart, maintaining a straight face because she understands that if either one of us opened the floodgate to tears at the airport, we know they would never stop. To the both of you, there are really no words adequate to capture my thanks for your years of unstinting support. This book is for you.

Proving Pregnancy

Introduction

An Anatomy of Knowledge

In late October 1859, Lucy, an enslaved woman on Montevideo Plantation in Liberty County, Georgia, gave birth to a child. As Lucy’s owner Reverend Charles Colcock Jones suspected Lucy was in the family way, three enslaved women—a midwife, a nurse, and Lucy’s mother—had attended to Lucy for several days. Yet, when questioned, all denied any knowledge of a pregnancy, and therefore, of a birth. Upon discovery of the infant’s rotting corpse, Lucy finally confessed. She took the child—dead born so she claimed—and buried it. But even if the child was dead at birth, the mere concealment of the dead infant’s corpse constituted a crime. Reverend Jones knew that and determined to try Lucy for the crime of infanticide. Writing to his son about the events, the Reverend identified the central legal issues in this criminal matter: Was the child alive or dead at its birth? If dead why should she conceal it? Jones spoke only of this case, but his queries had resonance far beyond Montevideo. They were the questions at the heart of every investigation into infanticide.¹ Those criminal cases, like Lucy’s story, involved much broader conflicts over control of knowledge about the human body, particularly the bodies of women, in the nineteenth-century United States.

Infanticide was a crime intimately bound up with women’s bodies. Its origins lay in a 1624 statute passed by the British Parliament during the reign of King James I. The Act to prevent the Destroying and Murthering of Bastard Children defined the crime in very specific terms. Firstly, only women could be charged with infanticide. Men could not commit—at least according to the statute—the crime defined in the law. Secondly, only unmarried women, referred to in the law as lewd women, could be charged with infanticide. Such a statutory definition included both women who had never married and widows. The only group of women therefore excluded from prosecution pursuant to the statute was married women. Finally, the law only applied to illegitimate—bastard—children. The most significant element of the Act, however, was the way in which the law defined the very nature of the crime. Concealment of a newborn infant’s death, per the statute, constituted infanticide. In order to prove that fact, suspicious members of a community only had to prove that the woman accused of perpetrating infanticide had been pregnant. They did not, however, have to produce the deceased infant’s body. This made infanticide distinct from other forms of murder, such as homicide.²

The Jacobean Act, therefore, made infanticide a unique crime, one in which the apparent absence of proof—a corpse—often served as the most compelling evidence against a woman suspected of perpetrating the offense. The law did not require that the concealed body be found, identified, or discovered. Rather, an individual simply had to make an accusation that a woman had been pregnant, and the body of her newborn infant subsequently concealed. The distinctive construction of the statute signified an important departure from common law by creating a legal presumption that concealment of a newborn bastard’s death meant that a woman had killed her child. Even in seventeenth-century England, a basic evidentiary requirement for murder was a body. Yet, the crime of infanticide—as constructed in the 1624 Act—did not require a body. Indeed, the very absence of a body constituted evidence of the crime. Concealment, not murder, was the crime. Unless a woman could provide a witness who persuasively demonstrated otherwise—that is, that her infant had been born alive—an allegation of infanticide could potentially send a woman to her grave. That is because the penalty, if found guilty of the crime, was death.

In addition to the infanticide statute, women and men—both married and single—could be charged with murder, pursuant to either common law or statute, of a newborn infant. While married women and men, either single or married, could not be charged with infanticide pursuant to the 1624 Act, they could be charged with murder of a newborn infant, a charge that juries of inquest and prosecutors often referred to as infanticide even if the Jacobean statute did not apply. The important difference, however, was that a murder charge generally mandated the existence of a body. A charge of infanticide, pursuant to the 1624 Act, did not. When a corpse existed, unmarried women often found themselves in court facing two charges: infanticide or concealment—as indictments often referred to the crime—and murder. If prosecutors could not prove murder, then they hoped to have sufficient evidence to prove infanticide. Given that infanticide—like murder—was a capital offense, the distinction between the two charges may seem moot. As the decades progressed, however, most U.S. states eliminated the death penalty for infanticide but not for murder. Therefore, conviction of the former offense—infanticide—but not the latter—murder—proved in the best interests of those charged with the crime.

When the colonies declared independence, each state incorporated its understanding of infanticide into law. Although infanticide statutes all originated from the same point—the 1624 Jacobean Act—they varied from state to state and evolved constantly. Some states incorporated statutes similar to the 1624 Act into their own legislation. Others applied the existing English statute of James I as the extant law. The new American states also continued to rely upon the existing body of English common law in relation to infanticide and murder, while developing their own common law traditions.³

Adjudication of infanticide cases depended on knowledge about women’s bodies. In legal forums such as inquests and in day-to-day practice, those who laid claim to that knowledge often asserted a form of ownership or possession over what they knew. Those claims, in turn, had the effect of turning the knowledge into something akin to property. Indeed, knowledge of the human body could translate directly into claims to property rights, legitimating authority over physical bodies and control of people, themselves. In the first half of the nineteenth century, control over that knowledge remained diffused among a range of people, including white women, free Blacks, and the enslaved, who lived in those bodies or who had extensive experience working with them. This was so even though those marginalized from formal structures of power lived in a hierarchical world in which white males still claimed authority over, and even—in some cases—rights in, their bodies: that is, the physical bodies of wives, children, and enslaved people.⁴ As those relationships broke down, particularly with the abolition of slavery, knowledge of the human body—particularly reproduction—acquired more value for white men, in particular. Control of that knowledge, therefore, substituted for other forms of authority over people’s physical bodies, particularly the bodies of women. No wonder, then, that white men—doctors, lawyers, and professionals like Reverend Jones—sought not just to control knowledge of the human body, but also to claim exclusive rights to that knowledge as if it were their property.

Reverend Charles Colcock Jones’s letter was all about knowledge of the pregnant female body and the corpse of the deceased infant: How did the infant die? Was the death a result of childbirth gone wrong? Or did the mother kill the child? In one sense, the questions obviously related to the tangible value of property because this particular case involved the child of an enslaved woman. Lucy’s baby possessed a quantifiable financial value. In asking his questions, Jones sought a purely pecuniary accounting of his economic loss. Beyond that, however, the Reverend sought to define the meaning of the infant’s death by ferreting out information about Lucy, her body, and her actions. While he believed Lucy had killed her child, he needed the knowledge of the women who attended her to prove it. Jones wanted to force knowledge from the women who had it and make it his own. In that sense, Proving Pregnancy traces the history of this kind of intangible knowledge, one with a value far more difficult to define than personal possessions, real estate, or even enslaved people.

Charles Colcock, a white man of enormous wealth, recognized that enslaved women possessed the knowledge that he wanted. In that, he was not unusual. Investigations into infant murder were unique for the role that women played in them. These cases subjected both the body of the accused women—as generally only women were investigated for the crime—and the corpse to investigation. They also involved women not only as witnesses but as arbiters and experts.⁵ Conclusions could be reached in the absence of men, but without women as witnesses—at least in the first half of the nineteenth century—investigations could not and did not proceed. With the important exception of enslaved women, whose bodies were generally subject to the scrutiny of any white person, male or female, it was women who usually inspected the bodies of white and free Black women. As such, the knowledge possessed by females served a crucial role in facilitating prosecutions for infanticide.⁶

Colcock worked within this framework by seeking to control and manipulate those who claimed knowledge of reproduction and childbirth. In part, he presumed other, nearby enslaved women had specific knowledge of Lucy’s alleged pregnancy because they lived and worked with Lucy. More importantly, however, he acknowledged their possession of this knowledge because they had expertise in an experience only women had, namely childbirth. But there was a hierarchy of knowledge among these women as well. One of the women was a midwife and another was a nurse, while Lucy’s mother had personal experience of childbirth as a mother. Although all three women knew of Lucy’s pregnancy, each of them knew different things from the other because of their varying levels of experience and range of skills.⁷ Not every woman understood the signs of pregnancy in the same way as another. These women knew that knowledge of pregnancy was not biologically essentialist, possessed by these women simply because they were women. Rather, the range of knowledge to which these women could lay claim was more complex. Colcock recognized that fact as well. He placed a higher dollar value on the midwife than on Lucy’s mother, for instance. In short, the midwife’s knowledge and expertise enhanced her financial value in the marketplace of slavery.⁸ As Colcock knew, the value of any woman’s knowledge in cases such as these could be determined, or calculated, based on the sum of a woman’s own experience with childbirth (which could vary over time), and her relationship, if any, to the accused.

Proving Pregnancy traces changing ideas in relation to the constitution of knowledge about the human body, particularly women’s bodies, in the United States from the Revolution to the end of Reconstruction. Those transformations serve as a lens for understanding interrelated changes over the course of the nineteenth century, all of which demonstrate how race and gender guided conceptions of whose knowledge about the human body mattered in the arenas of law and medicine. Beyond that, Proving Pregnancy explores institutional changes that turned possession of that knowledge into something more like ownership: as a form of property akin to a right with recognized meanings and consequences within the legal system. By the end of the nineteenth century, physicians—usually male, usually white, and generally wealthy—propagated the idea that women could not enter the field of medicine because their bodies made them unfit for the work of the mind. The idea seemed so pervasive and so widespread by that time that it is difficult to remember that people had once thought about knowledge of human bodies as something that belonged to the people who lived in