A War on Women
HISTORY This Week
The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios
4.5 • 4.2K Ratings
🗓️ 1 March 2021
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
March 2, 1923. In Wichita, Kansas, Mary Irby and Euna Hollowell are being held at the county jail. The two women are charged with “lewdly abiding.” Translation: officials suspect them of carrying a sexually transmitted infection. Hollowell, Irby, and many women like them will go on to be forcibly examined and incarcerated under a public health program known as “The American Plan.” This initiative resulted in decades of mass incarceration of tens of thousands of American women. How was it possible for the U.S. government to publicly wage war on women? And how did those women fight back?
Special thank you to our guest Scott W. Stern, author of The Trials of Nina McCall: Sex, Surveillance, and the Decades-Long Government Plan to Imprison "Promiscuous" Women.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The History Channel, original podcast. |
| 0:04.8 | History this week, March 2nd, 1923. |
| 0:10.4 | I'm Sally Helm. |
| 0:13.0 | In Wichita, Kansas, |
| 0:15.1 | Mary Irby and Yuna Hollowell are being held at the city jail. |
| 0:19.8 | They were arrested on the charge of loodly abiding, |
| 0:23.3 | basically standing around in such a way |
| 0:25.1 | that the authorities thought they might be selling sex. |
| 0:27.4 | Now, officials are trying to decide whether they're a threat to the public order. |
| 0:33.4 | Today, they'll learn their fate. |
| 0:36.4 | It's in the hands of a city health official named Dr. Milton O. Nyberg. |
| 0:41.9 | He takes his job very seriously. |
| 0:44.0 | In Kansas Municipalities, a magazine for city officials, |
| 0:47.5 | he describes an ideal city health officer this way, |
| 0:50.0 | quote, he must be fearless. |
| 0:53.4 | His job includes stuff like making sure the city's milk supply is healthy and safe, |
| 0:58.5 | keeping trash out of the streets, |
| 1:00.5 | and also preventing the spread of communicable diseases. |
| 1:05.8 | It's in this last capacity that he gets involved with Hollowell and Irby. |
| 1:10.4 | After they're arrest, the two women are forced to undergo a gynecological exam |
| 1:15.1 | to see if they have a sexually transmitted infection, |
| 1:18.5 | syphilis or gonorrhea. |
... |
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