Miscarriage and Coping in the Mid‐Nineteenth Century: Private Notes from Distant Places

Jensz, Felicity

doi:10.1111/1468-0424.12478

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…While the main inscription is written in Halliwell's hand, his wife Mabel has also signed the page, her jagged and scruffy handwriting conveying the weariness that she felt following childbirth. Written shortly after Derek's birth, she was likely still "lying-in", as was recommended for a period of at least two weeks by the turn of the twentieth century (Jensz 2020). Marking the inscription with their signatures acts as an authorizing sign of authenticity, strengthening the argument that their "confession" is "faithful".…”

Section: Inscriptions As Amuletsmentioning

confidence: 98%

In Memoriam

O’Hagan

2023

Textual Cultures

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Throughout the long nineteenth century, individuals engaged in rituals of mourning to help deal with loss and grief. Objects were vitally important to Victorians and Edwardians as commemorative artefacts that clearly embodied the deceased and acted as a stand-in for their lived presence. For many people, books served as secular relics, with the safe confounds of the endpapers used to document the illnesses and deaths of loved ones, express feelings of anguish, or pass down books informally to other family members. Despite the high cultural value of these inscriptive marks, they have been surprisingly overlooked by researchers. Thus, this article is the first to shed light on these types of inscriptions in Britain (1870–1914), using a small dataset collected from a secondhand bookshop. Applying a combination of archival research and textual/multimodal analysis, I discuss the ways in which inscriptions helped individuals to manage loss, provided protection and therapy, and enabled relationships between the deceased and the bereaved to be maintained. I also draw attention to an inscriptive practice — the in memoriam inscription — that appears to have been predominantly used by the working and lower-middle classes. Overall, I argue that book inscriptions should be given equal importance to other relics of death, such as hair jewelry and memorial cards, as they were heavily embedded in broader rituals of mourning and served as aids in the process of grieving.

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Section: Inscriptions As Amuletsmentioning

confidence: 98%

In Memoriam

O’Hagan

2023

Textual Cultures

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“…110 Her 'nervous weakness' hints at a mental breakdown; however, the reason behind it was never clearly stated, although as it corresponded with her second miscarriage, this could have been a contributing factor. 111 As Polly's health was so poor, Adolf, with a heavy heart, requested to be removed to a colder climate. 112 Other missionaries in Victoria and even her family in London involved themselves in trying to expedite the process, demonstrating how colonial and family networks rallied to help her.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ebenezer Mission Station, 1863–1873: The Diary of Missionaries Adolf and Polly Hartmann

2023

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WARNING:Readers are notified that this publication may contain names or images of deceased persons.viiForeword My name is Aunty Hazel McDonald. I am a Wotjobaluk elder. My ties to the Ebenezer mission are through my family. My family are the Marks family, who lived on the reserve at Antwerp with other families, such as the Harrisons, the Kennedys.Growing up, we were always told about Ebenezer mission. Told that missionaries were not doing any good for anyone. They had our people on the mission, making them into Christians and taking them at some age away from their families. We were told a lot on the Aboriginal side of things, but not what really happened at Ebenezer. So, I have enjoyed reading this diary and it has really opened my eyes to what actually was done and what was achieved at the Ebenezer mission. It opened my eyes that they, the female missionaries, were teaching the young girls and women on the mission to do sewing and domestic life in their way. Well, it was probably better for them to learn that for today's society. The world was changing. These people probably looked at it and thought, we'll teach them this. When everything was said and done, and the boards were gone and people could actually live properly, they would have to have those skills, and these are with them today. These skills were passed on to the children and the other women. I was really interested in reading about Polly. She was only a young bride sent out to this harsh place and the heat really knocked her to the ground. A bit different from England's weather. I feel sorry for her, because it would have been hard for her, away from her people and her parents, going off with her husband, not really knowing anyone. She put up with all those changes in her life so quick, and the miscarriages, that all took a toll on her. It is a shame she got sick. I would say she was a good woman. She still continued her duties out there as a missionary, but it still affected her whole life, until it got too much for her. This is a true copy, which means that all the editing marks, crossing out, insertions and the like have been kept, along with the inconsistencies in spelling and grammar.Diary entries written or partly written by Polly/Mary are indicated by an asterisk (*). Her entries are further indicated by a different font.10 See: Fourth Report of the Central Board Appointed to Watch Over the Interests of the Aborigines in the Colony of Victoria, no. 19 (Melbourne: John Ferres, Government Printer, 1864), 7 (reports in this series hereafter referred to as, e.g., First BPA Report). 11 Eighth Annual BPA Report, 18. 12 Ref: 16 November 1865. 13 'Spieseke' was at times written 'Speiseke'-for example, in official reports of the Board for the Protection of the Aborigines in Colonial Victoria (BPA).

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“…54 Although historians are beginning to break the silence around the history of miscarriage, separating it from the history of abortion, the silence around stillbirth largely remains unbroken. 55 Recent scholarship is beginning to look at the boundaries of life and death, particularly in relation to suspected infanticide, the role of the state in matters of registration and burial, and protecting the reputation of an unmarried single mother. 56 There has also been some consideration of developments in medical understandings and prevention of stillbirths, and the medical, social and community support which existed for bereaved parents, but the extent of these forms of support and the emotional cost of stillbirth are areas worthy of further exploration.…”

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confidence: 99%

Introduction: Gender and Reproduction

Elliot

Mistry

2020

Gender & History

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This special issue was conceptualised late in 2018 in the context of high-profile developments in reproductive rights. Possibly the most notable development in the European context was the successful campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Irish constitution, which, following a referendum in May 2018, finally allowed Ireland to legislate for abortion. The grassroots advocacy underpinning this campaign brought to the fore the ways those seeking abortions were forced to travel overseas, most usually to England, to ensure access to abortion as well as the informal networks of support for women. 1 The need to travel for abortion has a longer history and remains necessary in some places: in Poland, a group of activist women, the so-called 'Abortion Dream Team', gathered media attention for their work supporting women to access abortion in a country with restrictive abortion laws. 2 At the same time, however, in the United States, there was a concerted effort in many states to roll back abortion rights won following the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. By June 2019, five US states had introduced so-called 'heartbeat bills' which prohibited abortion after six weeks. 3 Moreover, in 2017 the United States government prohibited foreign non-government organisations which receive global health funding from engaging in any activity relating to abortion, including advocacy for safe abortion and provision of information about abortion, abortion services and counselling relating to abortion with the exceptions of abortion relating to rape, incest or where the pregnancy endangers life. 4 In countries where abortion is restricted, unsafe abortion remains a significant factor in maternal mortality: in Kenya, for example, twenty-five per cent of maternal deaths are from unsafe abortion. 5 In Brazil, restrictive abortion policies came to media attention during the 2015 outbreak of the Zika virus, which can cause fetal microcephaly. 6 However, the actions of both the Brazilian Congressional Committee and the far-right President Jair Bolsonaro have served to further restrict abortion law in subsequent years. 7 These examples show the ways in which access to abortion is contingent on time and place and also upon a set of relationships between doctors, governments and women-aspatients, not autonomous actors. 8 In the British context, recent research has shown that the Abortion Act 1967 has been consistently contested, as well as the variability of abortion provision geographically and over time. 9 The articles in this volume by Thyer and also Delay, Ware and Sundstrom, discussed in more detail below, show how social and legal actors, such as the media and the justice system, as well as community

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Miscarriage and Coping in the Mid‐Nineteenth Century: Private Notes from Distant Places

Cited by 4 publications

References 24 publications

In Memoriam

In Memoriam

Ebenezer Mission Station, 1863–1873: The Diary of Missionaries Adolf and Polly Hartmann

Introduction: Gender and Reproduction

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