London: Dyer Brothers, [1886].
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Softcover. First edition. Tall octavo. 111pp., [4] appendix and ads for two other books on prostitutes. Pale brown cloth over flexible card wrappers, elaborately titled and decorated in black. Two short tears on front fly, a bit of rubbing and a tiny crease on the rear wrap, very good or better. Elizabeth Blackwell's copy Inscribed on the half-title in ink: "Dr. E. Blackwell / Rock House / Hastings" with a substantive note in her hand on page 19.
Blackwell is renowned as the first woman to receive an American medical degree (Geneva, NY 1849). Born in Bristol, England in 1821, Blackwell moved with her family to the United States in 1832. After earning her degree, she practiced medicine in New York, and in 1857 she and her colleagues founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. In 1869 she returned to England where she remained until her death in 1910 at Hastings.
Blackwell gradually withdrew from medical practice in the 1870s and devoted her energies to moral reform and womens' rights. This particular report, the fourth (and final) in a series that began in 1881, would have had special meaning for her at a time when she was deeply involved in the debate over prostitution. In 1883 Blackwell published *Wrong and Right Methods of Dealing with Social Evil.* In an earlier book, *Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of their Children,* published in 1878, she argued against the Contagious Diseases Act which, in her opinion, was nothing less than official condoning of prostitution.
Publications such as this report would have enabled her to keep current with this burning controversy and meet opponents head-on. Here, on page 19, is an example. She has circled this provocative text: "If a woman determine to sell herself body and soul - to commit moral suicide - she must herself bear the responsibility of so doing." To that statement made in a report to Parliament, the Committee declares its "uncompromising opposition." Beneath this statement Blackwell has written: "A male view. Poverty is more inexorable on women than on men, on account of the function of maternity. Therefore, whilst strongly condemning a life of vice, it must be recognized that the bribery of women to vice by men through money payments, is the deepest root of woman's degradation!"
The fervor of this concise statement is typical of her writings on social justice during this time. Another note, written in pencil in another hand reads: "Dr. E. Blackwell has this Blue Book which should be pondered by Christian women." The reference is to a government report on the law for the protection of young girls, cited in a footnote on page 6. *OCLC* locates three copies of this pamphlet in the U.S. (NYPL, DePaul, University of Michigan), and *COPAC* locates four in the U.K.
Item #421044
