In 1896, American author Sarah Orne Jewett (1849–1904) published what would become her most popular work. The text that became The Country of the Pointed Firs was initially published as short sketches in four serialized installments in The Atlantic from December 1895 to August 1896.1 The novel offers readers a combination of regionalism and realism in the exquisite depiction of summer in rural New England life. A part of this regionalism is the vast majority of herbs the narrator includes, from both wild and cultivated areas, that could be used as emetics, emmenagogues, and abortifacients by women seeking bodily autonomy. The daughter of a physician who traveled throughout rural Maine who specifically focused on “obstetrics and diseases of women and children,”2 and well-versed in anatomy herself,3 Jewett witnessed myriad cases involving women and their varying reproductive needs and understood the issues they faced.
Yet, Jewett had to be cautious in relating this information in her writing. The Comstock Law of 1873, which has never been fully repealed but remains heavily litigated, dictates that the mailing and even discussion of anything relating to every “thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use,” including contraception, became illegal. In this same era of reproductive control and surveillance, Andrea Tone has tracked “a thriving bootleg trade” of contraceptive devices and chemicals that became widely available for those who could acquire and afford them.4 A variety of condoms, pessaries, and cervical caps existed, as did douching formulas. Women used what they could, what was easily obtained, and what they had in abundance, including lactic acid, which was used widely as a food preservative. However, these were expensive, sometimes unreliable, and regularly required immense preparation and clean up; they could also land a purchaser or supplier in court or prison under the ever-watchful eye of Comstock.5 Advertisers sought to sidestep laws via crafty rhetoric, but false advertising marred public trust. In urban areas, locating and harvesting pure traditional herbal remedies became progressively more difficult. Comstock’s network made regular headlines as they hounded those who aided and abetted bodily autonomy seekers. These laws limited discussions pertaining to bodily autonomy, which became tenuous at best and litigious at worst; predictably, conversation disappeared.
Jewett’s story nonetheless shows that women could safely seek out care without threat of Comstockian surveillance and could use these herbal remedies without anyone else’s knowledge—neither a father, brother, lover, husband, religious leader, nor a governmental official. In this way, women helped women, networks persisted, and some even dared to defy such control in coded but open writing. In an 1882 letter to Annie Fields, Jewett revealed, “sometimes I think I should like to give up the world . . . and be a doctor, though very likely I am enough of one already to get the best of it for myself, and perhaps I have done as much as I ever could for other people.”6 With The Country of the Pointed Firs, Jewett worked to ensure women had knowledge of how to obtain and maintain bodily autonomy in the late nineteenth century—as this very knowledge was simultaneously slipping away. In a time when clear information pertaining to reproductive control was surveilled, removed, and legislated, Jewitt’s coded writing must seek to fill this gap.
In the novel, Almira and the narrator function as knowledgeable, experienced allies who help women with disparate healthcare needs. Almira learns her trade through Mrs. Tolland, whose practice has been handed down over generations and who boasts Caribbean and French connections.7 Now, Almira is training the narrator to lead a new generation of women who need to maneuver within the confines of the suffocating progression of nineteenth century ideologies. The narrator is learning to be an ally and guide for women who want to be involved in the American practice of “taking the trade”8 safely, discreetly, and via the help of another woman. (This is very possibly why the narrator is unnamed: anyone can be her; anyone can help women obtain and maintain bodily autonomy.) Almira teaches the narrator to listen to women and provide them with what they require to maintain bodily autonomy. Most importantly, Jewett’s text projects the practice of eschewing a male doctor as a primary resource for reproductive needs in favor of a rural woman herbalist. That “strangers” come from all over reveals that Almira is renowned and trusted for her knowledge and skilled use of herbs. But it is through the narrator’s experience and training that readers see how to seek or aid reproductive control by obtaining the herbs they need to maintain bodily autonomy in an ever-challenging world of control, surveillance, and legal threat.
Maine outlawed abortion in 1840 and even today retains staunch anti-abortion laws, yet it remained one of the few places in the Northeast where women found themselves under less scrutiny, and therefore less prosecution. Abortion laws were rarely enforced throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as “most Mainers considered early-term abortion as a part of rural life . . . the rural community not only tolerated abortion but supported it.” Though Dunnet Landing itself is fictional, the remote countryside hints at what could have been one of several New England coastal towns. Jewett paints a place where middle class women could discreetly go without anyone else’s knowledge or interference—a place that could easily be overlooked and never questioned. The area is secluded; not even a railroad intrudes through or near Dunnet Landing (though one can reach it by boat); it is a place to go to reduce the risk of being surveilled.
In Dunnet Landing, no one questions the narrator’s presence: she is there under the guise of being a writer who is renting the schoolhouse to work while paying Almira for room and board. The town benefits from her patronage, and the narrator remains scrutiny-free. Women traveled alone by this time; upper-class married women had begun taking lengthy vacations without their husbands to avoid pregnancy. The narrator subtly shows readers that they should be cautious in obtaining what they need and notes she is keen to avoid a conspicuous place. The message is clear: one can travel alone to a quiet, private, remote, and inconspicuous area, such as coastal Maine, away from the watchful eyes of crowded cities. While there, women should find the trusted, discreet local woman herbalist and acquire what they need to aid and abet others or take care of themselves, all while receiving explicit directions for how to use the herbs—privately and without the fear of watchful eyes, city politics, shakedowns, or even persecution and prison.
This visit is not simply a summer vacation: the narrator is there to learn the trade. Though she has “some skill” (14) in herb gathering, she uses her time to learn more about herbal remedies for several ailments, but especially those for reproductive means. Locally available hyssop, often used to treat lung inflammation and coughing from colds, also acts as an emmenagogue and abortifacient. Other herbs grow wild and require a “distant excursion” for collection (5)—specifically lobelia, an emetic and emmenagogue that was also used to dilate the cervix during labor, elecampane, an emmenagogue, and tansy, an emmenagogue and abortifacient.9
The narrator learns clear directions are vital: “with certain vials [Almira] gave cautions . . . there were other doses which had to be accompanied on their healing way as far as the gate, while she muttered long chapters of directions, and kept up an air of secrecy and importance to the last” (5). The many approaches to induce what is now considered an abortion—referred to as obstructed or suppressed menses in the nineteenth century (one was not considered pregnant until one felt fetal movement, referred to as the quickening at the time)—often required specific ingredients, mixtures, brewing, steeping, and multiple doses. Trusted physicians’ and farmhouse books, including those written by Hall, Culpeper, and Tennent (Benjamin Franklin), among others, all include lengthy processes for mixing these age-old herbal remedies.10
Almira celebrates the friendship turned partnership, expressing “I ain’t had such a season for years, but I have never had nobody I could so trust . . . with time you’d gain judgment an’ experience, an’ be very able in the business” (8–9). Along with this trust in the narrator’s abilities, Almira also trusts her commitment to aid and abet any woman who wishes to engage in maintaining bodily autonomy. As the narrator becomes familiar with the trade, Almira teaches her to cultivate a relationship with the local doctor, who condones Almira’s work, especially as it may benefit him later.
Shortly after her arrival, Almira prepares an herbal chamomile tincture for the narrator and stands over her as she imbibes the drink. Chamomile is an emmenagogue and, in the correct dose, will stimulate menstruation—in other words, induce an abortion for someone in an early stage of pregnancy. For readers unfamiliar with the events that follow ingesting an emmenagogue, this scene is integral: the narrator explains, “nothing happened but a quiet evening . . . and on the morrow there was the clear sunshine and blue sky of another day” (47). Given the nature of Comstock’s laws, this is a precarious inclusion, but it assures readers nothing dangerous will happen if they ingest or provide such a tincture. Careful readers will deduce the herbal remedy has induced the narrator’s menstrual cycle: while walking on Green Island the day after, Almira’s brother, “pick[s] a few sprigs of late-blooming linnaea” for her, and she notes “[William] knew as well as I that one could not say half he wished about linnaea” (70). From the honeysuckle family, linnaea helps relieve menstrual cramping. The trusted herbalist and physician Nicholas Culpeper argued a “conserve made of [linnaea] should be kept in every gentlewoman’s house” because it “helps cramps.”11 William’s compassion shows how readers can aid anyone experiencing cramping after using an emetic, emmenagogue, or abortifacient by obtaining linnaea.
Jewett’s creation of Almira’s character is already a provocation to those who would subjugate women, but Almira’s open use of pennyroyal to abort a pregnancy with her first lover is not the most direct challenge to patriarchal control of women’s bodies. Rather, what Almira shares with the narrator (and, by extension, readers) is far more powerful. She not only directly challenges Comstock laws but shows she does not care what men have to say about bodily autonomy. Almira illustrates this by explaining that beyond aborting her pregnancy by her first lover, her subsequent fiancé knew nothing of her previous pregnancy or affair, and that if he did find out, she would not have cared. Maintaining complete autonomy over her body, in and of itself, is extraordinary here, but it is also a direct challenge to patriarchal control and models that other women could do the same. However, Almira’s final details reflect a complete rejection of patriarchal control over women’s bodies: her subsequent marriage will not change her behavior, and abortions will be a part of her life. Almira clarifies she will always control her own body. That Jewett included these events is nothing short of stunning in the era of Comstock; it also reflects rural life and the reality of women continuing to use of herbal remedies to maintain bodily autonomy.
In choosing this careful path, Jewett relayed information in a non-suspect way by discussing country life via the tenets of regionalism and realism but also through coded language—that is, life as it was, for women with knowledge of herbal remedies to aid and abet women needing help to meet their reproductive needs. In a similar time of lost reproductive control in the United States, as everyday Americans continue to reel from the shock of the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, lawmakers are placing further limitations on bodily autonomy and simultaneously increasing surveillance throughout the United States, including personal communication pertaining to maintaining bodily autonomy, regardless of whether it is public or private. Currently, extremists are suing to prohibit the mailing of mifepristone and to access private healthcare records. Their goals include persecuting both abortion seekers and those who help aid and abet them in obtaining abortions. Just as in the nineteenth century, it has become perilous to engage in or discuss bodily autonomy in several places across the United States. With the assumption of privacy becoming nullified and a strong presence of surveillance, many worry that access to reliable, safe, effective birth control will become limited, if not removed. In this current era of renewed interest in Comstock laws, removal of autonomy, and control of women, Jewett’s lessons offer clear guidance for readers today: publish quietly and subtly, read critically, aid people in evading surveillance, and abet all who desire autonomy and privacy.
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Endnotes
- All citations in this essay are to the edition of The Country of the Pointed Firs and The Dunnet Landing Stories, edited by Deborah Carlin (Broadview, 2009).
- See Janet Bukovinsky, “Sarah Orne Jewett,” Women of Words (Frankfurt, Germany: Courage Books, 1994), 43.
- Jewett recounted staying in bed late and leisurely reading “a handbook of Anatomy,” which she “found . . . very interesting.” Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Fields, Tuesday, 1882, in Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (Riverside Press, 1911), 14.
- Andrea Tone, Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America (Hill and Wang, 2001), xvii.
- For an overview of some of Comstock’s most high-profile cases, see Amy Sohn, The Man Who Hated Women: Sex, Censorship, & Civil Liberties in the Gilded Age (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021).
- Jewett, Letters, 14.
- For a discussion of the French and Caribbean connection to bodily autonomy, see Patrick Gleason, “Sarah Orne Jewett’s ‘The Foreigner’ and the Transamerican Routes of New England Regionalism,” Legacy 28, no. 1 (2011): 24-46. See also Londa Schiebinger, “Exotic Abortifacients,” in Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World (Harvard University Press, 2004): 105–149.
- Cornelia Hughes Dayton, “Taking the Trade: Abortion and Gender Relations in an Eighteenth-Century New England Village,” The William and Mary Quarterly 48, no. 1 (1991): 19-49.
- Dayton, “Taking the Trade,” 5.
- A. G. Hall, Womanhood: Causes of its Premature Decline . . . With Medical Advice (Rochester, E. Shepard, 1845); Nicholas Culpeper, Culpeper’s Complete Herbal (London: Thomas Kelly, 1850); and John Tennant (Benjamin Franklin), Every Man his Own Doctor, or, The Poor Planter’s Physician (Philadelphia, 1734).
- Culpeper, Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, 194.
Jennifer M. Nader