Victorian Mary Gove Nichols

Oh wow. I meant to do a blog on the Victorian Free Love movement, which started before the Civil War and lasted through the '70's. In the process of doing more in-depth research I came across a book review about a book on Mary Gove Nichols. http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title_pages/2341.html

Apparently Ms. Nichols was a true radical (for the times). She believed in free love, in equality for women, and--get this!--went around the U.S. giving anatomy lectures. This, mind you, at a time when some doctors would use dolls and ask women to point at the parts that were bothering them rather than examine them. Amazing! I love this woman. Add her to our first female candidate for president, Ms. Woodhull, and Victorian women really did rock--that is until Anthony Comstock and his obscenity laws came alongin 1873 and pretty much ruined everything for everyone. The more I read about that man the less I like him.