“Virtue, Vice, and Contraband: A History of Contraception in America” (review)

In late 2009, during the heated debate about abortion provisions in the proposed Senate health bill, a former legal director of a national women’s rights organization noted in a letter to the New York Times that “the average woman spends five of her sexually active, fertile years pregnant, postpartum or trying to conceive, and 30 of those years trying to avoid conception.”¹ “Virtue, Vice, and Contraband: A History of Contraception in America,” on permanent exhibition at the Dittrick Medical History Center at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, confirms that the desire to avoid conception has been a formative concern for women and men for millennia. With artifacts ranging from vials of crocodile dung to the most recent technological tools such as Duramed’s Seasonique® and Plan B® “Virtue, Vice, and Contraband” presents a contested history that documents not only contraception’s ages-old history but also the volatile mix of culture, religion, political doctrine, and commercialization that shapes it.

The core of the collection previously belonged to Percy Skuy, past president of Canada’s Janssen-Ortho, a leading manufacturer of intra-uterine devices (IUDs), birth control pills, and other contraceptives. In 2004, the Dittrick acquired Skuy’s collection of over 650 historical contraception artifacts, about 300 of which are IUDs. Since then, the Dittrick has collected many more objects, and about 20 percent of the total collection is now on display.

The exhibit begins by establishing a long prehistory with examples of instructive literature, such as Aristotle’s Masterpiece—a sex manual dating to 1684 that relied on the philosopher’s cache to establish authority—and Frederick Hollick’s The Origins of Life (1845). These and other books and artifacts underscore that information about sex and reproduction, however understood, was widely available to an American reading public prior to and throughout the nineteenth century. However, it was the efforts of Anthony Comstock (1844–1915) that drove the manufacture and distribution of a wide range of contraceptive devices underground. Comstock’s relentless revulsion to birth control instruction and devices led to the federal passage of the 1873 eponymous Comstock Act, which outlawed contraceptive devices within a broader category of obscenities. Drawing heavily on the excellent work of Andrea Tone, Helen Horowitz, and Jimmy Meyer (the exhibit’s curator), the exhibit’s story line highlights Comstock and the subsequent movement to legalize access to birth control devices, focusing in particular on the efforts of Margaret Sanger and others, eventually leading up to the invention of “the pill” and other modern devices.

This familiar narrative is buttressed by a staggering display of artifacts. Cervical caps, pessaries, condoms of varying materials (faux alligator skin, anyone?), sponges, diaphragms, IUDs, douches, spermicides, powders, the everreliable Lysol, jellies, fitting implements, as well as sterilization devices tell the material story of the human effort to prevent pregnancy. One display case holds a variety of slide rules, computation devices, calendar wheels, and a gynodate clock and calculator—very technological devices designed to support the “natural” or “rhythm” method of birth control. Drawers extend the display cases’ ability to showcase monthly pill dispensers and IUDs. Most significantly, the exhibit also emphasizes the history of manufacturing, marketing, and distribution. While many narratives focus solely on consumers and their desire and need to prevent pregnancy, “Vice, Virtue, and Contraband” imparts a rich story of engineering, manufacturing, materials, packaging, and patents. The displays include condom and diaphragm molds, a vending machine, and a historical range of colorful condom packages that speak to creative marketing and distribution.

“Vice, Virtue, and Contraband” embeds an extraordinary collection in the social, cultural, and political histories that give it meaning. It will appeal to both mature and immature audiences, but unless you want to enter into imaginative and convoluted explanations, it is probably best to leave the little ones at home. The exhibit is free and open to the public. See http...