Madeline McDowell Breckinridge and the Battle for a New South by Melba Porter Hay (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 82 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY M adeline McDowell Breckinridge was a member of one of Kentucky’s most distinguished families. Descended from Henry Clay on her mother’s side and from judges and doctors on her father’s side, in the first two decades of her relatively brief life, Madge, as she was known, gave every indication that hers would be a life of privilege and parties. Yet in a carefully researched biography, Melba Porter Hay argues that Breckinridge’s ongoing struggle with tuberculosis led this young woman into a life of reform and social activism. Although she never gave up her active and expensive lifestyle, Breckinridge worked at a frenetic pace during the Progressive era on numerous reform causes. Most active in her home state, Breckinridge’s accomplishments as a progressive reformer are little known beyond Kentucky’s borders. In addition, her work is easily overshadowed by her famous sister -in-law and friend, Sophonisba Breckinridge. Hay’s study brings Madge Breckinridge out of the shadows and accords her the recognition she deserves. Hay, former division manager of the Kentucky Historical Society and co-editor of The Papers of Henry Clay, first studied Breckinridge as the subject of her dissertation over thirty years ago. Her thorough research is evidenced in the book’s extensive notes, bibliography, and photos as well as Breckinridge’s selected writings and speeches. Hay also relied on new sources from the Henry Clay Memorial Foundation papers uncovered at Melba Porter Hay. Madeline McDowell Breckinridge and the Battle for a New South. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2009. 368 pp. ISBN: 9780813125329 (cloth), $40.00. Madeline McDowell Breckinridge and the Battle for a New South Melba Porter Hay BOOK REVIEWS FALL 2009 83 Ashland, the Breckinridge family home, in the early 1990s. According to Hay, in 1890 Breckinridge experienced the first episode of what became a chronic health problem when she sprained her ankle. Over the next five years, she consulted with physicians across the country in an unsuccessful effort to alleviate the nagging pain in her foot and ankle. Finally, in 1895, doctors diagnosed her problem as tuberculosis of the bone and followed through with the only cure known at the time—amputation of her foot. Although she gave up plans to attend the University of Chicago, Breckinridge did not let this outcome impinge on her active life. In 1898, she married Desha Breckinridge, member of another prominent Kentucky family and owner of the Lexington Herald newspaper. In these years also, Breckinridge began her work as a progressive reformer. In 1899, she and Desha used the Herald to voice concern over the power of local criminal families and the refusal of law enforcement officials to prosecute them. She organized a group of Lexington women to pressure officials to deal with the problem. Hay describes this incident as Breckinridge’s introduction to social activism and also what became her reliance on the Herald as a vehicle for educating the public and government officials about needed reforms. Breckinridge next focused her energies and talents on settlement work in eastern Kentucky, often taking her lead from Sophonisba Breckinridge and Jane Addams with their network of national reformers. As a member of the board of directors of the Associated Charities of Lexington, Madge Breckinridge advocated “scientific charity” and the casework system with its emphasis on individual treatment and the elimination of environmental causes of poverty. As Hay contends, by 1900 Breckinridge was prepared “to create a career for herself in civic reform” (71). In the following years, she worked to improve the lives of Kentucky’s children by campaigning for compulsory education laws, playgrounds, parks, kindergartens, manual training in the schools, a juvenile court, and child labor laws. Her own struggles with tuberculosis led her to focus on persuading state officials to form a tuberculosis commission and build a state tuberculosis sanatorium. The campaign for woman suffrage took up much of her time from 1912 when she served her first term as president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association. In 1918, she took the reins of the organization a second time to ensure Kentucky’s eventual ratification of the amendment. On a national level, she served as second...