Bringing Down the Colonel: A Sex Scandal of the Gilded Age, and the "Powerless" Woman Who Took On Washington
Written by Patricia Miller
Narrated by Christina Delaine
5/5
()
About this audiobook
“I’ll take my share of the blame. I only ask that he take his.”
In Bringing Down the Colonel, journalist Patricia Miller tells the story of Madeline Pollard, an unlikely nineteenth-century women’s rights crusader. After an affair with a prominent politician left her “ruined,” Pollard brought the man—and the hypocrisy of America’s control of women’s sexuality—to trial. And, surprisingly, she won.
Pollard and the married Colonel Breckinridge began their decade-long affair when she was just a teenager. After the death of his wife, Breckinridge asked for Pollard’s hand—and then broke off the engagement to marry another woman. But Pollard struck back, suing Breckinridge for breach of promise in a shockingly public trial. With premarital sex considered irredeemably ruinous for a woman, Pollard was asserting the unthinkable: that the sexual morality of men and women should be judged equally.
Nearly 125 years after the Breckinridge-Pollard scandal, America is still obsessed with women’s sexual morality. And in the age of Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein, we’ve witnessed fraught public reckonings with a type of sexual exploitation unnervingly similar to that experienced by Pollard. Using newspaper articles, personal journals, previously unpublished autobiographies, and letters, Bringing Down the Colonel tells the story of one of the earliest women to publicly fight back.
Patricia Miller
Patricia Miller is a journalist and an editor who has written extensively about the intersection of politics, sex, and religion. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Salon, The Nation, The Huffington Post, RH Reality Check, and Ms.magazine. She is a senior correspondent for Religion Dispatches, where she writes about the politics of sexuality and the Catholic Church. She was formerly the editor of Conscience magazine and the editor in chief of National Journal’s daily health-care briefings, including the Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report and American Healthline. She has a master’s in journalism from New York University and is based in Washington, D.C. Patricia is the author of Good Catholics: The Battle Over Abortion in the Catholic Church and Bringing Down the Colonel: A Sex Scandal of the Gilded Age, and the "Powerless" Woman Who Took On Washington.
Related to Bringing Down the Colonel
Related audiobooks
Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Diary of M: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Incredible Events in Women's Cell Number 3: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Castaway Mountain: Love and Loss Among the Wastepickers of Mumbai Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEthel Rosenberg: An American Tragedy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Home Bound: An Uprooted Daughter's Reflections on Belonging Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Newlyweds: Rearranging Marriage in Modern India Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Latest Grievance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Secret Life of Dorothy Soames: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Strong Passions: A Scandalous Divorce in Old New York Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHer Side of the Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThree Muses Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5American Pop: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Elizabeth Street Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Chocolate Money Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bridesmaid's Daughter: From Grace Kelly's Wedding to a Women's Shelter - Searching for the Truth About My Mother Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRed Azalea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rust: A Memoir of Steel and Grit Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5She Matters: A Life in Friendships Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Place We Knew Well Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Vanished Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKeeping Family Secrets: Shame and Silence in Memoirs from the 1950s Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSmoke and Ashes: Opium's Hidden Histories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFive Days Gone: The Mystery of My Mother's Disappearance as a Child Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death, and the Search for Truth in Tehran Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sisters of Summit Avenue Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Family Tabor: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFearless Women: Feminist Patriots from Abigail Adams to Beyoncé Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
United States History For You
Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Up From Slavery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: 2nd Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wright Brothers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize): An American History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5John Adams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untold History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letter from Birmingham Jail Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Bringing Down the Colonel
1 rating0 reviews