Selling Sex

Classified advertisements from the New York Herald, December 9, 1841, and the New York Sun, December 15, 1841.

Between 1800 and 1900, the birthrate of white native-born women in American declined by almost half, due in some part to the increased use of birth control. The amount of printed literature providing information about contraception, from medical texts to classified advertisements, indicates the popular demand for knowledge, products, and services beginning in the 1840s. Contraception allowed women a degree of freedom and control over their own bodies; abortions enabled them to choose to carry a pregnancy to term or not, whether they were prostitutes selling sex for a living or “ordinary” working women struggling to support the children they already had.

Here are examples of classified advertisements offering abortions and abortifacients, in euphemistic terms. They represent the shift away from the use of folk medicines in one’s home toward birth control as big business. Giving her invaluable publicity, the Herald editorialized against Madame Restell while simultaneously carrying classified advertisements for her business.