Madame Restell

Ann Trow Lohman (May 6, 1812 – April 1, 1878), better known as Madame Restell, was a British-born American abortion provider and midwife who practiced in New York City.

Early life Ann Trow was born in Painswick, Gloucestershire, England in 1812 to John and (Mary) Ann Trow (née Lewis). Her father was a labourer. At the age of 15, she started work as a maid in a butcher's family.

Career At the age of sixteen, she married Henry Sommers, an alcoholic tailor from Wiltshire. After three years living in England, they emigrated to New York in 1831 where Sommers died of typhoid in 1833. and was forced to make a living as a seamstress and midwife.

Ann's brother, Joseph Trow, had also emigrated to New York, and was working as a sales assistant in a pharmacy. Ann continued to develop an interest in women's health.

Charles and Ann developed a story to validate Ann's interests in midwifery and women's health. According to their story, she had travelled to Europe to train in midwifery with a renowned French physician named Restell.

Many domestic manuals at the time contained information on abortifacients, or agents, such as drugs, herbs, or other remedies that could terminate a pregnancy. While many of these texts described procedures for removing menstrual blockages and “restore menstrual flow if a period was missed,” other sections of the texts listed activities women should avoid if pregnant because they could induce an abortion, effectively instructing women on what they could attempt to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

When Restell began her business, abortions were hardly illegal. Only surgical abortions were forbidden, and this was only after the quickening, that is, when the woman started to feel the fetus move (this was typically around 4 months time). As a result, historians and other researchers have suggested that it is essentially impossible ever to know the exact incidence of nineteenth-century abortions since many women likely performed them at home or sought medical help under the guise of removing a perceived menstrual blockage.

Soon, Restell's success began to attract copiers and competition. This drew the attention of the AMA, which officially launched a campaign in 1857 to end abortion. In order to rally support for their cause, the AMA targeted Restell, the most celebrated abortion provider and deemed her the enemy. The Gazette claimed that in addition to performing abortions, "...most of the abandoned infants found almost daily throughout the city came from her [Restell's] establishment."

Conservative editors such as Samuel Jenks Smith of the New York Sunday Morning News also publicly condemned Restell's profession. On July 7, 1839—the earliest press's attack on Restell—his editorial claimed her business "...strikes at the root of all social order." According to Smith, doctors believed Restell was engaging in dangerous work, and that "...what she was doing was impossible without endangering the lives of the patients." Her work was considered "sinful".

Madame Restell became so well known throughout New York City that copies of her trials were published in the Times and the Police Gazette. She was listed as a New York City attraction in tour guides. Her notoriety was amplified by sensationalized media coverage, which contributed to both her public recognition and controversy

At the same time, critics portrayed Restell and other women associated with reproductive services as violating contemporary gender norms, with some claiming such figured had "forfeited" their womanhood by challenging traditional roles.

Legal troubles In 1840, a patient named Maria Purdy accused Restell of causing tuberculosis through the abortion procedure. The press erupted with anger against Restell, calling her "the monster in human shape" and charging her with acts against God. Restell promised monetary compensation to anyone who could prove that her methods were dangerous, and while she was initially found guilty, her appeal overturned said verdict. Her uneasy relationship with public opinion continued.

Mary Applegate was an unmarried woman, a mistress, who had been sent to Madame Restell from Philadelphia by her illicit lover. The father had arranged for Restell to adopt the baby for other people. Applegate was unaware of this deal until she had returned to Philadelphia and was greeted coldly by her former lover. Applegate then went back to Restell to ask for her child back, but Restell claimed to know nothing of the infant. Restell immediately was painted as the villain by the press in publications such as the New York Medical and Surgical Reporter. Her case was made more famous due to the short story by Edgar Allan Poe, "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt".

Abortion was soon outlawed by the state of New York in 1845. This law further restricted the previous laws from a decade earlier. An abortion that resulted in the death of the mother or was performed after the "quickening" was second degree manslaughter. A new addendum to the law made selling abortifacients or performing abortions at any stage during the pregnancy a misdemeanor punishable by a mandatory year in jail. Additionally, women who sought after an abortion or attempted their own abortion were fined $1,000 . Abortion legally became defined as an obscene subject and was no longer covered in the papers. Women were no longer allowed to freely discuss abortion. Restell skirted the legalities by advertising her services as methods to regulate menses. This conviction, however, was "universally hailed," and media coverage of the trial prompted discussion surrounding for-profit abortions performed by physicians. Furthermore, it was noted that the victims were typically "poor, uneducated women" from New England and Connecticut who came to New York for abortions.

Maria Bodine was sent to Madame Restell by her master so that she could procure an abortion from Restell. Restell determined that Maria was too far along to have an abortion, but Maria's master insisted. Finally, he paid Restell heavily, and she agreed to perform Maria's abortion. Maria then returned to her job as a maid. She fell ill and upon visiting a doctor, was forced to admit her abortion. Restell was taken to trial. During this case, Madame Restell's defense painted Bodine as a "loose" woman whose injuries were a result of syphilis and had nothing to do with Restell, and Maria Bodine's lawyers cast Restell as a godless incompetent woman. This was in spite of Bodine testifying that far from being mistreated by Restell, she was well cared for and provided with food and a place to rest until she felt well enough to return home following her procedure. Restell lost the case and was charged with a misdemeanor and a one-year prison sentence which was on Blackwell's Island. While Madame Restell reduced her business, the press did not leave her reputation to rest. She was dubbed "The Wickedest Woman in New York". Before her own legal troubles, Restell heard stories of abortion providers in Philadelphia and Lowell, Massachusetts indicted for murder—indicators of growing opposition to the practice on a national scale. A similar case was that of Dr. John Stevens, a physician who performed an abortion on a young Boston woman named Gallagher. Her death, a consequence of this high-risk operation, prompted Stevens to be accused of murder.

Though the Civil War distracted many Americans from the abortion debate, its end allowed some physicians to return to their anti-abortion campaign.

"Since the embryo, they argued, was fully alive from the point of conception, abortion at any point, regardless of whether the mother had quickened or not—was murder pure and simple."

While some physician took clear moral stances on the issue, others found their campaign increased the likelihood that untrained physicians would be penalized, thereby creating the potential to advance the activists' own professional goals.

Madame Restell had amassed a fortune. She owned several plots of land, one of which featured an extravagant mansion. She had the finest horses, carriages, and silk dresses. The Civil War gave Restell the cover she needed to get her business back on her feet. Although she had been imprisoned once and accused numerous times, Restell appeared unscathed.

Restell's practice generated significant public controversy, and she was frequently the subject of criticism reflecting broader social anxieties about gender roles and reproductive control. Despite this scrutiny, contemporaries noted that she maintained a composed public demeanor.

She faced multiple legal challenges during her career. Some accounts suggest that she attempted to avoid prosecution through bribery, although she continued to advertise her services extensively. Her prosecutions occurred during a period when legal enforcement against abortion providers was becoming more common; prior to this shift, such practitioners were rarely arrested or charged.

Arrest by Comstock

Postal Inspector Anthony Comstock was an influential moral reformer, who sought not only to regulate sexual activity, but the very way society thought about sex. He considered any information about the prevention or termination of a pregnancy to be pornographic. In 1873, the U.S. Congress enacted the Comstock laws, which made it illegal to discuss or distribute anything considered obscene by the government. Breaking these laws was punishable by six months to five years in prison and a fine from $100 to $2000 . Madame Restell was arrested by Comstock, who posed as a customer looking for birth control pills for his wife and took the police around the next day to have her arrested. In a raid on her home, "he found printed materials that provided birth control information as well as mysterious 'instruments' with instructions for use."

Bail was set at $1,000 . She was said to have reached into her purse to pull out $10,000, but the judge would accept only regular bail bonds, so Restell had to pay a bondsman. Following Restell's arrest in early 1878, a maid discovered her in the bathtub at her home on Fifth Avenue; she had slit her own throat on the morning of April 1, 1878. Upon her death, she was found to be worth between $500,000 and $600,000 .

Literature Madame Restell is a prominent character in Marge Piercy's historical novel Sex Wars, which depicts the social and political climate surrounding women's sexual, physical, and reproductive activities during the Gilded Age. Restell features as a minor character in Gore Vidal's novel 1876. Restell is featured in Edward Rutherfurd's novel New York.