Nellie Shuff1900s, 20s, chicago, illinoisOn March 7, 1908, unmarried seamstress Nellie M. Shuff, aka Mrs. E. C. Coulter, age 26, of New Berlin, Illinois, died at Wesley Hospital in Chicago. Nellie had lived as a boarder in the home of widow Martha Scott.

The coroner’s jury determined that she died from complications of an abortion that had been perpetrated at a home on Forest Avenue. Seventy-one-year-old midwife Johanna White was arrested, tried, and sentenced to one to ten years at Joliet for the death. White was so old and feeble that she had to be carried in and out of the courtroom, and was not expected to survive the length of her sentence.

Nellie’s fatal abortion was typical of Chicago abortions of the time, most of which were perpetrated by doctors or midwives.

Note, please, that with issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good. For more about abortion and abortion deaths in the first years of the 20th century, see Abortion Deaths 1900-1909.

For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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Sources:

• Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database
• “Aged Woman at Joliet,” Chicago Inter-Ocean, July 19, 1908
• “Aged Woman Goes to Prison,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 19, 1908

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