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Summary
Summary
"I'll take my share of the blame. I only ask that he take his."
In Bringing Down the Colonel , the 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 Using newspaper articles, personal journals, previously unpublished autobiographies, and letters, Bringing Down the Colonel tells the story of one of the earliest women to publicly fight back.
Author Notes
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 .
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In her full-length debut, journalist Miller dusts off a long-forgotten scandal that gripped the nation's capital in the late 19th century, expertly revealing it as "an important chapter in the history of the social, political, and sexual emancipation of women." Madeline Pollard, a young woman with no social standing, sued prominent Kentucky congressman William Breckinridge in 1894 for breach of promise. At a time when women's security was linked to well-chosen spouses, women could instigate lawsuits against men who reneged on matrimonial proposals, though few women chose to endure such public scrutiny. Due to the pervasive sexual double standard, the certain revelation that Pollard had been Breckinridge's mistress made this a risky venture. Yet she brought suit after Breckinridge, who had repeatedly promised to marry her if he ever became free, wed someone else. Miller seamlessly weaves in the stories of other unmarried women connected to the case, illuminating how and why, by the 1890s, attitudes about women and sexuality were changing enough to give Pollard a chance at victory. The story's momentum slows when Miller recounts the trial, though she pops in enough courtroom surprises and insightful analyses to keep it from collapsing. This book will enthrall readers interested in women's and political history. (Nov.) c Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Journalist Miller (Good Catholics: The Battle over Abortion in the Catholic Church, 2014) unearths a juicy 19th-century sex scandal.For years, Willie Breckenridge, a beloved congressman from Kentucky, carried on a long-term extramarital affair with Madeline Pollard, a women of modest originsand then was sued for breach of contract when, after his wife died, he married a well-connected widow rather than his mistress. Adultery, of course, was not uncommon. What was new was Pollard's insistence that having behaved less-than-virtuously did not mean she should be treated like trashand her demand that the powerful man she'd slept with not get off scot-free. The press went wild, reporting on every breath drawn in court and dissecting the meaning of the suit after the jury found for the plaintiff. Miller, a senior correspondent for Religion Dispatches, argues that the Breckenridge-Pollard drama was a turning point of sorts. She credits the case and its attendant publicity with "making it acceptable to talk openly about sex" and with eroding the double standard whereby men could stray sexually without damaging their reputations, but women who transgressed norms of chastity and fidelity were ruined. Even the (male) editor of the Ladies' Home Journal responded to the case by criticizing "a code of morality" that burdened women with "all the responsibility for purity and all the penalty for wrong-doing." As engaging as Miller's central story are the minor characters, including Jennie Tucker, a young secretary hired by the Breckenridge team to spy on Pollard; and Breckenridge's daughter, Nisba, who, after the scandal receded, became the first woman to be admitted to the Kentucky bar and the first woman to receive a doctorate in political science from the University of Chicago. Nisba's and Jennie's stories, far from being filler, transform what might have been merely an account of a racy scandal into a panoramic examination of women's changing roles and of women's efforts to provide for themselves and make their way in the largely male public sphere.Good, timely history for the #MeToo moment. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
New York Review of Books Review
IT WAS ON a fateful train ride in 1884 that Col. William Breckinridge, a Kentucky congressional candidate described by his supporters as a silver-tongued orator with presidential prospects, met Madeline Pollard, a student with literary ambitions. She asked for his help in a personal matter. He visited her at school. They went on a carriage ride. Then stuff happened, including the birth of two children, and a breach of promise suit that made headlines in 1893. In her history of the Breckinridge-Pollard affair, "Bringing Down the Colonel," Patricia Miller revisits a mostly forgotten saga that changed the way many Americans felt about women and sex. What better time for a story about a prominent man taken totally aback when he discovers that the rules about what he can get away with have changed? During Breckinridge's trial for breach of promise - a legal concept until the early 20 th century enabling a woman to sue a man for breaking his engagement to marry her - one of his lawyers warned the jury that giving Pollard a victory would "encourage every strumpet to push her little mass of filth into court." Flash-forward to President Trump announcing, during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, that all this talk about sexual assault was making it a "very scary time for young men in America" since "you can be guilty of something you may not be guilty of." When Breckinridge and Pollard first met, he was a middle-aged married man. She was younger. How much younger would be one of the many subjects of dispute in a trial that riveted Gilded Age America. Was she an "experienced woman" of nearly 21 or a confused girl of 17? Whatever her age, Pollard was not a hapless innocent. Her education, at one of the best women's colleges in the nation, was being paid for by another much older man, who definitely expected her graduation to be followed by their wedding. After meeting Breckinridge on the train, she wrote to him asking for advice on how to get out of the arrangement. Soon came Breckinridge's visit to her school in Cincinnati and the carriage ride that launched a thousand headlines. She became his mistress, gave up their children to foundling asylums at his demand and was pregnant again shortly after Breckinridge's wife died. Pollard assumed their legal union would come next, allowing for a decent period of mourning. When the congressman instead married a socially prominent widow, Pollard was enraged and went to court. What followed was the second-biggest political sex scandal of the late 19 th century. A decade before the Breckinridge trial, when Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, ran for president, his political opponents charged - at the top of their lungs - that he had fathered an illegitimate child. Republicans all over the country appeared in political parades pushing baby carriages and yelling, "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa?" The two stories should have a calming effect on 21st-century citizens who believe the nation's political discourse has been ruined by the internet. The Gilded Age was a time when a booming population and cheap printing costs created a flood of newspapers competing to be a town's equivalent of click bait. One of my all-time favorite headlines came from a Cincinnati paper: "Moral Monster: Grover Cleveland's True Character Laid Bare. A Drunken, Fighting, Roistering Roué. A Boon Companion of Buffalo Harlots." Cleveland was actually a very staid character, but he had provided support for a pregnant widow named Maria Halpin and arranged for the adoption of her son. His backers said he was just trying to protect the real father - his friend Oscar Folsom, who had died in an accident, leaving behind a wife and daughter. The debate about who sired the baby has gone on pretty much forever. Apolitical cynics suspected that Halpin had entertained Cleveland, Folsom and their pals on one of their fishing club's periodic boys' nights out. (It would explain why she named the baby "Oscar Folsom Cleveland.") However, in "Bringing Down the Colonel," Miller portrays her as a rape victim. But the point of the story is that Maria Halpin never became the point of the story. She was a sad supporting character in a scandal that was all about Cleveland. Madeline Pollard, on the other hand, was no helpless victim. She had female friends in high places who championed her - and probably, Miller thinks, paid the cost of her lawsuit. One friend, Julia Blackburn, the widow of a former Kentucky governor, gave a deposition saying that Breckinridge had told her after his wife's death that he was engaged to Pollard. "There would have been no scandal but for Mrs. B," Breckinridge grumbled later. "The girl would have gone away from Washington and behaved herself." Breckinridge's idea of how a girl he seduced should behave herself was classic. Particularly, Miller notes, in the South, where well-to-do men had long felt free to sleep with slaves, servants and any other woman outside their class who came their way. The trial over Pollard's lawsuit provided a near-perfect presentation of 19th-century sexual mores. Breckinridge's team, in a preview of his defense in Kentucky newspapers, claimed Pollard was fair game and "utterly depraved where morality is concerned." Pollard, countering with her own version of events in The New York World, claimed she was a naive girl betrayed: "With this man alone have I ever been guilty of a single impure thought or act." Well, that was an overstatement. At one point when Pollard was being supported by Breckinridge, she was engaged to another man, and still taking money from James Rhodes, the patron who had paid her college tuition under the impression they were going to be married. But what drove many observers crazy was the way Breckinridge confidently assumed he had the right to seduce any woman who was not "a maiden" and bore no responsibility for the relationship that ensued. Under cross-examination, denying he had ever promised to marry Pollard, he amended: "It was not a promise. I was in a frame of mind that was excited and I said, 'Yes, I'll marry you at the end of the month,' and I went right on talking." Quotes like this, which Miller dug up during her extensive research, make for captivating drama. Throughout American history, an endless procession of respectable men operated according to Breckinridge's rules, but they had never been forced to stand up in court and defend themselves while the whole nation listened in. Miller spent years plowing through Breckinridge family documents and newspapers from the era; the media coverage, she says, provided the country with a new kind of sex education and created an opening for reformers "who for decades had been pushing without much success the idea of a single standard of morality for men and women." It took the jury less than 90 minutes to award Pollard her moral victory - plus the hefty sum of $15,000. Breckinridge became the emblem of everything that women hated about men's sexual behavior. When he ran for what should have been an easy re-election the nation watched in fascination as opposition mounted. Female students at a Kentucky college vowed not to accept Breckinridge supporters as suitors. Women in Lexington held a monster picnic for his opponent, with a parade, banners and 30,000 attendees, who devoured refreshments made from 80 sheep, 11 cows and 40 hogs. Breckinridge gave a weepy speech apologizing for his weakness and citing his talents as a legislator. But, Miller notes, the real combatants in the election "were two worldviews about women and sex." The reformers won. "The Silver Tongue Is Silenced," announced one of the many, many headlines. None of the stars of the story had much of a career after the trial. Breckinridge became an editorial writer for a Lexington paper owned by his son. Pollard eventually went to Europe, befriended a wealthy widow and lived the good life traveling around the continent on her patron's dime. After a while, their saga vanished from the national memory. Congratulations to Patricia Miller for bringing it back. GAIL COLLINS, an Opinion columnist at The Times, is the author of six books, including "Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity and American Politics." Is there a better time for the story of a prominent mem discovering that the rules about what he can get away with have changed?
Choice Review
In a study pertinent to today's Me Too movement, journalist Patricia Miller closely examines the sexual mores of late-19th-century America, including early steps toward breaking down the double standard that had allowed men to freely seduce young women. Using a variety of primary and secondary sources, she focuses on the scandal surrounding "fallen woman" Madeline Pollard and Kentucky congressman William Breckinridge (the Colonel of the title). Pollard sued Breckinridge for breaking his promise to marry her, and she, surprisingly, won. Miller skillfully sets the scene to emphasize the significance of Pollard's success, giving examples of cases wherein other unmarried women's lives were destroyed after having sexual relations with men. Among her examples is a chapter that details the Grover Cleveland--Maria Halpin illegitimate baby scandal, and gives strong evidence that the future president was a rapist. She also gives evidence that the Pollard v. Breckinridge case caught the attention of social purity reformers and women suffragists who had long criticized the double standard; she suggests that the case let to it becoming more acceptable for Americans to talk openly about sex. The book includes photographs and a curated bibliography. The organization of the citations is awkward, but still useful for scholars. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers. --June Melby Benowitz, emeritus, University of South Florida, Sarasota-Manatee
Library Journal Review
Madeline Pollard's claim against Col. William Breckinridge, an illustrious Kentucky congressman, was shocking in both its target and assertions. Not only had Pollard been seduced by the married Breckenridge as a teenager, she'd been his mistress for nearly a decade afterward, swayed by assurances that they'd eventually marry-assurances proved false when Breckinridge quickly married another woman after his wife's death. With no other recourse, Pollard sued Breckenridge for breach of promise; the resulting trial was one of the most dramatic scandals of late Victorian America and a convergence of the era's shifting views on women, morality, and sexual double standards. Journalist Miller occasionally pauses the story of Pollard's suit to tie in threads of other women in the trial's orbit, such as Jennie Tucker, hired by Breckenridge to spy on Pollard, and Breckenridge's daughter Sophonisba, an aspiring lawyer left to tend the household while her father struggled in court. VERDICT Thoroughly detailed and thoughtful; worth a read for anyone interested in American women's history.-Kathleen McCallister, Coll. of William & Mary © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| 1 Gold to Be Made | p. 3 |
| 2 A Bright and Brainy Woman | p. 9 |
| 3 A Bastard Catch'd | p. 24 |
| 4 The Left-Hand Road | p. 37 |
| 5 The Wanton Widow | p. 52 |
| 6 Not So Easily Handled | p. 74 |
| 7 What Shall We Do with Our Daughters? | p. 91 |
| 8 For the Likes of Me | p. 101 |
| 9 The Needle, the School Room, and the Store | p. 117 |
| 10 A House of Mercy | p. 133 |
| 11 A Good Woman | p. 149 |
| 12 Miss Pollard's Ruin in Lexington | p. 165 |
| 13 Somebody's Daughter | p. 187 |
| 14 A Man of Passion | p. 200 |
| 15 Hindered, Not Ruined | p. 215 |
| 16 The Front Parlor and the Back Gate | p. 230 |
| 17 The Cavalier and the Puritans | p. 256 |
| 18 Refusing to Behave | p. 280 |
| 19 Redemption | p. 289 |
| Notes | p. 301 |
| Bibliography | p. 341 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 349 |
| Index | p. 353 |
