Bringing Down the Colonel

September 1, 2018
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 origins--and 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 trash--and 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.

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September 10, 2018
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.

November 1, 2018

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

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