'A tragedy as old as history':Medical responses to infertility and artificial insemination by donor in 1950s Britain

This chapter will explore how the infertile patient was characterized, perceived, and treated by the medical profession in 1950s England and Scotland. Such was the concern that this subject engendered in postwar Britain that a Departmental Committee was appointed in 1958 (known as the Feversham Committee) to investigate infertility and its treatment through artificial insemination. The written and oral evidence submitted by medical witnesses to that Committee offers rich insights into medical thinking and practice, and into the complex sociomedical politics and ethical anxieties which surrounded the topic. The testimony of legal and religious witnesses will also be explored to a more limited extent in order to offer some context to medical understandings and treatments of infertility. It will be considered how women’s bodies, personalities, and even agency in proactively seeking motherhood through artificial insemination were heavily pathologized in medical and religious discourses, but also how the men involved – husbands, sperm donors and even doctors – did not escape this tendency to pathologize

Region in Aufruhr: Hungerkrise und Teuerungsproteste in der preußischen Provinz Sachsen und in Anhalt 1846/47

Benninghaus C, ed. Region in Aufruhr: Hungerkrise und Teuerungsproteste in der preußischen Provinz Sachsen und in Anhalt 1846/47.; 2000

Die anderen Jugendlichen :Zu Lebensbedingungen, Lebenschancen und Erfahrungen weiblicher Jugendlicher aus unteren Bevoelkerungsschichten im Deutschland der Weimarer Republik

Defence date: 29 January 1994Examining board: Prof. Dr. Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle (supervisor) ; Prof. Dr. Karin Hausen, Technische Universität Berlin ; Prof. Dr. Olwen Hufton, Europäisches Hochschulinstitut Florenz ; Prof. Dr. Jürgen Reulecke, Universität-Gesamthochschule Siegen ; Prof. Dr. Klaus Tenfelde, Universität BielefeldPDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 201

‘No, Thank You, Mr Stork!’: Voluntary Childlessness in Weimar and Contemporary Germany

Voluntary childlessness is often perceived as a contemporary phenomenon. This article traces its history by looking at demographic data and visual representations of childlessness from the 1920s and 1930s. At that time, childlessness was on the rise among Germany's young urban couples – a development that inspired concern and controversy. Caricatures, films, plays and other representations testify to the growing fascination with childlessness. Even images used in population propaganda appear as strangely ambivalent. While they were intended to criticise childlessness, they also insinuate the pleasures of a child-free existence. These, however, were time-specific. As comparisons with more recent images show that the "value of childlessness" as invoked by visual representations has shifted significantly

Mothers' Toil and Daughters' Leisure: Working-class Girls and Time in 1920s Germany

Benninghaus C. Mothers' Toil and Daughters' Leisure: Working-class Girls and Time in 1920s Germany. History Workshop Journal. 2000;50(1):45-72

Great expectations—German debates about artificial insemination in humans around 1912

Benninghaus C. Great expectations—German debates about artificial insemination in humans around 1912. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. 2007;38(2):374-392

Scouting for Girls: A Century of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts

Benninghaus C. Scouting for Girls: A Century of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. The American Historical Review. 2010;115(5):1451-1453

Sag mir, wo die Mädchen sind. Beiträge zur Geschlechtergeschichte der Jugend

Benninghaus C, ed. Sag mir, wo die Mädchen sind. Beiträge zur Geschlechtergeschichte der Jugend.; 1999

Die anderen Jugendlichen. Arbeitermädchen in der Weimarer Republik

Benninghaus C. Die anderen Jugendlichen. Arbeitermädchen in der Weimarer Republik.; 1999