The novel is about the mass incarceration of women suspected of promiscuous, immoral, or lewd behavior. Were you aware of this history? Have you heard of the Chamberlain-Kahn Act, also known as the American Plan? Did you know about “farm colonies,” detention centers, etc., where women were forced to stay and endure debilitating treatments? Are there other mass incarcerations you can think of similar to this?
2 Likes
I’ve heard of the eugenics movement in the early twentieth century. I have not heard of the Chamberlain-Kahn Act or the American Plan. The movie “Cool Hand Luke” shows this kind of incarceration for men. Besides the internment camps during WWII.
2 Likes
I was unaware of this piece of history and find it disturbing at best but not surprising. Our society has a habit of condemning women who don’t fit the expected norm. I’ve just begun reading so I’m anxious to learn more.
2 Likes
Having read The Foundling by Ann Leary I was aware of these institutions. This book explored the laws that created these institutions which were created with good intentions based on false beliefs.
I was unaware of the specific laws that had been created and found it fascinating how women have born the brunt of a solution to a problem that men were responsible for creating.
Lots of book group fodder indeed.
3 Likes
Maureen_C, Great examples, I had thought of the internment camps. But thinking of the movie Cool Hand Luke, was a different reference for me.
1 Like
I had never heard of the Chamberlain-Kahn Act or the American Plan by name, but I think I might have heard about the “detention centers.”
Certainly, the South used mass incarceration to have Black men as workers for manual labor.
2 Likes
I was wholly unaware of the American Plan and shame on me. You can believe I have gone deep down a rabbit hole of research. I got to this book after reading Ellen Marie Wiseman’s “The Lies They Told” about the eugenics program in and around Appalachia (set in the 1930s). Another way to subjugate poor and powerless women (and in some cases, steal their land and inheritances).
3 Likes
@Kelly_H I was just about to mention The Lies They Told as another book that spoke to the issue.
As with @Dee_Driscole, I hadn’t heard of the program by name, but I did know about the practice, unfortunately.
1 Like
I didn’t know about the American Plan, but did know something of the eugenics movement which intersects with this novel as abortions and involuntary sterilization was part of the Plan.
Vagrancies laws in the early to mid-20th century allowed many black men to be incarcerated with little or no recourse. When I was a social worker I had a client who’d been put in jail for many years when he was picked up for the crime of not having a demonstrable means of support.
I also think of how easy it was for parents to surrender their children to “homes” because they couldn’t or didn’t manage them. I had a client who’d been sent to a “home” and virtually abandoned by her family because she had epilepsy.
And, of course, indigenous children in the U.S. and Canada were taken to residential schools against the wishes of their parents. Those children weren’t held behind bars but they weren’t allowed to leave either.
2 Likes
No I had not heard of the farm colonies nor the American Plan. What an eye-opener! I was aware of the eugenics movement in the US.I would say the mass incarceration of Jews in Germany is similar in some respects though definitely did not have redemption in mind.
I was not specifically familiar with the American Plan, but have been aware of several of the other programs mentioned in reader comments – the eugenics movement, and the incarceration of Native American children in “schools “ designed to distance them from their heritage. There are also similarities in the current movement to incarcerate and deport migrants, often without regard to their legal status – very similar to the situation of the fictional Ruth in this book, who is picked up without cause and never given results of any tests.
1 Like
I was totally unaware of the American Plan. It was shocking to learn about the treatment of all these women.
The US, like many other cultures, has a long history of persecuting the weakest or those who are somehow perceived as threatening or in need of direction. It’s happening now with ICE.
2 Likes
I hadn’t heard of the American Plan, but I had read about the sterilization of females considered mentally deficient or ‘difficult.’ I agree that the forcible taking of indigenous children and “getting the Indian out of them” as their stated purpose in the schools set up for them. A while back I learned that even their art was basically forced upon them. They were told ‘this is how you should paint,” and the indigenous visual art of the last century that ‘looks Indian’ was the product of this, not the children’s instinct or native art.
I was aware of the eugenics movement that believed in selective breeding when it came to women and the use of birth control for that purpose. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, was an early proponent of eugenics to reduce the birth rate among the “unfit.” I read Slavery by Another Name by Douglas A. Blackmon that chronicled laws from the Civil War to World War II that were enacted to intimidate blacks, especially men who were arbitrarly arrested and sent to work camps, sold as day laborers, etc. on the weakest of charges and then forced to work and pay off the cost of their arrest. The Nickle Boys chronicles a similar story of boys sent to reform schools in the south and in some cases were never heard from again.
1 Like
Michele I didn’t even equate it with ICE. You’re totally right.
I had never learned about the American Plan. Such a very sad part of our history! I had heard about some incarcerations but wish I knew/remembered more of the specifics. I can understand not learning all of this in high school. But I was a social studies major in college, and I am thinking there is so much I did not learn! I certainly have found something I want to look up and read more about now!
1 Like
I was not aware of the history prior to reading this book; I was dismayed to say the least. It has some hint of the type of suppression revealed in “The Woman They Could Not Silence” - deliberate and erroneous mandated confinement without just cause and with cruelty both in conditions and treatments. The other similarity is to the current arrest and incarceration of men, women and children in horrible immigrant processing centers - actually likened to concentration camps, with no due process of law, limited access by outsiders, etc. Despicable.
I had not heard of the American Plan before. I found the book to be horrifying. For a government to not only isolate these women, but then mistreat them so badly is hard to wrap my head around. I kept thinking that my mom or any of my many aunts could have easily been picked up. My parents, right after the war, got married. After my older brother was born, my mom experienced a depression. She received a series of electric shock therapies which changed her forever. I see pictures of her younger self and I see a vivacious woman. My mom, by the time I was born was either moody or just not there. Her trauma became our trauma as she raised us. This procedure was done to women more than it was done to men. Reading this book brought back many of those feelings.
You also asked for other mass government internments. The Japanese interment during WWII created generational trauma for Japanese-Americans.
I did not know of this history. It is saddening to learn that this happened! Thank you to Donna Everhart for writing this novel, hopefully it informs more and more people about the American Plan. I was aware of the Japanese internments, a friends grandparents were detained in these camps.