America and the Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation

In 1960, the FDA approved the contraceptive commonly known as the pill." Advocates, developers, and manufacturers believed that the convenient new drug would put an end to unwanted pregnancy, ensure happy marriages, and even eradicate poverty. But as renowned historian Elaine Tyler May reveals in America and the Pill , it was women who embraced it and created change. They used the pill to challenge the authority of doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and lawmakers. They demonstrated that the pill was about much more than family planning, it offered women control over their bodies and their lives. From little-known accounts of the early years to personal testimonies from young women today, May illuminates what the pill did and did not achieve during its half century on the market.

Commended for IndieFab awards (Women's Issues) 2010

“"Elaine Tyler May is one of those rare historians who can take a set of complicated issues and make them both fascinating and comprehensible. This book belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who wants to understand how the Pill changed the lives of women--and men."-- Margaret Marsh, Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences and University Professor of History, Rutgers University”

"Elaine Tyler May is one of those rare historians who can take a set of complicated issues and make them both fascinating and comprehensible. This book belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who wants to understand how the Pill changed the lives of women--and men."--Margaret Marsh, Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences and University Professor of History, Rutgers University "Brilliantly written and cogently argued, Elaine Tyler May's America and the Pill beautifully portrays the intersection of the sexual revolution, the rise of feminism, and the emergence of the birth control pill. With a keen sense of how culture and politics interact, she explores all the ramifications of this extraordinary change, especially through the words of the women most directly affected. This is a tour de force."--William H. Chafe, Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of History at Duke University and former president of the Organization of American Historians "America and the Pill concisely explains the development, evolution, and influence of this revolutionary technology on American culture from the 1950s through the present.... May has written an accessible, engaging text that commemorates an important contraceptive revolution."--Journal of American History "With characteristic clarity and wit, May has produced a compelling history of oral contraception that incorporates medicine, morals, and popular media. In concise and carefully crafted chapters she honors the feminists who enabled the initial research, explores the utopian hopes that the pill would solve world problems, and exposes the myths about its revolutionary impact. A wonderful read for students and a timely source for professionals and the public concerned about sexuality, reproduction, and social policy."--Estelle B Freedman, Edgar E. Robinson Professor in U.S. History at Stanford University, and author of No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women "[A] noteworthy uncontentious pr cis of the pill's half-century in American life.... Understanding that the book is fundamentally, nonargumentatively pro-pill, one couldn't ask for a better short history of its subject."--Booklist "May's material is fascinating.... Although America and the Pill is sometimes celebratory, it is actually most useful in illuminating some of the darker corners of the pill's history, a history that women's health activists ought to know."--American Prospect "May skillfully shows how women fought for access to the pill, as well as for a safer pill against some pretty big contenders, pharmaceutical companies and the Catholic Church among them."--Washington Post "May writes that the pill profoundly benefited married women.... It's in such small but seismic shifts, this slender but important book reminds us, that history is made."--Boston Globe "The Pill kicked off a revolution in assumptions about sex and its consequences. Elaine Tyler May's adept, succinct book makes it clear that the appearance of worry-free contraception immediately concretized the idea that choices about reproduction should be left to the individuals involved."--New Republic "[I]n America and the Pill, historian Elaine Tyler May tidily debunks perceptions of oral contraception as feminism's magic bullet.... America and the Pill is a lean, captivating history.... May is a skilled writer, and she weaves the book's abundant personal accounts of women's experiences with the Pill with discussion of governmental policies and historical records to create clear and legible scholarship. By the end of America and the Pill, I hadn't just learned about the Pill--I had a better sense of our nation's cultural history."--Bitch

REINHOLD WAGNLEITNER, Associate Professor of Modern History at the University of Salzburg and past President of the Austrian Association for American Studies, also played and sang in Austrian pop, rock, and jazz bands. The English translation of his Coca-Colonization and the Cold War (1994) won the Stuart L. Bernath Prize of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.
ELAINE TYLER MAY, Professor of American Studies and History at the University of Minnesota, was a recent President of the American Studies Association and a Fulbright Distinguished Professor of American History

In 1960, the FDA approved the contraceptive commonly known as the pill." Advocates, developers, and manufacturers believed that the convenient new drug would put an end to unwanted pregnancy, ensure happy marriages, and even eradicate poverty. But as renowned historian Elaine Tyler May reveals in America and the Pill , it was women who embraced it and created change. They used the pill to challenge the authority of doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and lawmakers. They demonstrated that the pill was about much more than family planning, it offered women control over their bodies and their lives. From little-known accounts of the early years to personal testimonies from young women today, May illuminates what the pill did and did not achieve during its half century on the market.

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