Please note: In order to keep Hive up to date and provide users with the best features, we are no longer able to fully support Internet Explorer. The site is still available to you, however some sections of the site may appear broken. We would encourage you to move to a more modern browser like Firefox, Edge or Chrome in order to experience the site fully.

Sex Ed, Segregated : The Quest for Sexual Knowledge in Progressive-Era America, Hardback Book

Sex Ed, Segregated : The Quest for Sexual Knowledge in Progressive-Era America Hardback

Part of the Gender and Race in American History series

Hardback

Description

Demonstrates that the intersection between race, gender, and class formed the backbone of Progressive-Era debates over sex education, the policing of sexuality, and the prevention of venereal disease. Against the backdrop of the Progressive Era, World War I, and the 1920s, sex education burgeoned in the United States through institutions like the YMCA, the popular press, girls' schools, and the US military.

As access to sexualknowledge increased, reformers debated what the messages of a sex-education curriculum should be and, perhaps more important, who would receive those messages. Courtney Shah's study chronicles this debate, showing that sex education then, just as in our own era, had as much to do with politics and morals as it did with biology and medicine.

Examining how different population groups in the United States were given contrasting types of sex education, Shah demonstrates that such education was used as a tool to reinforce or challenge racial segregation, women's rights, religious diversity, and class identity. Courtney Shah is an instructor of history at Lower Columbia College in Longview, Washington.

Information

Information

Also in the Gender and Race in American History series  |  View all