Thread by @1gillianfrank1

Earlier today I posted a little thread about how in the 1970s, policies that allowed pregnant women like @ewarren to be fired, were still the norm. These policies, especially those governing teachers, became more stringent in the 1950s. #twitterstorians

https://twitter.com/1gillianfrank1/status/1181850769802354688?s=20

You can learn more about the postwar economic & cultural forces that animated the policies leading to Warren's firing for being pregnant from classic books like Elaine Tyler May's "Homeward Bound" and Dorothy Sue Cobbles "The Other Women's Movement.

Policies mandating the firings of pregnant teachers were motivated by desires to deny maternity leave as a cost saving and an efficiency measure. Many policies insisted that women resign no later than their 5th month of pregnancy.

1 Wilkes Barre Times Leader, PA 20 Sept 1952.

There was a codification & expansion of these pregnancy policies by school boards around the US. Such policies targeted pregnant teachers & students alike.

2 Fort Myers News Press (FLA) 18 Feb 1953
3 Tampa Tribune (FLA) 19Feb 1953

This targeting was also animated by a desire to enforce the ideal of the husband as breadwinner (despite the rise in two income families) and the stigmatization of pregnancy itself, especially among unwed mothers.

There was a fear of exposing children to info about reproduction. Pregnant bodies signified sex. Firing teachers was an attempt to insulate children. And in places like Alabama, a legislator proposed laws for precisely this reason.

4 Alabama Journal (Montgomery) 30 June 1953

These economic policies and cultural motivations were mutually reinforcing. And in some places, it was just common sense that schools should have the right to fire pregnant teachers to avoid "an embarrassing situation).

5 North Adams Transcript_ (North Adams MA) 04 Feb 1959

These policies were so pervasive that they were reported as a matter of fact and embedded within other quotidian policy details.

6. Delaware County Daily Times (Chester PA) 23 Oct 1956.

Of course, some women didn't accept these policies. Teachers filed lawsuits (with limited success) across the country. And columns such as this one in the Boston Globe (16 July 59) were more prescriptive than descriptive.

But the above op-ed, with its progressive injunction to get used to pregnant woman workers co-existed with policies like this one in Iowa, which characterized pregnant teachers as harmful to themselves and to their students.
Harlan Tribune, 13 Nov 1959