This week, the Department of Records and Information Services opened a ‘pop-up’ exhibit on the history of reproductive rights in New York. It begins in 1828, when providing an abortion after quickening first became illegal, and traces the story to the present day, highlighting the city’s current reputation as a national leader in the fight to protect women’s reproductive rights.
1916 handbill in English, Yiddish, and Italian advertising Margaret Sanger’s first birth control clinic at 46 Amboy Street in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Margaret Sanger, My Fight for Birth Control, NYC Municipal Library.
The new exhibit uses historical documents, photographs, and ephemera to depict the evolution of the laws governing abortion from criminality to full access. It begins with the 1828 New York State law that made it a misdemeanor for a provider to induce abortion after “quickening.”
March held during Abortion Action Week, May 6, 1972. New York Police Department Special Investigations Unit Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Bottle with cork. Exhibit in case: People vs. Elizabeth Klurk (Abortion), April 29, 1878. This bottle with its unknown residue, contained a solution intended to induce abortion. NY DA Indictment Papers, NYC Municipal Archives.
Items from Municipal Archives collections created by the criminal justice system illustrate how New York criminalized women who obtained abortions. The 1871 indictment against Jacob Rosenzweig is on view. The City prosecuted Rosenzweig, a former saloonkeeper, for murder after performing a botched abortion on Alice Augusta Bowlsby and stuffing the woman in a trunk, where she died. Other items in the display focus on the former seamstress Caroline Ann Trow Lohman, aka Madame Restell, also prosecuted for performing abortions. Documents about Margaret Sanger and her sister document her journey through the criminal justice system for sharing birth control information illustrate her story.
Inquisition into the death of Alice Augusta Bowlsby, 1871. Jacob Rosenzweig, a former saloonkeeper, was prosecuted by the City for murder after performing a botched abortion on Bowlsby and stuffing her body in a trunk. NY DA Indictment Papers, NYC Municipal Archives.
The exhibit also includes photographs from the New York Police Department Crime Scene Photograph collection in the Municipal Archives that graphically illustrate the un-hygienic locations where illegal abortions were performed.
Scene of bedroom where a 20 year old woman received an illegal abortion and later died in Manhattan General Hospital, July 14, 1932. NYPD Photograph Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Charts from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene track how thousands of women from across the country relied on City health providers for safe, legal reproductive health care after 1970 when New York State decriminalized abortion and before the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
The exhibit uses pamphlets, buttons, and items from the mayoral collections to tell the story through the last decades of the 20th century as the City fought to protect women’s reproductive rights. The show concludes with a copy of the 2024 Sexual and Reproductive Health Bill of Rights further enshrined New York City’s commitment to protecting reproductive rights.
The exhibit is free to the public. It is located at the Municipal Archives, 31 Chambers Street, Manhattan, Room 103, New York, NY 10007. It is open from 9 a.m. to noon, and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.