Includes bibliographical references (pages 311-363) and index.

Anthony Comstock, special agent to the U.S. Post Office, was one of the most important men in the lives of nineteenth-century women. The Comstock law, passed in 1873, penalized the mailing of contraception and obscenity with long sentences and steep fines. Between 1873 and Comstock's death in 1915, eight women were charged with violating state and federal Comstock laws. They took on the fearsome censor in explicit, personal writing, seeking to redefine work, family, marriage, and love for a bold new era. Sohn tells the overlooked story of the valiant attempts by these publishers, writers, and doctors to fight Comstock in court and in the press. Risking imprisonment and death, they redefined birth control access as a civil liberty. -- Adapted from jacket