Rickie Solinger

Rickie Solinger is a historian who writes about reproductive politics and the role of race and class in determining who gets to be a legitimate mother in the U.S., who does not, and how these definitions have changed over time. Solinger has written and edited eleven books, including The Abortionist: A Woman Against the Law (1994, 2019) about Ruth Barnett, Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race before Roe v. Wade (1992, 2000), and Reproductive Justice: An Introduction, with Loretta Ross (2017).  She is also a curator of art exhibitions on allied topics that have traveled to more than 150 college and university art galleries.

Author's Entries

  • Ruth Cohen Barnett (1892–1969)

    Ruth Barnett was likely the most skilled and prolific abortionist in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century, performing, by her account, 40,000 illegal abortions and never losing a patient. She began performing abortions fulltime in 1918, and she didn’t stop, except for a few stretches …

    Oregon Encyclopedia