Come to “Booked for Lunch” A History Reading Group on Thursday, October 24 from 12:30pm - 1:30pm
Discussing Bringing Down the Colonel: A Sex Scandal of the Gilded Age and the “Powerless” Woman Who Took On Washington by Patricia Miller
In Bringing Down the Colonel, the journalist Patricia Miller tells the story of Madeline Pollard, an unlikely nineteenth-century women’s rights crusader. After an affair with a prominent politician left her “ruined,” Pollard brought the man—and the hypocrisy of America’s control of women’s sexuality—to trial. And, surprisingly, she won.
Pollard and the married Colonel Breckinridge began their decade-long affair when she was just a teenager. After the death of his wife, Breckinridge asked for Pollard’s hand—and then broke off the engagement to marry another woman. But Pollard struck back, suing Breckinridge for breach of promise in a shockingly public trial. With premarital sex considered irredeemably ruinous for a woman, Pollard was asserting the unthinkable: that the sexual morality of men and women should be judged equally.
Participants bring a brown bag lunch, the Society provides a beverage and dessert. There is no charge, but please register. By email: info@wiltonhistorical.org or call 203- 762-7257