WEBVTT - The American Plan 0:00:01.040 --> 0:00:06.160 You're listening to History on Trial, a production of iHeart Podcasts. 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:15.480 Listener discretion advised. On October thirty first, nineteen eighteen, Nina 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:21.079 McCall's life changed. Nina, who had turned eighteen only two 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:25.080 months before, was running errands in Saint Louis, a small 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:29.639 town in central Michigan. Outside the post office, she ran 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:35.120 into Saint Louis's deputy sheriff, Lewis Martin. Nina knew Martin. 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.720 He had a daughter, Bernice, who was close to Nina's age. 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:41.760 Nina had even been over to the Martin home to 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:46.800 visit Bernice. The Martins had always been nice lately, though, 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:51.720 Deputy Martin had been acting strangely. He was always talking 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:55.840 to girls and young women, having tense conversations with them 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:58.720 on the street, and sometimes even taking them away in 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:01.880 his car. Nina didn't know what he was up to, 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:06.920 but it made her uneasy. When Martin approached, she was 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:10.920 right to be frightened. Martin had bad news for her. 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:14.760 A state health official, he said, needed to examine her 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:18.720 for sexually transmitted infections, and they needed to do it 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:23.880 right away. Nina was confused and upset. She had never 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:27.560 had sex, so how could she have a sexually transmitted infection, 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:31.400 but the sheriff had ordered her so Nina went home 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:34.080 and asked her mother Minnie, to accompany her to the 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:37.920 office of doctor Thomas J. Carney, the health official in 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:42.440 nearby Alma. When the McCalls got to Carney's office, the 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:45.319 doctor told Nina that somebody had reported her as having 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:49.880 an STI and that he needed to examine her. Nina refused, 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:55.240 but Carney insisted, and when Nina still said no, he threatened, 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:58.160 telling Nina that she would be sent to prison if 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:03.240 she did not submit to the examination. Reluctantly, Nina agreed. 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:08.440 She had never had a gynecological examination before. The exam 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:13.880 was terrifying and painful. After examining slides he had taken, 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:18.920 Carne informed Nina that she was quote slightly diseased. She 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:23.919 had gone rhea. Nina couldn't believe it, neither could her mother. 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:28.120 They argued, with Carney saying that Nina had never shown 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:31.720 any symptoms of an STI and had never even had sex. 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:37.120 Carney was obstinate Nina had gonorrhea and she needed to 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:42.120 receive treatment. Not just any treatment, either, Nina would have 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:45.400 to be locked away for it. Taken to a detention 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:49.520 hospital and treated there. Why couldn't the treatment be done 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:52.960 at home, Minnie asked. It was too expensive for a 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:56.960 single mother like Minnie, Carney explained. Nina said she would 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:00.400 get a job to help with the costs. Not possible, 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:04.720 Carney replied, either she agreed to go to the detention hospital, 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:07.400 or he would hang a red placuard on the front 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:11.720 of her family home, declaring in all capital letters that 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:18.320 someone inside had a venereal disease. Nina recoiled. The shame 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:22.040 would be unbearable. She couldn't put herself or her family 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:25.320 through that, so she agreed to be committed to the 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:31.000 Bay City Detention Hospital. Seven days later, Carney's assistant, Ida Peck, 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:35.000 escorted Nina to the hospital in nearby Bay City, Michigan. 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:39.960 It was an imposing, three story brick building. Nina would 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:43.360 be kept in the hospital for three months, forced to 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:49.000 do manual labor, while also enduring agonizing, ineffective treatments. Even 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:52.920 when she was finally declared disease free, state health officials 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:56.040 would continue to harass her and force her to get 0:03:56.040 --> 0:04:00.280 further treatment. Nina's story sounds like something else out of 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:04.680 a horror movie, but it was very real, and it 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:09.880 was not unique. Across the country. In nineteen eighteen, thousands 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:12.840 of women were being detained on the suspicion of having 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:19.400 an STI, forcibly examined, and imprisoned without due process. Health 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:22.560 officials were empowered to do all of these things under 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:27.279 a program that became known hauntingly as the American Plan. 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:31.200 Originally put in place during World War One to protect 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:35.480 soldiers from STIs, the American Plan would linger on even 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:40.320 in peacetime. In some places, women were detained under American 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:45.680 Plan laws even as late as the nineteen seventies. The 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:50.159 American Plan enjoyed broad popular support. Some of the most 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:54.800 famous public figures of the twentieth century Fiorello LaGuardia, Earl 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:58.600 Warren and Franklin, and Eleanor Roosevelt, to name just a few, 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:04.359 were enthusias bastic, proponents and enforcers of the Plan. They 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:08.479 believed that the Plan kept Americans safe, But the women 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:13.360 who suffered under the American Plan felt anything but safe. 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:17.120 They had been stripped of their rights, hurt and humiliated, 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:22.760 so they fought back. They escaped from detention, hospitals, held 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:28.600 hunger strikes, set fires, and some of them sued. One 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:31.160 of those who pursued the legal path was Nina McCall, 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:35.800 who filed suit against doctor Thomas Carney, his assistant Ida Peck, 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:39.960 and the superintendent of Bay City Detention Hospital, Mary Corrigan, 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:44.159 for abusing her. The resulting trial, which took place in 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:47.640 nineteen twenty, would put the central tenets of the plan 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:52.400 to the test. Could public health concerns outweigh civil rights? 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:57.800 Welcome to History on trial. I'm your host, Mira Hayward. 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:07.279 This week Rock v. Carney. On April sixth, nineteen seventeen, 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:11.320 the United States declared war on Germany and entered World 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:15.760 War One. By July nearly two million American men had 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:19.120 been called up as part of the medical exam. Upon 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:23.000 entering the military, soldiers were tested for syphilis and gonorrhea. 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:27.880 Many of them tested positive. Between August nineteen seventeen and 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:31.760 August nineteen eighteen, the Surgeon General of the Army reported 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:34.960 that nearly thirteen percent of all soldiers were admitted for 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:40.760 treatment for STIs. Sdis were costly and dangerous for the military. 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:44.799 Sick men needed treatment and could not fight. To combat 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:48.200 the problem, the government attempted to reduce sex work around 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:53.760 military camps. In May nineteen seventeen, Senator Wesley Livesey Jones 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:57.320 introduced an amendment to the Selective Service Act, the act 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:02.240 that invoked the draft, called Section thirteen. Section thirteen empowered 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:06.680 the Secretary of War to quote do everything by him 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:10.200 deemed necessary to suppress and prevent the keeping or setting 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:14.240 up of houses of ill fame, brothels, or body houses 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:17.440 within such distance as he may deem needful of any 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:22.080 military camp. Secretary of War Newton Baker wrote to officials 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:25.440 in locales with military camps and informed them that sex 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.120 work should be shut down within a five mile radius 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:32.840 of every camp. The federal organization leading STI policy was 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:37.920 the Commission on Training Camp Activities, or the CTCA. The 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:42.760 ctca's law Enforcement division deployed investigators across the country to 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:46.520 look into whether cities were complying with the federal government's requests. 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:51.360 These investigators were supplemented by agents from the Bureau of Investigation, 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:55.560 the predecessor of the FBI, private groups, and members of 0:07:55.600 --> 0:08:00.920 the American Social Hygiene Association or ASHA. By the fall 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:05.400 of nineteen seventeen, thanks to these collaborations, the CTCA had 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:10.360 hundreds of investigators. At first, the ctca's work was limited 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:15.000 to the areas around military camps, but soon Army medical 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:18.840 officers determined that approximately five out of every six cases 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:23.200 of sexually transmitted infection in soldiers had been acquired before 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:27.120 the soldier arrived at camp. If the army wanted healthy soldiers, 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:32.200 they needed a healthy civilian population. The federal government began 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:35.760 encouraging states and cities to expand their repression of sex 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:39.760 work into areas outside of the five mile radius surrounding 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:45.760 military camps. This encouragement came with strong incentives. If cities 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:49.200 did not try to reduce STI rates, the military would 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:53.720 declare them off limits to soldiers or military camps, enormous 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:58.720 economic blows. In order to ensure compliance, the federal government 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:02.680 also encouraged local jurisdictions to pass laws that allowed health 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:07.559 officials to detain, examine, and quarantine women. To provide guidance 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:11.200 for states, federal officials met in DC in March nineteen 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:14.840 eighteen to draft a model law which states could adapt 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:20.719 and enact. The law contained twelve recommendations. These included a 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:24.439 requirement for physicians to report all STIs to the state 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:30.319 quarantine and compulsory treatment, prohibition of drug stores selling treatment 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:35.240 for STIs, thus requiring infective people to interact with physicians 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:40.839 and government officials to get treatment, and most critically, empowering 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:46.320 local health officers to examine Quote persons reasonably suspected of 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:54.960 having syphilis, gonorrhea, or shancroid. The term reasonably suspected was 0:09:55.160 --> 0:10:00.280 extraordinarily broad. A woman could be reasonably suspected of having 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:04.160 an STI for activities as innocuous as walking with a soldier, 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.320 speaking to another woman thought to be a sex worker, 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:12.880 or even eating lunch alone. Women who were detained and 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:17.040 tested positive for syphilis and orgonrhea were sent to detention 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:21.760 hospitals or houses, which were essentially jails. Most had barbed 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:28.679 wire fences, armed guards, or both inside in often squalid conditions, 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:32.440 The women were forced to perform taxing domestic labor, like 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:37.720 scrubbing floors or cleaning bathrooms. Administrators saw this work, besides 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:41.680 being unpaid labor that benefited the institution, as part of 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:45.480 a larger program of moral reform, and I wish you 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:47.600 could see how big the air quotes I'm doing are. 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:50.920 It was not enough for inmates to be treated for 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:55.160 their physical conditions. Many officials involved in the American Plan 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:59.160 believed that these women needed instruction in conforming to a 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:03.120 specific set of moral and social norms. As part of 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:07.360 this program of behavioral correction, some detention houses used a 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:10.960 silence rule. Women there were not allowed to speak to 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:15.040 or even smile at one another. If they disobeyed this 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:19.640 prohibition or any other orders, they could face corporal punishment. 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:24.040 The women did receive treatment for their sdis they usually 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:27.680 had no choice in the matter. These treatments were largely 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:32.560 ineffective and often dangerous, since they were usually arsenic or 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:38.040 mercury based. Women also had their intelligence assessed with inaccurate, 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:42.400 discriminatory IQ tests. If a woman was bound to be 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:48.960 quote feeble minded, she could be imprisoned indefinitely. Feeble minded 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:52.160 women were seen to be prone to immorality. In the 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:56.720 worst cases, some of these women were sterilized, usually without 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:00.280 their consent. At this point, you might be one ding 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:04.760 why I'm only talking about women. After all, sexually transmitted 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:08.800 infections don't discriminate on the basis of gender, but not 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:13.480 everyone is as enlightened as a syphilis bacterium. Although the 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:19.120 Model law was gender neutral, its application never was very 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:23.400 Very few men were ever examined or quarantined under these laws. 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:27.280 There was a common misconception that women spread STIs more 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:30.760 than men did. As one federal public health official put it, 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:35.880 quote men take more precautions. Women are very negligent. It 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:40.640 was an obviously sexist assumption. But as the historian Scott W. 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.560 Stern writes in his book The Trials of Nina McCall, 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:49.679 these laws were based entirely on assumptions. Assumptions that quote, 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:53.160 young women were responsible for the indiscretions of young men, 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:56.880 That promiscuity in women was worse than it was in men. 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:01.120 That STIs merited jail time for women, That women could 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:03.960 not merely serve their time as men did, but that 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:06.960 they had to be cured of disease and be reformed 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:12.480 in order to merit release. Enforcement was also racist. CTCA 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:18.520 investigators were instructed to focus on black women and black neighborhoods. Unfortunately, 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:21.839 many local officials saw no problems with any of these 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:26.120 assumptions or biases. States began passing the model law quickly. 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:30.360 You might also be wondering about the constitutionality of these laws. 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:33.840 Surely people could not be locked up without due process 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:39.120 right wrong, at least according to United States Attorney General 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:44.120 Thomas Watt Gregory. On April third, nineteen eighteen, Gregory wrote 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:47.000 a letter to every United States attorney across the country 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:50.880 ordering that people arrested for prostitution should first be sent 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:54.520 to health officials for STI examination. If a woman was 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:57.679 found to be infected, she should be quarantined and treated. 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:02.440 Prosecution for her crimes should be suspended until she completed 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:06.160 this quarantine, meaning that she would be locked up without trial. 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:12.280 Gregory called the constitutionality of this plan quote clear. He 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:15.640 also told the US attorneys to report any local officials 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:18.679 who refused to go along with the plan. Gregory sent 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:23.320 a similar message to all US district judges. Even before 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:26.560 the creation of the model law, some states had used 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:30.840 their own initiative to make regulations. In October nineteen seventeen, 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:34.280 the Michigan State Board of Health ordered physicians to report 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:38.360 all cases of gonorrhea and syphilis and to apprehend, detain, 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:42.400 and treat anyone found to be infected. The secretary of 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:46.800 the board, Richard m Ollen, also met with pharmacists associations 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:50.880 and got them to agree to stop selling STI treatments. 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:55.240 Michigan's regulations closely mirrored what would appear in the Model Law. 0:14:56.320 --> 0:15:00.800 Less than a year later, Nina McCall would experience firsthand 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:09.040 with those regulations meant. Nina McCall was born on September second, 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:13.760 nineteen hundred to Abe and Minnie McCall. Two years later, 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:18.000 Nina's younger brother, Vern arrived. The McCalls lived on a 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:22.320 farm outside of Bethany Township in central Michigan until nineteen ten, 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:26.320 when they moved to nearby Saint Louis. Saint Louis was 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:31.400 a small town, one where everybody knew everybody. In nineteen sixteen, 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:35.760 Abe McCall died, leaving his family in a difficult financial position. 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.200 Within a year, Minnie McCall had to sell their home 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:43.280 in Saint Louis. Minnie, Nina, and Verne moved to Alma, 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:46.680 a neighboring town. It was at this point that seventeen 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:50.720 year old Nina stopped attending school altogether. Her attendance had 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.480 always been spotty, but after the move to Alma, she 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.920 never went back. It was an exciting time to be 0:15:57.000 --> 0:15:59.800 a young woman, even in a rural town like Alma. 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:03.960 More and more women were entering the workforce, giving them 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:08.120 greater economic power and a new level of independence. Young 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:11.280 women began to casually date more than they ever had before, 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:16.000 and rates of premarital sex rose. Nina herself began dating 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:20.040 a young man named Lloyd Knapp. In May nineteen eighteen. 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:23.480 Nina and Lloyd filed for a marriage license, but they 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:27.320 never completed the paperwork and never married. A month later, 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.960 the McCalls moved back to Saint Louis. At the same time, 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:35.040 soldiers were beginning to flood at Central Michigan. Alma was 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.440 home to the Republic Motor Truck Company, which made trucks 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:41.760 for the army, and soldiers arrived in droves to help 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:45.120 drive the trucks east. The presence of so many new 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:49.160 people met good things economically for the region, but there 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:53.320 were concerns too. In May, the Alma Record wrote that 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.880 the city council needed to quote do away with the 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:00.400 present state of affairs in the city, where men seemed 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:04.160 to think that they are privileged to accost ladies. Only 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:08.119 some ladies were entitled to protection. Though the record also 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:11.840 noted quote the presence of so many men is said 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:17.840 to be bringing women of an unsavory reputation into the city. 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:22.360 The record need not have worried the city's health officer, 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:26.720 Doctor Thomas J. Carney, was on the case. The forty 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:29.359 nine year old Carney, a NeDi of New Yorker, had 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:34.000 arrived in Alma three years earlier. An inflexible, dogmatic man 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:37.720 with strong beliefs, Carney was determined to root out any 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:42.200 sources of ill health, from unpasteurized milk to promiscuous women. 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:45.760 Carney would be aided in his work by Ida Peck. 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:49.360 Peck had held a number of jobs all across Michigan 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:52.400 in her fifty seven years. She had been a school teacher, 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:56.280 a private nurse, and a factory foreman. But beginning in 0:17:56.320 --> 0:18:01.560 September nineteen eighteen, Peck would be a welfare worker. According 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:04.920 to Peck, quote, a welfare worker is one who looks 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:08.840 after the girls. In reality, it was less looking after 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:13.359 than looking into. Thomas Carney hired Peck to help enforce 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:17.960 Michigan's STI laws. Peck later described her work as identifying 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:22.119 and following women who quote raised a suspicion in my mind. 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:25.679 Then she would report these women to doctor Carney, who 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:28.719 would have them detained and then examine them for STIs. 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:32.240 If their results were positive, Peck would escort the women 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:36.000 to the detention hospital in Bay City, fifty miles northeast 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:39.880 of Saint Louis, Ida. Peck first heard Nina mccaull's name 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:44.080 in early October nineteen eighteen. She was transporting women to 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:48.440 Bay City when one of them mentioned Nina's name. Nothing more, 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:51.720 just her name, but that was enough for Peck to 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:55.120 put Nina on her radar. Less than a month later, 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:59.760 on October thirty, First Deputy Martin brought Nina into Carney's office. 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:03.560 Whether Carney and Peck had any reason for suspecting Nina 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:07.600 besides the fact that another woman mentioned her name is unknown, 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:12.520 but the reasons why didn't really matter one way or another. 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:15.960 Nina had been sucked into the grinding machinery of the 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:21.280 American Plan. As an aside, the term American Plan entered 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:26.240 widespread use only after World War One. Federal officials used 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:29.240 the term occasionally before that, but it was only in 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:32.879 nineteen nineteen that American Plan became the name for this 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:37.000 set of state and federal policies. The name American Plan 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:40.679 paralleled other national plans for the control of STIs and 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:45.080 sex work, like the French Plan, created under Napoleon. For example, 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:49.879 Nina didn't know the plan as anything. She might not 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:53.040 have even known how many other women were enduring what 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:57.879 she was. There were thousands of them in Michigan alone. 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:02.880 Between July one, nineteen eight eighteenth and June thirtieth, nineteen nineteen, 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:07.359 one thousand, one hundred and twenty one people were forcibly 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:11.600 detained for treatment, one thousand and seventy two of them women. 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:16.639 But Nina felt so alone. She would later say that 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.400 she only told her mother and her two aunts about 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:24.359 her experience because quote I was ashamed of it. To 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:29.399 contextualize Nina's reaction, STIs were so stigmatized at the time 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:33.680 that many newspapers would not even print the words venereal disease. 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:39.280 After Carney examined Nina, diagnosed her with gonorrhea and informed 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:42.200 her that she would need and her detention hospital for treatment, 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:45.640 he sent her home for the night. On the bus 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:49.160 ride home, Nina discovered that, as a result of Carney's 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:54.760 gynecological exam, she had bled through her trousers. The next day, 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:58.000 Nina traveled back to Carney's office to report to the hospital. 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:01.000 Carney told her that i'da pas was sick and could 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:03.440 not escort her, so Nina would have to return later. 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:06.199 He told her the same thing on every one of 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:10.439 her return visits for the next seven days. Strangely, for 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:12.960 a doctor who claimed that Nina was such a health 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:16.600 risk to her community, Garney didn't seem too stressed about 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:21.080 getting her quarantined. On November sixth, Ida Pek was well 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:24.280 enough to take Nina to Bay City. The hospital had 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:27.520 been constructed in nineteen eleven to hold patients with contagious 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:32.160 diseases like smallpox and scarlet fever. In February nineteen eighteen, 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:35.320 Richard Olan, the head of Michigan State Board of Health, 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:38.879 had requested that the hospital be transformed into a detention 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:43.200 hospital for women obtained under the American Plan. The city 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:46.280 readily agreed, in part because the state would pay them 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:50.360 for their services. Bay City would receive fifteen dollars per 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:54.480 patient per week, more than enough to cover any expenses 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:58.960 associated with the hospital. This kind of arrangement wasn't unusual. 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:03.760 Cities received state and federal funding to detain women, giving 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:08.320 them an economic incentive to enforce the plan. When Nina arrived, 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:12.200 she met the hospital's superintendent, thirty six year old Mary Corrigan, 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:16.399 a former nurse. She was given her first meal. She 0:22:16.440 --> 0:22:20.320 would later testify that the food was mainly potatoes and beets. 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:23.880 Then she was shown into a small room with two beds. 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:27.000 Nina would have to share a bed with another woman. 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:31.920 The hospital was overcrowded. Its maximum capacity was only fifty, 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:35.120 but there were closer to sixty or maybe even sixty 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:40.600 five women there. When Nina arrived, A nurse drew Nina's 0:22:40.640 --> 0:22:44.120 blood and sent it off for testing. Two weeks later, 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:47.879 the results came back. Nina had tested positive for syphilis. 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:51.639 We should take this result with a large grain of salt. 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:55.439 The test used at the time, the Wasserman test, had 0:22:55.480 --> 0:22:59.439 a false positive rate of twenty five percent, but the 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:02.280 results were never questioned by the officials at Bay City. 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:07.240 Nina began to receive injections to treat her syphilis. Treatment 0:23:07.320 --> 0:23:11.480 at this time consisted of injections of mercury and arsenic. 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:16.400 Not only did these injections not treat syphilis, they actively 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:21.159 harmed patients. Nina's hair began to fall out, her teeth 0:23:21.200 --> 0:23:25.240 became sore and loose. Her arm where she got the 0:23:25.280 --> 0:23:29.800 shots swelled up so much she could barely move it. 0:23:30.640 --> 0:23:34.160 Despite these painful conditions, Nina was still forced to work. 0:23:34.200 --> 0:23:38.080 While at Bay City. She washed dishes, scrubbed the operating 0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:43.160 room floors, and scoured toilets. The work was interminable, grueling, 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:46.920 and unpaid. There was little time for fun, and even 0:23:46.920 --> 0:23:49.120 if there had been, the women at Bay City were 0:23:49.200 --> 0:23:52.560 kept mainly inside. There was a ditch in front of 0:23:52.600 --> 0:23:56.720 the hospital and inmates were not allowed past it. Nina 0:23:56.760 --> 0:23:59.520 had initially been ordered to the hospital because of testing 0:23:59.560 --> 0:24:02.920 positive for gonorrhea, but while at Bay City, she received 0:24:02.960 --> 0:24:07.159 only two treatments for this condition. Unsurprisingly, given the effect 0:24:07.240 --> 0:24:10.360 the mercury and arsenic shots had on her, Nina did 0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:13.439 not want to receive more treatment. When the doctor arrived 0:24:13.440 --> 0:24:17.880 to administer gonerhea treatments, Nina simply stayed away. She only 0:24:17.960 --> 0:24:22.199 received formal orders, which she did not disobey to receive treatment. 0:24:22.520 --> 0:24:26.560 Six weeks into her stay, a doctor applied a compounded 0:24:26.600 --> 0:24:31.119 silver cream to her vulva, another ineffective treatment. Nina only 0:24:31.160 --> 0:24:35.760 ever received two rounds of this topical cream. Despite the 0:24:35.800 --> 0:24:41.240 ineffective infrequent applications, Nina was declared quote free from syphilis 0:24:41.320 --> 0:24:45.240 and gottorrhea in the infectious stage. In January nineteen nineteen. 0:24:46.040 --> 0:24:50.240 If you're wondering how this is possible, you're not alone. 0:24:50.400 --> 0:24:53.960 Scott Stern writes, quote, even if we were to believe 0:24:54.040 --> 0:24:57.760 that she truly had syphilis and gonorrhea when Carney examined her, 0:24:58.440 --> 0:25:02.479 and that the two infections coincidentally advanced to layton and 0:25:02.600 --> 0:25:06.000 non contagious stages on their own, which was certainly possible. 0:25:06.680 --> 0:25:10.320 For this timeline to fit the timing of Nina's examination 0:25:10.560 --> 0:25:16.040 and incarceration exactly, would have had to be a remarkable coincidence. 0:25:17.240 --> 0:25:21.760 Whatever the cause, Nina was declared released from quarantine. She 0:25:22.040 --> 0:25:25.800 was given train fare home. After three months, she was 0:25:25.880 --> 0:25:30.600 finally free, but her ordeal would not end there. When 0:25:30.640 --> 0:25:33.560 Nina returned home, she found it difficult to find a job. 0:25:34.359 --> 0:25:36.680 Richard Olin, the director of the State Board of Health, 0:25:37.040 --> 0:25:39.879 claimed that there were programs to help women get employment 0:25:39.960 --> 0:25:44.240 after release. Nina, for one, did not receive any assistance 0:25:44.280 --> 0:25:47.639 of this kind. She eventually got a restaurant job in 0:25:47.720 --> 0:25:50.880 nearby Mount Pleasant, but lost that job a week later 0:25:50.960 --> 0:25:53.760 when someone informed her employers that she had been at 0:25:53.760 --> 0:25:57.960 Bay City. A week after Nina returned home, Ida Peck 0:25:58.080 --> 0:26:01.359 showed up at the McCall house. Nina needed to report 0:26:01.400 --> 0:26:05.399 to doctor Carney for further treatment, Peck said. Nina protested 0:26:05.400 --> 0:26:08.800 that she had been declared free of disease. Peck told 0:26:08.880 --> 0:26:12.160 Nina she could either get treatment or be sent to jail. 0:26:13.200 --> 0:26:16.359 Afraid of being sent away again, Nina began making the 0:26:16.400 --> 0:26:20.720 journey to Carney's office every five days, receiving more painful 0:26:20.800 --> 0:26:25.360 mercury injections. The shots made her body ache, she had 0:26:25.400 --> 0:26:29.920 trouble walking. Even though Nina was complying with Peck's orders, 0:26:30.240 --> 0:26:33.800 the welfare worker would not leave her alone. Peck showed 0:26:33.880 --> 0:26:37.439 up at her house regularly. Nina later said, quote, she 0:26:37.560 --> 0:26:40.199 was just hounding the life out of me, chasing me 0:26:40.359 --> 0:26:44.640 day and night. This was not an unusual experience for 0:26:44.640 --> 0:26:48.159 former detainees. Most women who were released were on a 0:26:48.280 --> 0:26:52.840 kind of parole. Social or welfare workers monitored the women 0:26:52.840 --> 0:26:57.520 closely and often dictated their life choices, from what jobs 0:26:57.520 --> 0:27:00.720 they could do to where they could live. Women could 0:27:00.760 --> 0:27:03.680 be declared parole violators for any number of my old 0:27:03.680 --> 0:27:07.800 things like breaking curfew or wearing makeup, and sent back 0:27:07.880 --> 0:27:13.080 to detention centers. After three months of harassment, Nina started 0:27:13.119 --> 0:27:16.720 thinking about her options. I'd a Peck might be willing 0:27:16.760 --> 0:27:20.360 to harass a teenager and her widowed mother, but maybe 0:27:20.440 --> 0:27:23.040 Nina thought Peck would back off if she had to 0:27:23.119 --> 0:27:26.919 answer to a man. So Nina decided to get married. 0:27:27.960 --> 0:27:31.280 I got married, Nina would later say, to get away 0:27:31.320 --> 0:27:36.560 from her. But tragically, Nina's new husband, Claire Rock, only 0:27:36.640 --> 0:27:41.400 posed new dangers. On their wedding night, Nina recounted, Claire 0:27:41.440 --> 0:27:44.600 told her quote, he just simply married me because I 0:27:44.640 --> 0:27:47.119 had been in Bay City. He thought he could do 0:27:47.359 --> 0:27:50.760 just as he pleased. He wanted to take me to Detroit. 0:27:51.200 --> 0:27:54.240 He wanted me to make his living by having The 0:27:54.320 --> 0:27:57.679 trial transcript is censored here, but we can read between 0:27:57.720 --> 0:28:02.760