Ramsey County History – Fall 2020: “A Doctor Ahead of His Time and the Trouble that Followed: The Sexual Life by Charles W. Malchow”

A Doctor Ahead of His Time and the Trouble that Followed: The Sexual Life by Charles W. Malchow
Authors: Ryan T. Hurt and Paul Nelson

At the turn of the twentieth century, a progressive doctor named Charles W. Malchow, who worked at Hamline University’s short-lived Department of Medicine, wrote a book—a book about sex. Trained at the Minneapolis College of Physicians and Surgeons and in Europe, the young doctor believed it was important for readers, particularly women, to better understand sexual relationships as healthy and normal. He partnered with publisher Olly Burton. Together, they ran their work by test audiences. They even contacted the postal authorities to make sure they could send promotional materials and the book itself through the mail. They were reminded by one postal official of the Comstock Law. Despite that, they proceeded as planned. Authors Ryan T. Hurt and Paul Nelson, share the aftermath of this fateful decision in their article “A Doctor Ahead of His Time and the Trouble that Followed: The Sexual Life by Charles W. Malchow.”
PDF of R. Hurt and P. Nelson article

Supplemental Materials:

Charles Malchow, “Unequalized Sexual Sense and Development the Great Cause of Domestic Infelicity and Nervousness in Women,” Northwestern Lancet XXIII, no. 4 (February 15, 1903): turn to pages 64-68.

Full Text of The Sexual Life by Charles W. Malchow

Trial Record: Olly D. Burton, et. al. v. United States of America