Shauck, Lydia Allen DeVilbiss (1882-1964) Also known as: DeVilbiss, Lydia Allen

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Lydia DeVilbiss Shauck to Jane Addams, August 10, 1912

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Birth Date

1882-09

Death Date

1964-12

Birthplace

Indiana

Biographical Text

Lydia DeVilbiss was a doctor and surgeon in Ohio. She served as the president of the Shelby Equal Franchise Association, president of the Richland County Woman's Suffrage Association, secretary, and treasurer of the Shelby Medical Society, president of the Anti-Tuberculosis Society, and medical director of the Better Babies Bureau of the Woman's Home Companion. In 1928, DeVilbiss opened the Mothers Health Clinic in Miami, where she conducted research on birth control and came up with inexpensive soap-based spermicidal jellies to be used with a sponge. However, she believed only educated women would be able to understand these. DeVilbiss practiced sterilization, possibly forced, on those she deemed less intelligent, and mostly African-American women.

DeVilbiss married Albert K. Shauck in 1906. In 1912, DeVilbiss filed for divorce from her husband, citing verbal abuse and slandering of her reputation. A year later, she asked for the divorce case to be dropped, but by 1920 they had divorced. DeVilbiss remarried to Dr. George Bradford. DeVilbiss died in 1964.

Occupation

Birth control activist

Eugenicist

Physician

Surgeon

Woman suffrage activist

Source

Image from "Dr. Shauck is Now Medical Director of Magazine's 'Better Babies' Bureau," News-Journal (Mansfield, Ohio), January 16, 1914, p. 7.

Editor’s Notes

I found multiple articles for her in newspapers, and I am relatively certain the correct spelling of her name is Lydia DeVilbiss Shauck

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People

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Edited By

Piper, Robert

Sciancalepore, Victoria

Lichon, Sara Catherine

Lynn, Stacy

Rights

Rightsholder being researched

Gender

Female

First appears

1912

Bibliography and Links

"Dr. Shauck is Now Medical Director of Magazine's 'Better Babies' Bureau," News-Journal (Mansfield, Ohio), January 16, 1914, p. 7.

"Professor was a Good Dodger," News-Journal (Mansfield, Ohio), December 2, 1912, p. 5.

"Refuses to Eat," News-Journal (Mansfield, Ohio), December 18, 1912, p. 9.

"Shauck Case is Dismissed," News-Journal (Mansfield, Ohio), December 13, 1913, p. 8.

"Suffragette Asks Divorce," News-Journal (Mansfield, Ohio), November 29, 1912, p. 5.

Albert K Shauck, 1920 United States Federal Census

Cathy Moran Hajo, Birth Control on Main Street: Organizing Clinics in the United States, 1916-1939 (2010), pp. 70-71.

Esther Katz, Peter C. Engelman, Cathy Moran Hajo, and Amy Flanders, eds. The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger: Volume 2: Birth Control Comes of Age, 1928-1939 (2006), pp. 230-1.

Lydia Allen Devilbiss, Florida Death Index, 1877-1998

Lydia D Shauck, 1910 United States Federal Census

Lydia DeVilbiss Bradford, 1930 United States Federal Census

Citation

“Shauck, Lydia Allen DeVilbiss (1882-1964),” Jane Addams Digital Edition, accessed July 26, 2024, https://mail.digital.janeaddams.ramapo.edu/items/show/5852.