Historical Antecedents of Sixties' Free Love

Michael Wm. Doyle (md15@cornell.edu)
Thu, 16 May 1996 16:25:44 -0400

RE: Tony Williams's recent post about the experimentation with "free love"
by Greenwich Village bohemians prior to the First World War. The term
actually originated much earlier, among cultural radicals of the Antebellum
era who were in rebellion against the constraints that marriage represented,
especially for women. For a well-researched monograph on the topic, see:

John C. Spurlock, _Free Love: Marriage and Middle-Class Radicalism in
America, 1825-1860_
(New York and London: New York University Press, 1988).

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