Beasley, Gertrude:

$3,000 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

MY FIRST THIRTY YEARS. The scarce first edition of Gertrude Beasley's stunningly stark memoir of growing up in West Texas and Abilene at the turn of the 20th century. Beasley writes with visceral clarity about the circumstances she faced as one of thirteen children born to the poor family of a subsistence farmer, including frank descriptions of sexual and familial violence. She establishes her tone from the very first paragraph, which reads: "Thirty years ago, I lay in the womb of a woman, conceived in a sexual act of rape, being carried during the prenatal period by an unwilling and rebellious mother, finally bursting from the womb only to be tormented in a family whose members I despised or pitied, and brought into association with people whom I should never have chosen."The second half chronicles her pursuit of education as she receives a teaching degree from a local college, followed by a master's in education from the University of Chicago. In Chicago, she sees Jane Addams speak at Hull House, and attends lectures by Emma Goldman and Margaret Sanger. Informed by her upbringing, Beasley embraces Sanger's message on contraceptive access, and would later contribute to her publication, Birth Control Review.My First Thirty Years was published by Contact Editions in Paris, a small press at the center of the American expatriate movement. The original edition is quite scarce, as the book was quickly banned in Britain, destroyed by U.S. Customs, and even hunted down by the Texas

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