An Uncompromising Woman: Katharine Dexter McCormick, Heiress, Crusader, and Patron Saint of the Pill

For over six decades, women have taken the pill more than any other prescribed medicine in the world. Yet the woman who had the foresight and means to fund the pill’s research and development, pouring millions of her fortune into the controversial invention, has largely been forgotten. An Uncompromising Woman follows the life of Katharine Dexter McCormick, a fearless catalyst for scientific advancement and advocate of women’s rights and reproductive freedom. From her doomed marriage to an insane millionaire to her rise as a leader in the women’s movement and the quest for a cure for mental illness, Conant captures a paradoxical mix of a society rebel who remained loyal wife; a believer in science who battled psychiatry’s medical hubris; and an activist told by doctors she should never bear children. An Uncompromising Woman is the story of an heiress who overcame great personal tragedy and, with the discovery she championed, liberated women around the world.