1928: Collapsed and Died at Work

On April 8, 1928, 26-year-old Mildred G. Jakobsen, a Chicago native, "took sick" at work. She died there before she could be taken to a hospital. On May 4, the Cook County coroner concluded that Mildred had died from complications of a criminal abortion, and recommended the identification and arrest of the person or persons responsible. Nobody was ever held accountable for Mildred's death.



Keep in mind that things that things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future. For more about abortion in this era, see Abortion in the 1920s.

For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion