Listen free for 30 days

  • Bringing Down the Colonel

  • A Sex Scandal of the Gilded Age, and the "Powerless" Woman Who Took On Washington
  • Written by: Patricia Miller
  • Narrated by: Christina Delaine
  • Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
  • 5.0 out of 5 stars (1 rating)

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Bringing Down the Colonel cover art

Bringing Down the Colonel

Written by: Patricia Miller
Narrated by: Christina Delaine
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $40.04

Buy Now for $40.04

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

“I’ll take my share of the blame. I only ask that he take his.” 

In Bringing Down the Colonel, journalist Patricia Miller tells the story of Madeline Pollard, an unlikely 19th-century women’s rights crusader. After an affair with a prominent politician left her “ruined”, Pollard brought the man - and the hypocrisy of America’s control of women’s sexuality - to trial. And, surprisingly, she won.  

Pollard and the married Colonel Breckinridge began their decade-long affair when she was just a teenager. After the death of his wife, Breckinridge asked for Pollard’s hand - and then broke off the engagement to marry another woman. But Pollard struck back, suing Breckinridge for breach of promise in a shockingly public trial. With premarital sex considered irredeemably ruinous for a woman, Pollard was asserting the unthinkable: that the sexual morality of men and women should be judged equally.  

Nearly 125 years after the Breckinridge-Pollard scandal, America is still obsessed with women’s sexual morality. And in the age of Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein, we’ve witnessed fraught public reckonings with a type of sexual exploitation unnervingly similar to that experienced by Pollard. Using newspaper articles, personal journals, previously unpublished autobiographies, and letters, Bringing Down the Colonel tells the story of one of the earliest women to publicly fight back.

©2018 Patricia Miller (P)2018 Macmillan Audio

What listeners say about Bringing Down the Colonel

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 0 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 0 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.