Women of a Promiscuous Nature by Donna Everhart ~ a Review

by Susan Roberts

Accused of “promiscuity” in 1940s North Carolina, a young woman unjustly incarcerated and subjected to involuntary medical treatment at The State Industrial Farm Colony for Women decides to fight back in this powerful, shockingly timely novel based on the long-buried history of the American Plan, the government program designed to regulate women’s bodies and sexuality throughout the first half of the 20th century.

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site.  A free book was provided for an honest review.

January 2026; Kensington; 978-1496740724
audio, ebook, print (368 pages); southern fiction

Donna Everhart is an automatic buy for me -- I've loved every book that she's written, and she keeps writing about unknown parts of Southern history and often about issues that are very uncomfortable to learn about. Her new book is so fantastic that I would give it 100 stars if I could.

This book is about the American Plan that was in place from 1918 until the 1950s. Its goal was to protect soldiers from contracting STDs. The enforcement of the act was vague, and local agencies like the police could arrest girls that they thought were immoral for various reasons - because they lived alone and worked or because they liked to have a drink with their friends.  Many of these women were placed into institutions and this book is about a facility in Kinston, North Carolina.

This book is told from three different points of view

• Dorothy Baker is the superintendent of the facility in Kinston. She truly believed that she was helping the women who were kept there, and in her mind, it justified the poor treatment and the punishment as a way to help them become proper women in society. She had secrets of her own that began to make her question what was going on.
• Stella is one of the youngest girls and actually sees the facility as a much better place to live than her home situation was. Her father was sexually abusing her, and she was pregnant. She was considered promiscuous despite the fact that she had no control over the situation.
• Ruth lived by herself in town and worked at a diner. She had never done more than have an innocent kiss at the end of a date. But because she didn't adhere to what the police chief saw as a proper woman, she was picked up and sent to the farm colony.

This book is a strong and very emotional look at something that happened in this country that few people today are aware of. I spent a lot of time googling the history of the American plan, and the more I read, the more upset I was. To think that women could just be rounded up and sent to a facility because they didn't fit the government's view of a proper woman. This is another example of knowing and understanding our history so that we can make sure that it never happens again. 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION   The American Plan was a 1918 US federal program first instituted by the Chamberlain–Kahn Act. Its stated goal was to fight venereal diseases. It legally sanctioned military, police, and health officers to arrest any woman 'suspected' of prostitution, force them to undergo invasive STI screenings, and jail them if positive. Over 30,000 women were detained under this act during WW1. It lasted into the 1950s. 

Buy Women of a Promiscuous Nature at Amazon

Susan Roberts grew up in Michigan but loves the laid-back life at her home in the Piedmont area of North Carolina, where she is three hours from the beach to the east and the mountains in the west.  She reads almost anything, but her favorite genres are Southern Fiction and Historical Fiction.   

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