The Myth of The blackout Baby Boom
A thriving urban legend arose in the wake of the Northeast Blackout of 1965, in which it is told that a peak in the birthrate of the blackout areas was observed nine months after the incident. The origin of the myth is a series of three articles published in August 1966 in the New York Times, in which interviewed doctors told that they had noticed an increased number of births.
The story was debunked in 1970 by J. Richard Udry, a demographer from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who did a careful statistical study that found no increase in the birthrate of the affected areas.
Read more about this topic: Northeast Blackout Of 1965
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—Wendy Coppedge Sanford. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, introduction (1978)
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—Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)