The first American woman to obtain a pain-free birth, Fanny Longfellow, the wife of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was severely criticized for her choice.
" And at family gatherings with their grandmother, there were frequent challenges to recite Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's famous (and famously lengthy) "Paul Revere's Ride.
"Give us the tools, and we will finish the job, " he said in a Feb. 9, 1941, radio plea for U.S. aid, quoting Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Sail on, O Union, strong and great!"