Bringing Down the Colonel

Bringing Down the Colonel: A Sex Scandal of the Gilded Age, and the "Powerless" Woman Who Took On Washington is a 2018 book by Patricia Miller, a journalist for Religion Dispatches. The book describes the late-19th-century political sex scandal between Kentucky politician William Breckinridge and Madeline Pollard, a student. It details the affair and subsequent legal battle over Breckinridge's breach of contract, and discusses the resulting change in public opinion towards women and sex.