Lydia Kingsmill Commander

[5] After the second marriage ceremony, they told the press that Lydia would not take Herbert's name — a decision regarded as unusual at the time.

[3] As an activist, she lectured for the New York Humane Society and co-founded the Women's Political Union, a militant suffragist group.

[9][10][11] In 1903, Peter Eckler of New York published Commander's short story titled "Marred in the Making".

"[12] Commander's book The American Idea: Does the National Tendency Toward a Small Family Point to Race Suicide or Race Degeneration?, published by Alfred Smith Barnes's company in 1907,[13][14] argued that American families should have six children so that the population would not be composed of "soldiers, imbeciles, and cripples, three classes with which we might well dispense".

[8][15] The American Idea was dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt, whom it credited with the first recognition of the "race suicide" problem in the United States.