xxviii. D'Itri, Patricia Ward, Cross Currents in the International Women's Movement, 1848–1948, Popular Press, 1999, pp.
She married Michael in 1869.
Access to contraceptive information was prohibited on grounds of obscenity by the 1873 federal Comstock law and a host of state laws.
Margaret Higgins Sanger (born Margaret Louise Higgins, September 14, 1879September 6, 1966, also known as Margaret Sanger Slee) was an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse.
She died in 1966 and is widely regarded as a founder of the modern birth control movement. == Life == === Early life === Sanger was born Margaret Louise Higgins in 1879 in Corning, New York, to Irish Catholic parents—a "free-thinking" stonemason father, Michael Hennessey Higgins, and Anne Purcell Higgins.
Sanger was the sixth of 11 surviving children, spending her early years in a bustling household. Supported by her two older sisters, Margaret Higgins attended Claverack College and Hudson River Institute, before enrolling in 1900 at White Plains Hospital as a nurse probationer.
In 1902, she married architect William Sanger, giving up her education.
There is the strong possibility Sanger might have deliberately fabricated the whole story as a propaganda technique. This story—along with Sanger's 1904 rescue of her unwanted niece Olive Byrne from the snowbank in which she had been left—marks the beginning of Sanger's commitment to spare women from the pursuit of dangerous and illegal abortions.
There is a Margaret Sanger Lane in Plattsburgh, New York and an Allée Margaret Sanger in Saint-Nazaire, France. == Works == === Books and pamphlets === What Every Mother Should Know – Originally published in 1911 or 1912, based on a series of articles Sanger published in 1911 in the New York Call, which were, in turn, based on a set of lectures Sanger gave to groups of Socialist party women in 1910–1911.Hoolihan, Christopher (2004), An Annotated Catalogue of the Edward C.
Suffering from consumption (recurring active tubercular), Margaret Sanger was able to bear three children, and the five settled down to a quiet life in Westchester, New York. === Social activism === In 1911, after a fire destroyed their home in Hastings-on-Hudson, the Sangers abandoned the suburbs for a new life in New York City.
There is a Margaret Sanger Lane in Plattsburgh, New York and an Allée Margaret Sanger in Saint-Nazaire, France. == Works == === Books and pamphlets === What Every Mother Should Know – Originally published in 1911 or 1912, based on a series of articles Sanger published in 1911 in the New York Call, which were, in turn, based on a set of lectures Sanger gave to groups of Socialist party women in 1910–1911.Hoolihan, Christopher (2004), An Annotated Catalogue of the Edward C.
She believed that exercising such control would lead to the "strongest and most sacred passion".Quotes from Sanger, "What Every Girl should know: Sexual Impulses Part II", in New York Call, December 29, 1912; also in the subsequent book What Every Girl Should Know, pp.
There is a Margaret Sanger Lane in Plattsburgh, New York and an Allée Margaret Sanger in Saint-Nazaire, France. == Works == === Books and pamphlets === What Every Mother Should Know – Originally published in 1911 or 1912, based on a series of articles Sanger published in 1911 in the New York Call, which were, in turn, based on a set of lectures Sanger gave to groups of Socialist party women in 1910–1911.Hoolihan, Christopher (2004), An Annotated Catalogue of the Edward C.
She launched a campaign to challenge governmental censorship of contraceptive information through confrontational actions. Sanger became estranged from her husband in 1913, and the couple's divorce was finalized in 1921.
She was prosecuted for her book Family Limitation under the Comstock Act in 1914.
Slee. In 1914, Sanger launched The Woman Rebel, an eight-page monthly newsletter which promoted contraception using the slogan "No Gods, No Masters".
Sanger, collaborating with anarchist friends, popularized the term "birth control" as a more candid alternative to euphemisms such as "family limitation"; the term "birth control" was suggested in 1914 by a young friend called Otto Bobstei Sanger proclaimed that each woman should be "the absolute mistress of her own body."Engelman cites facsimile edited by Alex Baskin, Woman Rebel, New York: Archives of Social History, 1976.
In August 1914, Margaret Sanger was indicted for violating postal obscenity laws by sending The Woman Rebel through the postal system.
Rather than stand trial, she fled the country. Margaret Sanger spent much of her 1914 exile in England, where contact with British neo-Malthusians such as Charles Vickery Drysdale helped refine her socioeconomic justifications for birth control.
Over-population would remain a concern of hers for the rest of her life. During her 1914 trip to England, she was also profoundly influenced by the liberation theories of Havelock Ellis, under whose tutelage she sought not just to make sexual intercourse safer for women but more pleasurable.
While traveling in Europe in 1914, Sanger met Ellis.
During the early years of her activism, Sanger viewed birth control primarily as a free-speech issue, rather than as a feminist issue, and when she started publishing The Woman Rebel in 1914, she did so with the express goal of provoking a legal challenge to the Comstock laws banning dissemination of information about contraception.
Online (1921 edition, Michigan State University) Family Limitation – Originally published 1914 as a 16-page pamphlet; also published in several later editions.
1919, 6–7. === Periodicals === The Woman Rebel – Seven issues published monthly from March 1914 to August 1914.
4, June 1914, 25, Margaret Sanger Microfilm, C16:0539. Birth Control Review – Published monthly from February 1917 to 1940.
Stopes showed Sanger her writings and sought her advice about a chapter on contraception. Early in 1915, Margaret Sanger's estranged husband, William Sanger, gave a copy of Family Limitation to a representative of anti-vice politician Anthony Comstock.
He later became the first legal manufacturer of diaphragms in the United States. === Birth control movement === Some countries in northwestern Europe had more liberal policies towards contraception than the United States at the time, and when Sanger visited a Dutch birth control clinic in 1915, she learned about diaphragms and became convinced that they were a more effective means of contraception than the suppositories and douches that she had been distributing back in the United States.
She has been criticized for supporting eugenics. In 1916, Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, which led to her arrest for distributing information on contraception, after an undercover policewoman bought a copy of her pamphlet on family planning.
Both were published in book form in 1916. During her work among working-class immigrant women, Sanger met women who underwent frequent childbirth, miscarriages and self-induced abortions for lack of information on how to avoid unwanted pregnancy.
Diaphragms were generally unavailable in the United States, so Sanger and others began importing them from Europe, in defiance of United States law. On October 16, 1916, Sanger opened a family planning and birth control clinic at 46 Amboy Street in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, the first of its kind in the United States.
From 1916 onward, she frequently lectured (in churches, women's clubs, homes, and theaters) to workers, churchmen, liberals, socialists, scientists, and upper-class women.
In 1916, when she opened her first birth control clinic, she was employing harsh rhetoric against abortion.
Online (1917, 6th edition, Michigan State University); Online (1920 English edition, Bakunin Press, revised by author from 9th American edition); What Every Girl Should Know – Originally published 1916 by Max N.
Online (Google Books). My Fight for Birth Control, 1931, New York: Farrar & Rinehart Fight for Birth Control, 1916, New York (The Library of Congress) "Birth Control: A Parent's Problem or Women's?" The Birth Control Review, Mar.
Sanger and Byrne went to trial in January 1917.
Online (1920 edition); Online (1922 ed., Michigan State University) The Case for Birth Control: A Supplementary Brief and Statement of Facts – May 1917, published to provide information to the court in a legal proceeding.
4, June 1914, 25, Margaret Sanger Microfilm, C16:0539. Birth Control Review – Published monthly from February 1917 to 1940.
An initial appeal was rejected, but in a subsequent court proceeding in 1918, the birth control movement won a victory when Judge Frederick E.
409. These principles were adopted at the first meeting of the ABCL in late 1921. After Sanger's appeal of her conviction for the Brownsville clinic secured a 1918 court ruling that exempted physicians from the law prohibiting the distribution of contraceptive information to women (provided it was prescribed for medical reason), she established the Clinical Research Bureau (CRB) in 1923 to exploit this loophole.
She described the experience as "weird", and reported that she had the impression that the audience were all half-wits, and, therefore, spoke to them in the simplest possible language, as if she were talking to children. She wrote several books in the 1920s which had a nationwide impact in promoting the cause of birth control.
Between 1920 and 1926, 567,000 copies of Woman and the New Race and The Pivot of Civilization were sold.
The first, My Fight for Birth Control, was published in 1931 and the second, more promotional version, Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography, was published in 1938. During the 1920s, Sanger received hundreds of thousands of letters, many of them written in desperation by women begging for information on how to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
Later, she proposed that "Permits for parenthood shall be issued upon application by city, county, or state authorities to married couples," but added that the requirement should be implemented by state advocacy and reward for complying, not enforced by punishing anyone for violating it. She was supported by one of the most racist authors in America in the 1920s, the Klansman Lothrop Stoddard, who was a founding member of the Board of Directors of Sanger's American Birth Control League.
Multiple editions published through the 1920s, by Max N.
Online (Internet Archive) Woman and the New Race, 1920, Truth Publishing, foreword by Havelock Ellis.
She considered contraception the only practical way to avoid them. In 1921, Sanger founded the American Birth Control League, which later became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
She launched a campaign to challenge governmental censorship of contraceptive information through confrontational actions. Sanger became estranged from her husband in 1913, and the couple's divorce was finalized in 1921.
409. These principles were adopted at the first meeting of the ABCL in late 1921. After Sanger's appeal of her conviction for the Brownsville clinic secured a 1918 court ruling that exempted physicians from the law prohibiting the distribution of contraceptive information to women (provided it was prescribed for medical reason), she established the Clinical Research Bureau (CRB) in 1923 to exploit this loophole.
Online (Harvard University); Online (Project Gutenberg); Online (Internet Archive); Audio on Archive.org Debate on Birth Control – 1921, text of a debate between Sanger, Theodore Roosevelt, Winter Russell, George Bernard Shaw, Robert L.
In 1922, she married her second husband, James Noah H.
At the Fifth International Neo-Malthusian Conference in 1922, she was the first woman to chair a session.
donated five thousand dollars to her American Birth Control League in 1924 and a second time in 1925. In 1922, she traveled to China, Korea, and Japan.
Online (1921, Michigan State University) The Pivot of Civilization, 1922, Brentanos.
409. These principles were adopted at the first meeting of the ABCL in late 1921. After Sanger's appeal of her conviction for the Brownsville clinic secured a 1918 court ruling that exempted physicians from the law prohibiting the distribution of contraceptive information to women (provided it was prescribed for medical reason), she established the Clinical Research Bureau (CRB) in 1923 to exploit this loophole.
donated five thousand dollars to her American Birth Control League in 1924 and a second time in 1925. In 1922, she traveled to China, Korea, and Japan.
She organized the Sixth International Neo-Malthusian and Birth-Control Conference that took place in New York in 1925.
donated five thousand dollars to her American Birth Control League in 1924 and a second time in 1925. In 1922, she traveled to China, Korea, and Japan.
Her speech "Children's Era", given in 1925, is listed as #81 in American Rhetoric's Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century (listed by rank).
Between 1920 and 1926, 567,000 copies of Woman and the New Race and The Pivot of Civilization were sold.
In 1928, Slee would smuggle diaphragms into New York through Canada in boxes labeled as 3-In-One Oil.
This was ironic, since ten years earlier Sanger had accused Katō of murder and praised an attempt to kill her. In 1928, conflict within the birth control movement leadership led Sanger to resign as the president of the ABCL and take full control of the CRB, renaming it the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau (BCCRB), marking the beginning of a schism that would last until 1938. Sanger invested a great deal of effort communicating with the general public.
Five hundred of these letters were compiled into the 1928 book, Motherhood in Bondage. === Work with the African-American community === Sanger worked with African American leaders and professionals who saw a need for birth control in their communities.
Online (1922, Project Gutenberg); Online (1922, Google Books) Motherhood in Bondage, 1928, Brentanos.
In 1929, she formed the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control, which served as the focal point of her lobbying efforts to legalize contraception in the United States.
In Boston in 1929, city officials under the leadership of James Curley threatened to arrest her if she spoke.
Sanger was editor until 1929, when she resigned from the ABCL.
Sanger secured funding from the Julius Rosenwald Fund and opened the clinic, staffed with black doctors, in 1930.
Du Bois, the co-founder of the NAACP and the editor of its magazine, The Crisis.From Planned Parenthood: :In 1930, Sanger opened a family planning clinic in Harlem that sought to enlist support for contraceptive use and to bring the benefits of family planning to women who were denied access to their city's health and social services.
The first, My Fight for Birth Control, was published in 1931 and the second, more promotional version, Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography, was published in 1938. During the 1920s, Sanger received hundreds of thousands of letters, many of them written in desperation by women begging for information on how to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
Online (Google Books). My Fight for Birth Control, 1931, New York: Farrar & Rinehart Fight for Birth Control, 1916, New York (The Library of Congress) "Birth Control: A Parent's Problem or Women's?" The Birth Control Review, Mar.
That effort failed to achieve success, so Sanger ordered a diaphragm from Japan in 1932, in order to provoke a decisive battle in the courts.
Furthermore, in 1932, Margaret Sanger directed the Clinical Research Bureau to start referring patients to hospitals for therapeutic abortions when indicated by an examining physician.
The diaphragm was confiscated by the United States government, and Sanger's subsequent legal challenge led to a 1936 court decision which overturned an important provision of the Comstock laws which prohibited physicians from obtaining contraceptives.
This court victory motivated the American Medical Association in 1937 to adopt contraception as a normal medical service and a key component of medical school curriculums. This 1936 contraception court victory was the culmination of Sanger's birth control efforts, and she took the opportunity, now in her late 50s, to move to Tucson, Arizona, intending to play a less critical role in the birth control movement.
This court victory motivated the American Medical Association in 1937 to adopt contraception as a normal medical service and a key component of medical school curriculums. This 1936 contraception court victory was the culmination of Sanger's birth control efforts, and she took the opportunity, now in her late 50s, to move to Tucson, Arizona, intending to play a less critical role in the birth control movement.
In spite of her original intentions, she remained active in the movement through the 1950s. In 1937, Sanger became chairman of the newly formed Birth Control Council of America, and attempted to resolve the schism between the ABCL and the BCCRB.
This was ironic, since ten years earlier Sanger had accused Katō of murder and praised an attempt to kill her. In 1928, conflict within the birth control movement leadership led Sanger to resign as the president of the ABCL and take full control of the CRB, renaming it the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau (BCCRB), marking the beginning of a schism that would last until 1938. Sanger invested a great deal of effort communicating with the general public.
The first, My Fight for Birth Control, was published in 1931 and the second, more promotional version, Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography, was published in 1938. During the 1920s, Sanger received hundreds of thousands of letters, many of them written in desperation by women begging for information on how to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
Her efforts were successful, and the two organizations merged in 1939 as the Birth Control Federation of America.
4, June 1914, 25, Margaret Sanger Microfilm, C16:0539. Birth Control Review – Published monthly from February 1917 to 1940.
Sanger was an inspiration for Wonder Woman, a comic-book character introduced by William Marston in 1941.
In spite of her original intentions, she remained active in the movement through the 1950s. In 1937, Sanger became chairman of the newly formed Birth Control Council of America, and attempted to resolve the schism between the ABCL and the BCCRB.
In the early 1950s, Sanger encouraged philanthropist Katharine McCormick to provide funding for biologist Gregory Pincus to develop the birth control pill which was eventually sold under the name Enovid.Marc A.
From 1952 to 1959, Sanger served as president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
Between (and including) 1953 and 1963, Sanger was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 31 times.
In 1957, the American Humanist Association named her Humanist of the Year.
From 1952 to 1959, Sanger served as president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
Between (and including) 1953 and 1963, Sanger was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 31 times.
Margaret Higgins Sanger (born Margaret Louise Higgins, September 14, 1879September 6, 1966, also known as Margaret Sanger Slee) was an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse.
She died in 1966 and is widely regarded as a founder of the modern birth control movement. == Life == === Early life === Sanger was born Margaret Louise Higgins in 1879 in Corning, New York, to Irish Catholic parents—a "free-thinking" stonemason father, Michael Hennessey Higgins, and Anne Purcell Higgins.
Sanger did not tolerate bigotry among her staff, nor would she tolerate any refusal to work within interracial projects.See also Sanger's work with minorities earned praise from Coretta and Martin Luther King Jr.; when he was not able to attend his Margaret Sanger award ceremony, in May 1966, Mrs.
(Ibid., p. 312.) === Death === Sanger died of congestive heart failure in 1966 in Tucson, Arizona, aged 86, about a year after the U.S.
In 1966, Planned Parenthood began issuing its Margaret Sanger Awards annually to honor "individuals of distinction in recognition of excellence and leadership in furthering reproductive health and reproductive rights".
Sanger, collaborating with anarchist friends, popularized the term "birth control" as a more candid alternative to euphemisms such as "family limitation"; the term "birth control" was suggested in 1914 by a young friend called Otto Bobstei Sanger proclaimed that each woman should be "the absolute mistress of her own body."Engelman cites facsimile edited by Alex Baskin, Woman Rebel, New York: Archives of Social History, 1976.
In 1976, she was inducted into the first class of the Steuben County (NY) Hall of Fame.
The 1979 artwork The Dinner Party features a place setting for her.
In 1981, Sanger was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
Katō, Shidzue, Facing Two Ways: the story of my life, Stanford University Press, 1984, p.
213 (citing A Tradition of Choice, Planned Parenthood, 1991, p.
In 1993, the United States National Park Service designated the Margaret Sanger Clinic—where she provided birth-control services in New York in the mid-twentieth century—as a National Historic Landmark.
xxviii. D'Itri, Patricia Ward, Cross Currents in the International Women's Movement, 1848–1948, Popular Press, 1999, pp.
The publicity surrounding Sanger's arrest, trial, and appeal sparked birth control activism across the United States and earned the support of numerous donors, who would provide her with funding and support for future endeavors.Sanger, Pivot of Civilization, 2001 reprint edited by Michael W.
Sanger was the organization's first president and served in that role until she was 80 years old.Esser-Stuart, Joan E., "Margaret Higgins Sanger", in Encyclopedia of Social Welfare History in North America, Herrick, John and Stuart, Paul (eds), SAGE, 2005, p.
Schlesinger, Sr.Davis, Tom, Sacred work: Planned Parenthood and its clergy alliances Rutgers University Press, 2005, p.
Fritz, Leon Speroff, Clinical Gynecologic Endocrinology and Infertility, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2010, pp.
In 2013, the American cartoonist Peter Bagge published Woman Rebel, a full-length graphic-novel biography of Sanger.
In 2016, Sabrina Jones published the graphic novel "Our Lady of Birth Control: A Cartoonist's Encounter With Margaret Sanger." Sanger has been recognized with several honors.
In spite of such controversies, Sanger continues to be regarded as a force in the American reproductive rights and women's rights movements. In July, 2020, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York announced their intention to rename the Planned Parenthood headquarters on Bleecker Street, which was named after Sanger.
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