"Snippet from The Woman Rebel" from libcom.org
"Margaret Sanger Surrounded by Supporters" - Image from Ordinary Philosophy
Introduction
The Birth Control Movement was led by Margaret Sanger in 1916 with the goal to allow everyone access to birth control and to educate them on it. Margaret Sanger did everything she could to defy the government.
"Portrait of Margaret Sanger, 1879"
From the Margaret Sanger Papers Project
"Margaret Sanger when she was younger" from Margaret Sanger Papers Project
About Margaret Sanger
Margaret Higgins grew up in a very poor working-class family with eleven kids, which was more than they could afford. Margaret's mother was very weak from bearing so many children and from suffering from tuberculosis. She eventually died when Margaret was 17.
Margaret was distraught at her mother’s funeral. She was angry at her father and blamed him for her death, saying that he had caused her death.
"You caused this. Mother is dead from having too many children."
~ Margaret Sanger
Her beliefs about family planning and birth control spouted from her mother’s death. She believed that if she could have stopped bearing children, she would’ve been alive.
Activist Years
In 1911, Sanger was working as a trained nurse. During her time as a nurse, Sanger saw women go through miserable experiences to get abortions. What she saw reminded her of her mother's death.
Margaret Sanger Explains Why She Fought for Birth Control
(Interview with Mike Wallace, 1957)
This “stirred” Sanger to make the world safer for women. Sanger’s first attempt to make the world safer for women was publishing her first book, which unbeknownst to her, this book violated the Comstock Act.
She received backlash from the government because of her book. In response, Sanger started The Woman Rebel, a magazine to educate women about birth control and the woman's body, directly intending to defy the Comstock Act. The government warned her to stop, however, she kept writing and printing it.
Margaret fled New York and went to England because the Government warranted her arrest. When all had seemingly calmed down, Margaret came back to join her family in America once again.
"18 Jan 1916 — Mrs. Margaret Sanger (L) with her sister, Ethel Byrne, seated in court. Mrs. Sanger is on trial for sending her book The Woman Rebel through the mail." from The Atlantic
“They tell me that The Woman Rebel was badly written; that it was crude; that it was emotional and hysterical; that it mixed issues; that it was defiant, and too radical. Well, to all of these indictments I plead guilty”
~ Margaret Sanger (1914)
Margaret was far from finished. Margaret, her sister, and two other women established the first birth control clinic in America in Brownsville, New York on October 16, 1916. The clinic was successful and hundreds of women came to the clinic.
Margaret was arrested for opening the clinic, but once she got out, she established the American Birth Control League, a parent organization to the Planned Parenthood Federation.
<<Barrier
Reactions>>