A Speech That Made History

Margaret Sanger was a controversial and historical nurse. She lived during a time of revolutionary change when the women’s rights movement was in full motion. Born in 1879, to a large impoverished family, she was the sixth of eleven children. Sanger was part of a family of devoted Catholics. During that time it was a common practice for women to birth as many children as possible. As a result, she was a witness to the effects of diseases, miscarriages, and multiple pregnancies that eventually led to her mother’s premature death. This had a significant impact on her ideologies. She eventually became known for advocating women’s reproductive rights and founding what is now known as Planned Parenthood.

Thesis: Margaret Sanger changed the world by rallying for the availability and use of contraceptives for all women.

Sanger made huge changes in how the society viewed women at that time period. She was influential to women who felt like their life revolved around giving birth only. She also gave many women birth control options which allowed them the freedom of sexuality in everyday life. Sanger advocated and fought for women 's rights throughout her life. Her determination and hard work gave women social rights, which later led to their right to control their own body through birth control.She advocated repeatedly that without birth control women will never be free (Sanger).

Margaret Sanger was, at large, a birth control activist, but this speech was more about the questioning of birth control corrupting morality in women. People must remember, in the day and age

In addition to What Every Girl Should Know, Sanger created other propaganda, which informed women that they deserved the right to prevent births. The purpose of her first publication of this type, a magazine called The Woman Rebel, was to inspire women to demand rights. She wanted "to stimulate working women to think for themselves and to build up a conscience, fighting character" (Douglas, 50). In each issue of the "Rebel", she discussed topics such as child labor, women and children in industry, health and cultural opportunities. She believed that women must determine her own maternity-"This was the most precious freedom" (Douglas, 50).

In 1912, she wrote a newspaper article called "What Every Girl Should Know" to start her movement to teach women about sex. Sanger treated several women who tried to end their pregnancies on the Lower East Side while

"A free race cannot be born" and no woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother"(Sanger A 35). Margaret Sanger (1870-1966)said this in one of her many controversial papers. The name of Margaret Sanger and the issue of birth control have virtually become synonymous. Birth control and the work of Sanger have done a great deal to change the role of woman in society, relationships between men and woman, and the family. The development and spread of knowledge of birth control gave women sexual freedom for the first time, gave them an individual

Having gone through the hardships that she did, Margaret Sanger developed her own theories and beliefs about health in women. Through the

Margaret Sanger, a birth control activist. Born on September 14, 1879 Sanger was one of eleven children born (National Women’s History Museum). Other than the children born, Sanger’s mother had seven miscarriages (National Women’s History Museum). Sanger’s family lived in poverty as Sanger’s father preferred to drink and talk politics than keep a steady job (National Women’s History Museum). When Sanger was 19 Sanger’s mother died of Tuberculosis (National Women’s History Museum). Over

The 1920s had a big impact on American life all around; however, one of the biggest changes during this time period was in the roles of women. During this time period, women started dressing different, leaving the house, getting jobs, and gaining rights. On top of all of that, they had a bigger role in education, they began taking parts in politics, and divorce became more of a common thing. This may not seem like a big deal to people today, but this was very important at the time. Prior, women had next to no rights. They lived to wait on and please their husbands. Women rarely even left the house. This time period could be said to have paved the way for modern day feminism and women’s roles. This was the time period when they began to be free and stop worrying about how society thought they should live. However, the question still remains: Did the changing roles of women in the 1920s really have a significant effect on women’s roles today? In the next few pages, one will be given examples of women’s role before, during, and after the 1920s. In each paragraph, the roles, rights, impacts, and more that women had at these times will be explained. To conclude, a comparison on how women were thought to act in these different time periods will be made in order to come up with an answer for the question stated above.

Sanger made huge changes in how the society viewed women at that time period. She was influential to women who felt like their life revolved around giving birth only. She also gave many women birth control options which allowed them the freedom of sexuality in everyday life. Sanger advocated and fought for women's rights throughout her life. Her determination and hard work gave women social rights, which later led to their right to control their own body through birth control.She advocated repeatedly that without birth control women will never be free (Sanger).

Margaret Sanger’s efforts for women’s rights lead to the founding of Planned Parenthood in 1916. Initially she grew up in a large poverty-stricken family of eleven, which greatly impacted her stance on reproductive privileges. Her mother had a total of eighteen pregnancies, seven in which resulted in miscarriages, dying at age 43. Sanger decided she did not want to suffer the same way her mother did, so she had a plan. Later on, she went on to be a nurse for women who suffered from pregnancy symptoms during a time that had little to no medical care for the poor. After a while of doing this, Sanger saw and heard things that in her mind, needed to be changed. From thereon, she had created a newspaper that focused on the importance of contraceptives

Many also believed it was the man’s decision as to how many children his wife should have. Sanger continued her quest opening a birth-control clinic in Brooklyn, New York, in 1916; one year later, the authorities arrested her for giving contraceptives to immigrant women (Bowles, 2011). At first glance it appears that Sanger had good intentions. “Others criticized her for involvement with eugenics, which was a scientific movement in which its practitioners advocated the notion that all mental and physical "abnormalities" were linked to hereditary and, with selective breeding, could be eliminated. They questioned whether or not Sanger's insistence on birth control and abortion was in fact a way to limit the growth of ethnic populations” (Bowles, 2011). “Of course, her activism put her directly at odds with law-enforcement officials and the Catholic Church, but little discussed is the actual extent to which her early Marxism guided much of what she managed to achieve. Her good friends included ultra-radicals like John Reed and Emma Goldman, and the truth is that Margaret’s feminism, and her support for eugenic ‘sexual science’, were both simply part-and-parcel of her own unique Marxist vision. Humanitarianism, per se, had little to do with what motivated Margaret Sanger” (Spooner, 2005). Sanger’s actions and motivations are a controversial topic that have been analyzed and debated for years. “According to her New York Times obituary,

Margaret Sanger wasn't always as valued as she is today. Before her feminist movement she worked with slum mothers in work houses who begged for information on becoming less fertile. For example, “Margaret Sanger's experiences with slum mothers who begged for information about how to avoid more pregnancies transformed her into a social radical” (Flaherty, “The National Review”). The slum mothers stuck with more kids than they could feed lead to Margaret’s study on how to stop fertility. Racial tensions during the progressive era lead to Margaret understanding the idea of population control of minority races, such as African Americans.

Margaret Sanger was the leading advocate of birth control. She believed it would save lives of mothers by preventing unwanted child bearing and it would keep families from having large numbers of children they could not afford. Her arguments also had a connection to eugenics, she stated that the use of birth control would raise the quality of the white race by reducing the chances of immigrant women reproducing unfit children. Another major social change that was a result of women’s movements was prohibition. Francis Willard formed the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in order to protect the home.