Margaret Sanger During The Progressive Era

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.

The early 1900’s was considered the Progressive Era. The rise of Fordism was happening and the assembly line. This was providing more and more jobs. The working woman was on the rise as well and women were working for wages instead of being home. The Progressive Era changed America as we know it (Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty, pg. 693).

I. Introduction. There are many remarkable personalities in our history, which made revolutionary changes in women’s lives. Two of them were Margaret Sanger and Eleanor Roosevelt. They contributed immensely to change the women’s fates and lives and to position them equally with men. Margaret Sanger was born in 1879, in Corning, New York; she was sixth of eleven children of Michel Higgins, an Irish Catholic stonecutter, and religious Anne Purcell Higgins. Her mother went through eighteen pregnancies and died at the age of forty-eight. She studied nursing in White Plains and worked as nurse in one of the poorest neighborhood of New York. In 1902 Margaret Sanger married architect and radical William Sanger. She didn’t finish her studying. Margaret gave birth to three children. In 1912 Sanger’s family moved to Manhattan. All her life Margaret Sanger was a courageous, dedicated and persistent American birth control activist, advocate of eugenics, and the founder of the American Birth Control League. She was first woman opening the way to universal access to birth control.

Many social movements throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries shaped the Progressive Era. Towards the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century the economy was thriving. Industrialization was blooming with new achievements that were being brought to America. However, many problems were also brought. The Progressive Era tackled these problems. The Progressive Era made an immense change on America’s economy and society. This Era was a time of extreme change. Major changes were made in the economic and political levels during the time of this era. Many of the problems were problems of the urbanization and industrialization periods. The Progressive Era had many successes and many failures, however, the successes overshadow the failures. The progressive era was a response to the problems that were caused by the movements after the Civil War, problems of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the era was successful in addressing problems such as public education, the Gilded Age, and living conditions.

The progressive era was a time of great change, the way people thought and what they did began to change quickly. Industry and business also changed a great deal in this era, with the many new inventions and strong businessmen things where rapidly changing.

The Progressive era started with the Spanish American War and ended with World War I. Even though these were the two main conflicts during the time there were also many other minor conflicts that the U.S. had to deal with. Throughout the era the U.S. was trying to gain more power through imperialism, which was shown by the efforts to annex foreign lands such as the Philippines. Overall,

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 hard work to legalize and promote contraception was rooted in her belief that those who were impoverished should not procreate. In her book My Fight for Birth Control, Sanger claims, “I associate poverty, toil, unemployment, drunkenness, cruelty, quarreling, fighting, debts, and jails with large families” (Planned Parenthood). Sanger set out to “sterilize the unfit” and make known methods to control the population (Planned Parenthood). Many of her colleagues were racist and believed contraception should be used for the purpose of maintaining

Margaret Sanger founded a movement in this country that would institute such a change in the course of our biological history that it is still debated today. Described by some as a "radiant rebel", Sanger pioneered the birth control movement in the United States at a time when Victorian hypocrisy and oppression through moral standards were at their highest. Working her way up from a nurse in New York's poor Lower East Side to the head of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Margaret Sanger was unwavering in her dedication to the movement that would eventually result in lower infant mortality rates and better living conditions for the impoverished. But, because of the way that her political

Sanger was born on September 14, 1879, in Corning, New York, with the name of Margaret Higgins. From the very beginning Margaret Sanger was against large family households. She grew up in a very immense family of eleven siblings with her very religious mother, Anne Higgins, who was a hard working woman who pushed young Sanger into the Roman Catholic religion and her free minded father, Michael Higgins, who worked as a stonemason and put his best efforts in his family but would much rather talk about politics and drink. Margaret would only follow in her father’s footsteps wanting to speak of politics nevertheless she did strive for the strength of belief in something greater than herself. She could only imagine, although she knew somehow she was going to impact the world. Sanger attended St.mary's grade school in

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 Progressive Era was a time where the problems brought about by industrialization was addressed. Many progressives during this time were people who came from the upper middle-class and were very

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).

During the early twentieth century, women had few opportunities in the professional world, which was largely due to the societal constraints that prevented them from succeeding. Few women in the United States during twentieth century have been able to change the course of history like Margaret Sanger has, because not only did she take a stand for something she believes in, but what she believed in helped millions of women's lives in both the United States and all over the world. She was a leader of many social reform movements that emerged in the beginnings of the twentieth century, who refused to accept the idea that women were not able to control their lives. Although her ideas were taboo at the time, she fought past the criticism to help