Margaret Sanger 's The First Birth Control Movement

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.

Margaret Sanger was born September 14, 1879 in Corning, New York. She moved to Greenwich, Village in 1910 where she started promoting Women’s Rights to Birth Control. In 1911 she became heavily influenced and moved to New York City where she joined and participated in radical groups and became a socialist, labor activist, and anarchist. She published her first paper which was “The Women Rebel and provided information on birth control and issues that were going on in the world. Margaret opened her first Birth Control clinic in 1916 which was located in Brownsville, New York. But, the clinic didn’t last for only a month because she was charged with public nuisance and was sentenced thirty days in prison. But, that didn’t stopped Sanger from

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.

In the 1910s, Margaret Sanger, a woman’s rights activist, began to publish articles about birth control, finding National Birth Control League (NBCL). She opened a birth control clinic in New York in the year of 1916. The

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 built upon Davenport’s movement through the concept of contraception rather than sterilization. Although her initial purpose was not to create a superior race, the contraception movement had an equally detrimental effect upon society. Fuelled by the anger from her mother’s death, Sanger wrote The Woman Rebel advocating controlling who could reproduce (Citation). Just as Davenport, she had criteria for those she wished to eliminate including, Jews, Blacks, and Chinese (Schweikart and Allen 529-532). She also believed that large families were wasteful and wrong. In her book Women and the New Race, Sanger stated that “the most merciful thing a large family could do to new baby is to kill it.” She believed he could not be properly loved and cared for and furthermore considered him a waste of resources(“Margaret Sanger: Family Planning”). Her articles were condemned illegal and she fled to England where she truly let her colors show. She established the Birth Control Review in 1917 and wrote pro eugenics articles including “Some Moral Aspects of Eugenics” and “Birth Control and Positive Eugenics”. The positive response in England encouraged Sanger to return to the U.S to market birth control in a more palatable fashion as family planning. This

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

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

"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

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

Margaret Louise Higgins, who later became Margaret Higgins Sange, was born on September 14, 1879 In Corning, New York. She was a birth control activist,nurse, and sex educator. Margaret’s parents were Michael Hennessey Higgins, an Irish stonemason and Anna Purcell a catholic Irish-American. Margaret’s mother Anne and her family immigrated to canada when she was young. Margaret’s father Michael moved to America and enlisted into the US army during the Civil War at the age of15. Margaret’s father was also a catholic turned atheist and also an activist for woman’s suffrage. Anne Higgins went through 18 pregnancies and only 11 of her children were born alive. Margaret was the sixth child of eleven. She spent a lot of her childhood years helping with household chores and also had the responsibility of caring for her younger siblings.

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

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 was a crusader for female reproductive rights.” (Katzive, Caroline E. "Margaret Sanger: Demonstrating Leadership And Legacy Through Her Crusade For Women's Reproductive Rights." History Teacher 49.1 (2015): 127. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 7 Apr. 2016.) She was known for being pro-choice and felt as if women [had the right to] control the size of their families. (Katzive, Caroline E. "Margaret Sanger: Demonstrating Leadership And Legacy Through Her Crusade For Women's Reproductive Rights." History Teacher 49.1 (2015): 127. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 7 Apr. 2016.) Sanger introduced the term “birth control” to her time and also opened the very first birth control clinic that went on to be known as the “Planned Parenthood Federation of America.” Her principles were simple, a woman had a right to control her own body, every person should be able to decided whether or not they want a child, “every child should be wanted and loved, women are entitled to sexual pleasure and fulfillment” (McCormick Dexter Katherine: Opposition Claims of Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood Federation of America).