Biography of
Margaret Sanger
(1879-1966)
Birth control advocate, Margaret Sanger was born in 1879 into a poor, large family of 11 children in New York. Sanger was the middle child of the family and spent most of her childhood dreaming. This dreaming and thinking carried on the rest of her life as she dreampt of a time when women would gain the freedom of reproduction that she believed every woman deserved. Sanger's thoughts on the subject became even more evident in 1913 when she witnessed a young patient die from complications of an illegal abortion when she was working as a nurse. From that point on she wanted to help women to gain control ot their bodies and have the ability to make their own choices about sex and of having children. Sanger saw her mother die at the age of 50 and worn out after 18 pregnancies and decided that something must be done. By using birth control, women were also given the chance to make choices of conception rather than the men having that power alone. Sanger saw birth control as a means of making men and women equal. However, Sanger also saw other benefits besides the equality of the sexes. She believed that contraceptives would lower birth rates, alter supply and demand in labor, and reduce poverty. Sanger wanted to make the world a better place as well as impliment her feminist views and gain more rights for women.
Sanger fought to end the Comstock Laws that made it illegal to talk about birth control. Sanger published a booklet which described difference contraceptives, and she began to distribute birth control, mainly condoms and diaphragms, to women in 1914. Her second husband owned a warehouse where she could illegally smuggle condoms from Europe. She began to distribute contraceptives through the mail in 1915, and in 1916 she opened a clinic where women could obtain contraceptives. In 1917 Sanger was arrested for distributing contraceptives at this health clinic in New York. She made it deliberately known that she was distributing the contraceptives in order to let the public know what she was doing and to challenge the state on the subject of women's rights.
Sanger organized the first American Birth Control Conference in 1921. In 1937 Sanger saw that some of her hard work was paying off. The American Medical Association endorsed birth control which allowed doctors to write prescriptions for the contraceptive for medical purposes. However, the government was still against the sale of contraceptives for use other than medical problems at this time. Just when things were beginning to look up for Sanger, the birth control movement came to a halt during the depression and WWII. After much time and work, in 1965 the right to use birth control in privacy for the individual was ruled in the case of Griswold vs. Connecticut. Sanger died in 1966 right before President Lyndon Johnson vowed to incorporate family planning into social welfare programs in the United States.
Sanger is classified as a progressive because of the many steps that she took to gain rights for women. Sanger wrote books, published journals, held conferences, traveled the world giving lectures, and organized clinics for health and counseling services. She worked to end the Comstock Laws, legalize contraception, incorporate the idea of family planning into the American welfare programs, and she founded the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which is still used in many countries today.
Sources for this Overview:
Chesler, Ellen. "Margaret Sanger." Nation Volume 277. (21 July 2003): 24- 26. Reproduced at Academic Search Elite.
The article focuses on the major events of Sanger's life and the dates at which these events occurred.
Douglas, Emily Taft. "Margaret Sanger: Power of the Future." (1970). Available at Duggan Library, HQ764. S3.
This is an indepth look at many aspects of the life of Margaret Sanger from childhood to the time of her death.
Kennedy, David M. "Birth Control in America." (1970). Available at Duggan Library, HQ764. S3.
This book focused on the social movements that Sanger spawned and of her fight against the law for what she believed in.
Resek, Carl. "The Progressives: Margaret Sanger Takes Up the Fight for Birth Control." (1967). Available at Duggan Library, E743. R45.
The book gives a short summary of Sanger's early life, but it focuses on her fight for women rights concerning their sexuality.
Thomas, Cathy Booth. "The Pill that Unleashed Sex." Time Volume 161. (31 March 2003): 35. Reproduced at Academic Search Elite.
The articles focused on the time that Sanger found out that laws were passed to make contraception legal. It gives slight backgound of major events in her life.
Image from Gale Biography Resource Center.