SANGER, MARGARET

(1879–1966)

Pioneer of the birth control movement in America, and internationally, Margaret Sanger arguably achieved more for reproductive choice than any other person in the twentieth century. The sixth of eleven children, Sanger was strongly influenced by her Freethinker, Irish father, Michael Higgins. Working as a nurse in New York, she saw what she called "the turbid ebb and flow of misery," and became convinced of women's need for birth control information. The 1873 Comstock Law prohibited distribution of such information through the U.S. mail. In 1914, Sanger was prosecuted under this law for the content of her magazine The Woman Rebel, although the case was eventually dropped. In 1916, she founded the American Birth Control League and was imprisoned briefly for opening a birth control clinic, the first in America, in Brooklyn. By curtailing her socialist views, she garnered substantial middle-class support for her cause. Partial victory was achieved in the Crane decision of 1918, in which the law was amended to permit contraceptive advice as a medical therapy.

Sanger had fled to England in 1914 to avoid prosecution and during that time she associated with members of the Malthusian League and with English psychologist and writer Havelock Ellis (1859–1939). In the 1920s, her interest in world population issues grew. Like many in her generation, she espoused eugenics. She was instrumental in setting up the first World Population Conference, in Geneva in 1927, which brought together the leading demographers of the time. Birth control, however, was deemed too sensitive to be discussed, and her own role in the meeting was kept at a low profile, although she did edit the published proceedings. An outgrowth of this conference was the establishment of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population Problems.

Sanger was a timid but effective speaker and a master of publicity. Her 1938 autobiography, a number of laudatory biographies, and a tract from a Catholic publisher (entitled Killer Angel), focus on her early turbulent years. However, two of Sanger's greatest achievements came when she was over 70. In 1951, she challenged Gregory Pincus, the reproductive physiologist, to develop the "perfect contraceptive." With financial help from Sanger's friend, the philanthropist Katherine McCormick, Pincus and his colleagues went on to develop the first birth control pill in 1960. In 1952, in Bombay, Sanger played a key role in founding the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and became its first president.

Powered by an unshakeable belief in her cause, Sanger's protest against an unjust law grew into a crusade that changed the way women in America–and in a growing number of other countries–live.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

SELECTED WORKS BY MARGARET SANGER.

Sanger, Margaret. 1970 [1938]. An Autobiography. New York: Maxwell.

SELECTED WORKS ABOUT MARGARET SANGER.

Asbell, Bernard. 1995. The Pill: A Biography of the Drug that Changed the World. New York: Random House.

Gray, Madeline. 1979. Margaret Sanger: A Biography of the Champion of Birth Control. New York: Richard Marek Publishers.

Moore, Gloria, and Ronald Moore. 1986. Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement: A Bibliography, 1911–1984. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press.