Margaret Sanger

Margaret Sanger (September 14, 1879- 1966) "almost single-handedly founded the birth control movement in America and was the driving force in the development of modern contraceptives."(reference for quote (Margaret Sanger," in American Decades. Gale Research, 1998 Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007). "Sanger has been praised as a brave advocate of sexual liberation and reproductive autonomy for women, and damned as a racist and eugenicist who advocated sterilization of the "unfit" and helped to create a culture in which millions of the "unborn" are murdered through contraception and inducted abortion." (reference for quote:Reed, James :The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger, Vol. 1, The Woman Rebel, 1900-1928 (review) Bulletin of the History of Medicine - Volume 78, Number 1, Spring 2004, pp. 237-238)

Early life

Born Margaret Louisa Higgins in Corning, NY, she was one of 11 children.

Founded organizations for public education in contraception

• National Birth Control League in 1914

• Planned Parenthood Foundation of America in 1921

Oral contraceptives

"Sanger in 1950 enlisted the aid of Gregory Pincus, a reproductive biologist at the Worcester Foundation in Massachusetts. Pincus's research led to the development of the birth control pill, and Sanger would be credited as one of the "mothers" of "the pill.""((Margaret Sanger," in American Decades. Gale Research, 1998 Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007)

Further reading

• David M. Kennedy, Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991) ISBN 9781597401784
• Ellen Chesler, Woman of Valor. Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992 )ISBN 9780385469807
• Margaret Sanger, An Autobiography (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1938) ISBN 9780486434926.

External links

• The Margaret Sanger Papers Project (full text with free registration) [1]