Margaret Sanger
The American social reformer, Margaret Sanger (b. September 14, 1879, as Margaret Louisa Higgins; d. September 6, 1966) "almost single-handedly founded the birth control movement in America and was the driving force in the development of modern contraceptives."[1] "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." [2]
Early life
Born Margaret Louisa Higgins in Corning, NY, she was one of 11 children.
Education
Training as a nurse
Marriage to William Sanger
Establishment of birth control clinics
The Comstock laws
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)
References
- ↑ "Margaret Sanger," in American Decades. Gale Research, 1998. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007)
- ↑ 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)
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.
- Margaret Sanger, Esther Katz, Peter C. Engelman, Cathy Moran Hajo, The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger: Volume 2: Birth Control Comes of Age, 1928-1939. University of Illinois Press, 2007. ISBN 025202737X, ISBN 9780252027376, 528 pages. Link contains excerpts.
- From the publisher: This volume covers a twenty-eight-year period from her nurse's training and early socialist involvement in pre-World War I Greenwich Village to her adoption of birth control (a term she helped coin in 1914) as a fundamental tenet of women's rights. It also highlights her legislative and organizational efforts, her support of the eugenics movement, and the alliances she secured with medical professionals in her quest to make birth control legal, respectable, and accessible. Supplemented by an introduction, brief essays providing narrative and chronological links, and substantial notes, the volume is an invaluable tool for understanding Sanger's actions and accomplishments.
External links
- The Margaret Sanger Papers Project (full text with free registration) [1]