Margaret Sanger, America’s birth control pioneer, was instrumental in the defeat of “Comstock” laws that made it a crime to distribute information about contraceptive techniques. Sanger and her sister, Ethel Byrne, were both imprisoned several times for violations of Comstock laws. She coined the phrase “birth control” after noticing that in countries with lower birth rates, the percentage of infants who survived increased. Sanger opened the United States’ first birth control clinic in 1916. In 1921, she founded the American Birth Control League—the organization now known as Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Born Margaret Higgins in 1879, Sanger, the sixth of 11 children, grew up in an industrial neighborhood in Corning, New York. Her mother, Anne, suffered from tuberculosis, which was aggravated by 18 pregnancies and 7 miscarriages. The family grew more impoverished with each of the 11 children. Sanger’s father, Michael, was a tombstone engraver. He was a well-read,...
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Suggested Reading
Gray, M. (1979). Margaret Sanger, A biography of the champion of birth control. New York: Richard Marek.
Werner, V. (1970). Margaret Sanger: Woman rebel. New York: Hawthorne Books.
Suggested Resources
New York University. (2003). The Margaret Sanger papers project. Retrieved July 9, 2003 from http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger
Planned Parenthood Federation of America. (2003). Retrieved March 31, 2003 from http://www.plannedparenthood.org
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Hampton, P. (2004). Sanger, Margaret. In: Encyclopedia of Women’s Health. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-306-48113-0_387
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