The Birth
control movement was founded during the progressive era; at the turn of the
twentieth century, aspects of life began to change. Political, social, and
economic reforms emerged with the progressive ideas of the time. One of the
most important changes that took place in women’s lives was the ability to control
their own fertility. Barrier and chemical contraception—including condoms,
cervical caps, womb veils, and douches—had circulated widely in America in the
nineteenth century, precipitating a dramatic decline in fertility. This
development, in turn, fueled a national preoccupation with moral and social
purity. In the 1870s, the Comstock Laws had outlawed the distribution of birth
control information and devices through the mail, the federal government and
almost every state adopted far-reaching obscenity statutes that criminalized
contraception and abortion and prohibited the distribution of information or
products intended to promote their use. Women wanted men to hold the same
standards of sexual conducts as women, promoting sexual education, and asserting
the right of wives to refuse sex within marriage.
By 1910, a former Nurse named Margaret Sanger began publishing articles on birth control, and founded the National Birth Control League (NBCL). While Sanger was in Europe, the NBCL was reorganized by Mary Dennett and eventually converted into the Voluntary Parenthood League. Margaret Sanger first drew support from labor organizers and other leftists. “No Gods, No Masters,” the rallying cry of the International Workers of the World, became her personal and political manifesto. Even as the two women jousted for celebrity and quarreled over personal differences, Sanger, inspired by Emma Goldman, published The Woman Rebel (1914), a radical journal that encouraged personal autonomy for women through the use of “birth control,” a phrase she invented to give them an easy way of talking about a delicate subject in public.
In 1916, Sanger opened the country’s first birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New York. Police shut it down ten days later, Sanger and a few of her supporters were subsequently arrested and convicted under the Comstock Laws. “No woman can call herself free,” she insisted, “until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.”
In 1922, Sanger founded the American Birth Control League (ABCL). Many years later, the ABCL was converted into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Birth control, Sanger argued, would enhance the opportunities of women beyond the promises of economic reformers on the one hand and of suffragists on the other. It would be a tool for the fundamental redistribution of power. Women would achieve personal freedom by experiencing their sexuality free of consequence, just as men have always done.
As founder of Planned Parenthood, her work resulted in the development of the birth control pill, which appeared in 1960.
By 1910, a former Nurse named Margaret Sanger began publishing articles on birth control, and founded the National Birth Control League (NBCL). While Sanger was in Europe, the NBCL was reorganized by Mary Dennett and eventually converted into the Voluntary Parenthood League. Margaret Sanger first drew support from labor organizers and other leftists. “No Gods, No Masters,” the rallying cry of the International Workers of the World, became her personal and political manifesto. Even as the two women jousted for celebrity and quarreled over personal differences, Sanger, inspired by Emma Goldman, published The Woman Rebel (1914), a radical journal that encouraged personal autonomy for women through the use of “birth control,” a phrase she invented to give them an easy way of talking about a delicate subject in public.
In 1916, Sanger opened the country’s first birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New York. Police shut it down ten days later, Sanger and a few of her supporters were subsequently arrested and convicted under the Comstock Laws. “No woman can call herself free,” she insisted, “until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.”
In 1922, Sanger founded the American Birth Control League (ABCL). Many years later, the ABCL was converted into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Birth control, Sanger argued, would enhance the opportunities of women beyond the promises of economic reformers on the one hand and of suffragists on the other. It would be a tool for the fundamental redistribution of power. Women would achieve personal freedom by experiencing their sexuality free of consequence, just as men have always done.
As founder of Planned Parenthood, her work resulted in the development of the birth control pill, which appeared in 1960.