Margaret Sanger campaigns for birth control
Underwood & Underwood. Margaret Sanger, half-length portrait, seated behind desk, surrounded by twelve other women / Underwood & Underwood Studios, N.Y. Circa 1920. Library of Congress.
One hundred years ago today … Margaret Sanger advocated for women's bodily autonomy. Sanger debated the decriminalization of birth control, and other birth control issues, against Winter Russell, attorney, at the Parkview Palace at 110 Street and Fifth Avenue.
Sanger, Margaret, 1879-1966, and Emma Sargent Russell. Debate On Birth Control. New York, NY: Fine Arts Guild, 1921. Hathitrust.
The event was sponsored by the Fine Arts Guild, 27 West 84 Street, which subsequently printed up a transcript. Read it here.
Margaret Sanger, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front, circa 1920. Library of Congress.
The Tribune covered the debate, noting that Sanger was “pleading” for "voluntary motherhood."
New York Tribune, 13 December 1920, p. 11. Chronicling America.
Sanger was campaigning hard for decriminalization of birth control. On December 4, she had lectured at Labor Temple, 242 East 14 Street, the first in a series of talks with the Guild's backing. The Tablet saw fit to notice that the event went "uninterfered with by the police."
Tablet, 11 December 1920, p. 4. Chronicling America.
On December 8, she had been honored by the New York Women Publishing Company at a luncheon where she attacked the Comstock Act, the 1873 law that outlawed contraceptive devices, and made clear her case that women's rights were also an issue of population control.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 9 December 1920, p. 18. Chronicling America.
– Jonathan Goldman, December 12, 2020
TAGS: Women's rights, gender, sex, overpopulation, Catholicism, law, parenting, family planning