Margaret Sanger

"Margaret Sanger (1883-1966) was a leading figure in the American birth control movement. In Motherhood in Bondage, first published in 1928, Sanger reproduced letters written to her from women and sometimes men from all over the country, in both urban and rural areas, who were seeking advice on reproductive matters and marital relations, but mostly imploring her to help them find ways to avoid more pregnancies. The letters are grouped by theme into sixteen chapters, and Sanger wrote an introduction to each chapter. In her new foreword for this edition, Margaret Marsh describes the controversies surrounding these letters and places them in their historical context."--BOOK JACKET.

Promoting birth control as reform rather than revolution The birth control crusader, feminist, and reformer Margaret Sanger was one of the most controversial and dynamic figures of the twentieth century. Volume 2 chronicles Sanger's efforts during the Depression years to legalize contraception. These significant and engaging letters and writings, constructed to be read as biography, tell the story of Sanger's frank discussion of birth control before an uneasy Congress, her quest for a judicial test case, and her ongoing public relations campaign to convince Americans about the benefits of birth control despite powerful opposition from the Catholic Church. Volume 2 also documents Sanger's complicated personal life, her unstable marriage, loss of wealth, and love affairs in middle age. Covering the years of Sanger's political organizing, this volume is required reading for anyone interested in the emergence of "planned parenthood" and the life of its extraordinary leader. As with volume 1, the documents assembled here, more than eighty-five percent of them letters, were culled from the Margaret Sanger Papers Microfilm Edition, edited by Esther Katz, Cathy Moran Hajo, and Peter C. Engelman. Volume 3 will address later periods in Sanger's life, and volume 4 will cover her international work in the birth control struggle. "Against the polarized backdrop, The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger is a refreshing anecdote. . . . The editors have burrowed through an archive of more than 120,000 documents to select speeches, diary entries and, mostly, letters. The papers they've chosen reflect the commendable as well as the unsavory in Sanger's political views and personal life. . . . The two completed volumes offer a singular record of her life and times."--Nation "In this excellent volume there are no second-hand accounts, but simply Margaret Sanger writing to her friends, family, associates, and political leaders. . . . For a greater understanding of how far we have come in a relatively short span of years, this volume is essential reading for anyone involved with women's reproductive health or reproductive rights as a human right."--Population and Development Review “In uncovering these historical gems, Volume 2 makes an unmatched contribution to the study of reproductive rights, genetic inheritance, and women’s rights, and reminds us of the importance of vigilance in protecting what Sanger won.”--Ann D. Gordon, editor of The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony "Sanger comes across to readers as a human being with many dimensions, rather than merely a larger-than-life figurehead for a cause. Her foibles and eccentricities appear in the documents, along with her commanding presence as the key public leader in the effort to bring the possibility of birth control to a wide range of women who have begun to demand it. Sanger's world, with its flurry of Congressional appearances, overseas conferences, consultations with staff and medical advisors of the various organizations with which she was affiliated, comes to life through the documents chosen for inclusion in this volume."--Carolyn De Swarte Gifford, editor of Writing Out My Heart: Selections from the Journal of Frances E. Willard, 1855-96 Esther Katz is editor and director of the Margaret Sanger Papers Project and associate professor (adjunct) of history at New York University. Cathy Moran Hajo, an associate editor and the assistant director of the Margaret Sanger Papers Project, received her Ph.D in history from New York University. Peter C. Engelman is an associate editor of the Margaret Sanger Papers Project, a freelance writer, and an archivist. Amy Flanders received her doctorate from Oxford University. Her work was funded by a fellowship in historical editing provided by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

The birth control movement's continuing struggle to expand beyond barriers of race and class Birth control crusader, feminist, and reformer Margaret Sanger was one of the most controversial and dynamic figures of the twentieth century and one of the great women reformers in history. Volume 3: The Politics of Planned Parenthood, 1939–1966 of The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger highlights Sanger's quest for the "magic pill," the non-barrier method of birth control she had envisioned since the early 1930s. These lively and fascinating letters and other writings tell the story of Sanger's consequential collaboration with the philanthropist Katharine Dexter McCormick and their masterful direction of scientists, physicians, and birth control bureaucrats toward the production of the first contraceptive pill--the catalyst for the sexual revolution. Volume 3 also chronicles Sanger's attempt to guide the American birth control movement during World War II and its immediate aftermath, when many were calling for increased fertility, not family planning. And it documents her controversial efforts to expand birth control services to African Americans in the rural South and to incorporate contraceptive health care into state and federal public health programs. All the while she was engaged in a contentious battle with the leadership of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America over the direction of the movement, with Sanger pushing to revive a feminist rationale for birth control and to emphasize the needs of the poor, and the Federation looking to extend its services beyond contraception and to encourage middle-class childbearing. Constructed to be read as the last chapter of her domestic biography, this volume documents the final turbulent decades of a remarkable life and includes important material on the efforts of biographers, film makers, journalists such as the young Mike Wallace, and Sanger herself, to assess her motivations and affirm her pivotal role in the history of reproductive rights. As with volumes 1 and 2, the documents assembled here, more than eighty-four percent of them letters, were culled from the Margaret Sanger Papers Microfilm Edition, edited by Esther Katz, Cathy Moran Hajo, and Peter C. Engelman. Volume 4 will cover Sanger's international work in the birth control struggle. "This volume provides accurate, dramatic context to the often conflicting struggle to make birth control acceptable in American culture and to make it a global movement. Katz, Hajo, and Engelman have produced an edition that is useful to biographers, scholars, students, and the inquisitive policy maker. I give it my highest recommendation."--Allida M. Black, editor and director of The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project Esther Katz is editor and director of the Margaret Sanger Papers Project and associate professor (adjunct) of history at New York University. Cathy Moran Hajo is an associate editor of the Margaret Sanger Papers Project and an adjunct assistant professor in New York University's Archives and Public History Program. Peter C. Engelman is an associate editor of the Margaret Sanger Papers Project, a freelance writer, and an archivist.

"Arguably her most important and influential book, this controversial work, first published in 1922 by pioneering birth-control advocate Margaret Sanger, attempted to broaden the still-radical idea of birth control beyond its socialist and feminist roots. Moving away from a single-minded focus on women's reproductive rights to the larger issue of the general health and economic prosperity of the whole human race, Sanger argued that birth control was pivotal to a rational approach toward dealing with the threat of overpopulation and its ruinous consequences in poverty and disease. Through this book Sanger hoped to persuade the medical establishment to assume control over contraceptive distribution, and thereby to lessen the religious, legal, and moral opposition that continued to restrict access to contraceptive information." - Amazon Includes and introduction by H.G. Wells. Includes primary source documents.