Woman of Valor (100 page)
Authors: Ellen Chesler
23.
Sensitive to historical and current allegations of discrimination, Planned Parenthood in recent years has made considerable progress in increasing and monitoring the racial and ethnic diversity of its staff and volunteers so as to reflect the minority population it serves, which has grown in proportion to the size of that population in the country generally.
24.
See herein, pp. 296-97.
25.
Carole R. McCann,
Birth Control Politics
(Ithaca: 1994), pp. 99-134.
26.
See herein, pp. 296-97, 388-90.
27.
See herein, p. 324, and Earl Conrad, “American Viewpoint on U.S. Birth and Bias Control,”
The Chicago Defender
, Sept. 22, 1945, quoted in “Sanger Interview with the Chicago Defender,”
Margaret Sanger Papers Project Newsletter
42 (Spring 2006), pp. 5-6. Sanger is quoted here as saying: “Discrimination is a world-wide thing, it has to be opposed everywhere. That is why I feel the Negro's plight here is linked with that of the oppressed around the globe.â¦The big answer, as I see it, is the education of the white man. The white man is the problem. It is the same as with the Nazis. We must change the white attitudes. That is where it lies.â¦One thing that is helpful is to have people working together. When you have Negroes working with whites you have the break-down of barriers, the beginning of progress.â¦Negro participation in planned parenthood means democratic participation in a democratic idea. Like other democratic ideas, planned parenthood places greater value on human life and the dignity of each person.”
28.
“Searching for Sanger in the Land of Google,”
Margaret Sanger Papers Project Newsletter
42 (Spring 2006), pp. 1-4. Also see Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Family Planning, A Special and Urgent Concern,” remarks on his acceptance of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Margaret Sanger Award, May 5, 1966, at www.plannedparenthood.org.
29.
On the resilience of eugenic practices in the U.S. see Johanna Schoen,
Choice & Coercion
, 2005; Wendy Kline,
Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexu
ality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom
(Berkeley, California: 2001); and Alexandra Minna Stern,
Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America
(Berkeley, California: 2005).
30.
Elizabeth Watkins Segal,
On the Fill
(Baltimore: 1998); and Claudia Goldin and Laurence F. Katz, “The Power of the Pill: Oral Contraceptives and Women's Career and Marriage Decisions,”
Journal of Political Economy
110:4 (2002), pp. 730-70.
31.
Richard Wolin, “Foucault the Neohumanist?,
The Chronicle of Higher Education
, 53:2 (September 1, 2006), pp. 12-14, contains a provocative discussion of the tensions in Foucault's writings between his early celebration of nonconformity and difference, for which he has been canonized, and a later reconsideration of humanist values and liberal political traditions guaranteeing individual rights and expanding civic freedom that he had once rejected as inherently suppressive. For contrasting analyses of the politics of disciplining reproduction, also see Adele M. Clarke,
Disciplining Reproduction: Modernity, American Life Sciences, and “the Problems of Sex”
(Berkeley, California: 1998), and Michelle Murphy, “Liberation through Control in the Body Politics of U.S. Radical Feminism,” in Lorraine Daston and Fernando Vidal, eds.,
The Moral Authority of Nature
(Chicago: 2004).
This book is based on intensive primary research in archival records and in books, periodicals, and newspapers. Most important were the hundreds of thousands of letters and documents in the Margaret Sanger Papers at the Library of Congress and at Smith College, but many additional collections were consulted to provide context for the viewpoints expressed by Sanger and her associates.
Archival research was then supplemented by personal interviews and by an extensive reading of secondary literature in American social and political history, women's history and women's studies, psychology, demography, family planning, and population policy.
ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS:
British Museum
, Manuscripts Division, London, England.
Marie Stopes Papers
Cardiff University Library
, Manuscripts Division, Cardiff, Wales International Planned Parenthood Federation Papers
Catholic University
, Manuscripts Division, Washington, D.C.
John A. Ryan Papers
National Catholic Welfare Conference Papers
Countway Library of Medicine
, Harvard University, Boston, Mass.
Robert Latou Dickinson, M.D. Papers
Abraham Stone, M.D. Papers
Clarence Gamble, M.D. Papers
Norman Himes, Ph.D. Papers
Alan Guttmacher, M.D. Papers
Dartmouth College Library
, Manuscripts Division, Hanover, New Hampshire Margaret Sanger correspondence with Juliet Rublee
Houghton Library
, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
American Birth Control League Papers
Indiana University Institute for Sex Research
, Bloomington, Indiana Alfred E. Kinsey, Ph.D. Papers
International Institute of Social History
, Netlau and Freedom Collections, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (inquiry by mail).
Library of Congress
, Washington, D.C.
Congressional Hearings, 1931-1934
Margaret Sanger Papers
Gregory Pincus Papers
National Archives
, Washington, D.C.
U.S. Senate Bill Records
U.S. Supreme Court Records
New York Public Library
, Manuscripts Division, New York, N.Y.
Carlo Tresca Papers
Rosika Schwimmer Papers
New York University Bobst Library, Tamiment Institute
, New York, N.Y.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Papers
Emma Goldman Papers
Eugene V. Debs Papers on University Microfilm
New York Local Socialist Party Letterbooks, 1910-12
New York State Legislature, Lusk Commission
Investigation of Radicals in New York State, 1917-18, on microfilm.
U.S. Military Intelligence Reports, Surveillance of Radicals in the United States, 1917-1941, on University Microfilm. Titles examined included
Socialist Activities in New York City
, 1918, and
Emma Goldman, Alexander Shapiro, and Alexander Berkman
, 1918
Rockefeller Archives
, Pocantico Hills, New York
Bureau of Social Hygiene Papers
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Papers
John D. Rockefeller III Papers
The Population Council Papers
Rutgers University Library
, Manuscripts Division, New Brunswick, N.J.
Modern School Asssociation Papers
Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library
, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Mass.
Mary S. Calderone Papers
Morris Ernst Papers
Mary Ware Dennett Papers
Sophia Smith Collection
, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.
Margaret Sanger Papers
Planned Parenthood Federation of America Papers
Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts Papers
Dorothy Brush Papers
Florence Rose Papers
Blanche Ames Ames Papers
Florence Guertin Tuttle Papers
Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine
, London, England
Marie Stopes Papers
Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscripts Library
, New Haven, Conn.
Mabel Dodge Luhan Papers
Yale University Sterling Library
, Manuscripts Division, New Haven, Conn.
Rose Pastor Stokes Papers
UNCOLLECTED PAPERS:
Letters of Margaret Sanger to Françoise Lafitte Cyon in the possession of François Lafitte, Birmingham, England. (Recently given to the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College.)
Margaret Sanger Center Collection, Planned Parenthood Federation of New York City, New York, N.Y. (Also given to the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College.)
Margaret Sanger Collection, Katharine Dexter McCormick Library, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, New York, N.Y.
New York Academy of Medicine, New York, N.Y.
Planned Parenthood Federation, Chicago Area, Chicago, Ill.
Planned Parenthood Association of San Francisco and Alameda County
Margaret Sanger's correspondence is currently being collected, organized, and microfilmed under the direction of Esther Katz, Ph.D., the Margaret Sanger Papers Project, Department of History, New York University, New York, N.Y.
PERSONAL INTERVIEWS:
Cheri Appel, M.D., New York, N.Y.
Rada Bercovici, New York, N.Y.
Katherine Bredt, New Jersey (by telephone)
Gerda Bruno, M.D., Lawrence, Kansas (with Regina Markell Morantz, 1976)
Charles and Ellen Brush, New York, N.Y.
Nelle Dick, Miami, Fla. (by phone)
Frances Ferguson, New York, N.Y.
Paula Gould, New York, N.Y.
Joan Sanger Hoppe, Great Barrington, Mass. (by phone)
Frederick Jaffe, New York, N.Y.
Sylvia Dick Karas, New York, N.Y. (by phone)
Taki Kato Katoh, Tokyo, Japan (by phone) and New York, N.Y.
Lawrence Lader, New York, N.Y.
François Lafitte, Ph.D., Birmingham, England
Mary Lasker, New York, N.Y.
Charlotte Levine, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Margaret Sanger Marston, Washington, D.C.
Sumiko Ohmori, New York, N.Y.
Harriet Pilpel, Esq., New York, N.Y.
Olive Byrne Richard, Indian Wells, Florida
Alexander Campbell Sanger, Esq., New York, N.Y.
Grant Sanger, M.D., New York, N.Y.
Stuart Sanger, M.D. and Barbara Sanger, Green Valley and Tucson, Ariz.
Grace Sternberg, Tucson, Ariz.
Greta Titche, Tucson, Ariz.
Anthony West, Fishers Island, N.Y. (by phone)
Joseph Wortis, M.D., Brooklyn, N.Y.
TRANSCRIBED INTERVIEWS:
Schlesinger Library Oral History Project on the History of Women in the Population Control and Abortion Movements
Elizabeth Arnold, R.N. (with James Reed)
Mary S. Calderone, M.D. (with James Reed)
Arlene Carmen (with Ellen Chesler)
Loraine Leeson Campbell (with James Reed)
Martha May Eliot, M.D. (with Jeanette Cheek)
Frances Hand Ferguson (with James Reed)
Estelle Griswold (with Jeanette Cheek)
Mrs. Alan F. Guttmacher (with James Reed)
Emily Mudd, M.D. (with James Reed)
Sarah Marcus, M.D. (with Ellen Chesler)
Lonny Myers, M.D. (with Ellen Chesler)
Grant Sanger, M.D. (with Ellen Chesler)
Sophia Smith Collection
Nancy Sanger Ivins and Margaret Sanger Marston (with Jacqueline Van Voris)
Olive Byrne Richard (with Jacqueline Van Voris)
Columbia University Oral History Project
Roger N. Baldwin (with Harlan B. Phillips and Thomas F. Hagan)
Jonah J. Goldstein (with Neil Newton Gold)
Mildred Gilman (with Pauline Madow)
MAJOR NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS EXAMINED FOR ARTICLES BY AND ABOUT MARGARET SANGER AND THE BIRTH CONTROL MOVEMENT (INCHRONOLOGICALORDER). FOR CITATIONS TO INDIVIDUAL ARTICLES IN THESE PUBLICATIONS AND OTHERS, PLEASE SEE THE ENDNOTES AND FOOTNOTES.
The Corning Democrat
, 1878-1894.
The Call
, 1911-1916.
The Masses
, 1914-1917.
Mother Earth
, 1910-1917.
The Woman Rebel
, 1914.
Revolutionary Almanac
, 1914.
The Blast
, 1916.
The Modern School Magazine
, 1914-1915.
Revolt
, 1915-1916.
New York Medical Journal
, 1917.
The New York Times
, 1912-1966.
New York Herald
, 1915-1917.
New York Herald Tribune
, 1921-1940.
New York World
, 1920s.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
, 1916-1917.
The New Republic
, 1914-1945.
Ecclesiastical Review
, 1915-1925.
Current Opinion
, 1915-1922.
Survey
, 1917-1925.
The Birth Control Review
, 1917-1938.
The Nation
, 1920-1950.
Harper's Weekly and Harper's Monthly Magazine
, 1915-1930.
Metropolitan Magazine
, 1917.
Eugenics Review
, 1920s.
Woman Citizen
, 1920s
The New Yorker
, 1925-1940.
The Atlantic Monthly
, 1920s.
Journal of the American Medical Association
, 1920-1937.
Medical Journal and Record
, 1920s.
American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
, 1920-1935.
American Journal of Public Health
, 1920-30.
American Journal of Sociology
, 1930s.
The Ladies' Home Journal
, 1917-1940.
McCall's Monthly Magazine
, 1920s-1930s.
Congressional Digest
, 1931-1936.
The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly
, 1923-1940.
The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
, 1931-1932.
Catholic World
, 1930s.
News-Week and Newsweek
, 1930s.
Time
, 1930s.
Fortune
, 1930s.
Life
, 1937-1960s.
Look
, 1939.
Asia
, 1936.
Journal of Contraception
, 1935-1939.
Human Fertility
, 1940-1948.
Ecclesiastical Review
, 1916-1930s.
The Catholic Charities Review
, 1920s-1930s.
Commonweal
, 1930s, 1950s, early 1960s.
Catholic World
, 1930s.
Science
, 1955-1965.
Family Planning Perspectives
, 1967-1978.
The Journal of American History
, 1970s, 1980s.
The Journal of Social History
, 1970s.
The New York Review of Books
, 1970s, 1980s.
Signs, Journal of Women in Culture and Society
, 1970s, 1980s.
American Quarterly
, 1977.
Feminist Studies
, 1970s, 1980s.
Journal of Women's History
, 1989-1990.
Gloria Moore and Ronald Moore,
Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement, A Bibliography, 1911-1984
(Metuchen, N. J. and London, 1986) provides an invaluable retrospective and chronologically ordered bibliography of books and articles by and about Margaret Sanger, which regrettably only came to my attention after much of the research for this study was complete.
PRINTED PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCES:
Sophie D. Aberle and George W. Corner,
Twenty-Five Years of Sex Research: History of the National Research Council Committee for Research in Problems of Sex, 1922-1947
(Philadelphia: 1953).
M.J. Akbar,
Nehru: The Making of India
(New York: 1989).
Christopher Anderson,
Young Kate
(New York: 1988).
William Archer,
The Life, Trial and Death of Francisco Ferrer
(London: 1911).
Paul Avrich,
The Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States
(Princeton: 1980).
J.A. and Olive Banks,
Feminism & Family Planning in Victorian England
(New York: 1972).
Alex Baskin,
Margaret Sanger
, The Woman Rebel
and the Rise of the Birth Control Movement in the United States
(Stonybrook, New York: 1976).
Mary Catherine Bateson,
With a Daughter's Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson
(New York: 1984).
Rosalyn Fraad Baxandall,
Words on Fire: The Life and Writing of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
(New Brunswick, New Jersey & London: 1987).
Mary R. Beard,
Woman as Force in History: A Study in Traditions and Realities
(New York & London: 1973). Originally published in 1946.
Mary R. Beard and Dorothy Brush,
The Force of Women in Japanese History
(New York: 1953).
August Bebel,
Woman and Socialism
(New York: 1910). Gilbert W. Beebe,
Contraception and Fertility in the Southern Appalachians
(Baltimore, Md.: 1942).
Quentin Bell,
Virginia Woolf: A Biography
(New York: 1972).
Irving Bernstein,
Promises Kept: John F. Kennedy's New Frontier
(New York: 1991).
Annie Besant,
The Law of Population
(London: 1884).
Winfield Best and Frederick S. Jaffe, eds.,
Simple Methods of Contraception: An Assessment of their Medical, Moral and Social Implications
(New York:1958).
Dorothy Bocker, M.D.,
Birth Control Methods
(New York: 1924).
Allan M. Brandt,
No Magic Bullet: A Social History of Venereal Disease in The United States Since 1880
(New York: 1985).
Edward Brecher,
The Sex Researchers
(New York: 1969). Keith Briant,
Passionate Paradox: The Life of Marie Stopes
(New York: 1962).