Woman of Valor (79 page)

23.
M.S. to Theodore Debs, Feb. 20, 1918, Mar. 4, 1918, Aug. 21, 1918, and M.S. to Eugene V. Debs (in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta), Oct. 17, 1921, all in the Debs Papers, Tamiment-NYU. On the exception she made in 1928 to her usual vote for Norman Thomas, see M.S., Journal, Willowlake, Oct. 1, 1928, MS-SS, and H.E. to M.S., Oct. 26, 1928. In 1932, she told Ellis that she again voted for Thomas, though her sons voted for Roosevelt, M.S. to H.E., Nov. 29, 1932, MS-LC. See Chap. 16. On her opposition to John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election, see the correspondence with Norman Thomas, MS-SS. See Chap. 20.

24.
The article from
The Call
, Feb. 29, 1919, is cited in Janice R. and Stephen R. MacKinnon,
Agnes Smedley: The Life and Times of an American Radical
(Berkeley: 1988), p. 66. Also see, Bill Haywood to M.S., n.d. (1919), MS-SS, and M.S. to Rose Pastor Stokes, Feb. 5, 1925, and Stokes to M.S., March 12, 1925, RPS, Tamiment-NYU.

25.
Haven Emerson, M.D., commissioner of health, to George H. Bell, New York City Department of Licenses, May 11, 1917, copy in MS-LC.
The New York Times
, Mar. 28, 1917, 11:2; May 7, 1917, 18:4; June 7, 1917, 10:7; and July 14, 1917, 7:3. Also see clipping from the
New York World
, May 7, 1917, Scrapbooks, MS-LC. All copies of the film were destroyed, but several still transparencies remain in MS-SS, and several were reproduced as still photographs for an advertisement in
Birth Control Review
1:3 (Apr.-May 1917), p. 11. On the National Birth Control League's support for the film, see Mary Ware Dennett memo on wartime activities of the NBCL in RPS-Yale. Also, Sanger,
Autobiography
, p. 252.

26.
Theodore Roosevelt, “Birth Control from the Positive Side,”
Metropolitan Magazine
, 46:5 (Oct. 1917), p. 5. Margaret Sanger, “Birth Control: Margaret Sanger's Reply to Theodore Roosevelt,”
Metropolitan Magazine
47:1 (Dec. 1917), p. 66.

27.
The figure of twenty leagues is taken from pp. 16-17 of a pamphlet called
The Birth Control Movement
published by the National Birth Control League in 1917, in MS-SS. On the general tone of the
Review
, see Frederick Blossom to “Dear Comrades,” n.d. (1917), MS-LC: and “To the Men and Women of the United States,”
Birth Control Review
1:2 (Feb. 1917), introduction. Pacifist sentiment is in M.S., “Woman and War,”
BCR
1:3 (Apr. 1917), p. 5;
BCR
1:4 (June 1917), cover; and
BCR
1:6 (Nov. 1918), p. 4.

28.
M.S. to Frederick Blossom, July 2, Oct. 15, Oct. 22, 1917, MS-LC; Blossom to M.S., Oct. 11, Oct. 18, and Nov. 13, 1917, Jan. 16, 1918, MS-LC. A copy of Sanger's sworn statement to the district attorney “State of New York, City of New York, Margaret H. Sanger, being duly sworn,” is included with these materials. Also see Blossom to “My dear Judge,” May 18, 1918; Jonah Goldstein to “Birth Control League of New York,” June 7, 1918; M.S. to Jonah Goldstein, June 5, 1918; Cerise Carmen Jack to M.S., June 7, 1918, all in MS-LC. Sanger's subsequent accounts are in Margaret Sanger, “A Statement of Facts--An Obligation Fulfilled,”
Birth Control Review
2:6 (June 1918), pp. 3-4, and in M.S. to Juliet Rublee, Aug. 10, n.d. (1918), MS-DC; in M.S. to Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Nov. 3, 1922, MS-LC; and in William Williams to M.S., “Saturday,” n.d. (1917), MS-SS. Finally, see Francis Vreeland, “The Process of Reform with Reference to Reform Groups in the Field of Population,” doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, 1929, p. 90.

29.
“M.W. Dennett Reports on Eastern States Birth Control Conference,”
Birth Control Review
2:5 (June 1918), p. 17. Mary Ware Dennett statement, Nov. 18, 1921, MS-LC. On tensions between the NBCL and the NYBCL, see Marion Rawson to “Mrs. Max Heidelberg,” Jan. 24, 1917, and Frederick Blossom to “Mrs. Carey,” Jan. 17, 1917, both in RPS-Yale. On NBCL support of Sanger after her split with Blossom, see Virginia Heidelberg to Rose Pastor Stokes, Mar. 1, 1918, and an enclosure reporting wartime progress, RPS-Yale. Finally see, “The Fight from Coast to Coast,”
BCR
, 2:3, (Mar. 1918), pp. 5-6.

30.
Gertrude Pinchot to M.S., April 16, 1917, MS-LC; M.S. to Mrs. Willard Straight, June 13, 1917, MS-LC; M.S. to Juliet Rublee, Feb 21, n.d. (1918) and August 10, n.d. (1918), both in MS-DC. On financial conditions when Blossom left, see “statement of loans to and notes for
The Review
,” and M.S. to Postmaster, New York City, both in MS-LC.

31.
See the Sanger-Rublee correspondence in MS-SS and MS-DC, passim; the Schlesinger Library Grant Sanger interview, pp. 6-8; and “George Rublee,” in
Who's Who in America
, 1930-31. A personal perspective on Rublee is in Frances Hand Ferguson's June 3, 1974 interview with James Reed in the Schlesinger Library Oral History Collection. Ferguson, the daughter of Learned Hand, became president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in the 1950s. Her mother had been a close friend and Cornish, New Hampshire neighbor of Rublee.

32.
M.S. to Juliet Rublee, Feb. 21, n.d. (1918), Aug. 10, n.d. (1918), and n.d. (1918-1920), all in MS-DC. M.S. to Rose Pastor Stokes, Dec. 4, 1917, RPS-Yale, also makes clear that she was fitting pessaries.

33.
A miscellaneous file of early
Birth Control Review
documents is in MSSS, Box 132, including handwritten statements of credits and disbursements for May of either 1918 or 1919 that list the directors on the letterhead. Minutes of the directors' meeting for Feb. 14, 1919, talk of including labor. Stock certificates in Margaret's name, dated Apr. and Nov. 1918, and for Jan. 15, 1922 (she owned only a handful of shares), are in MS-LC. On Florence Guertin Tuttle, see her unpublished “Autobiography” and a typewritten biographical statement in the Florence Guertin Tuttle papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.

34.
Compare, for example, Walter Roberts, “Birth Control and the Revolution,”
Birth Control Review
1:3 (Mar.-Apr., 1917) p. 7, to three articles in
BCR
3:10 (Oct. 1919), on tuberculosis, infant mortality, and the defective child. An account of the Agnes Smedley arrest is in MacKinnon,
Agnes Smedley
, pp. 48-49, which cites articles in
The Call
and
The New York Times
for the assertion that Smedley's indictment actually included charges against local ordinances prohibiting the dissemination of birth control information. Ruth Price, however, who is also working on a book about Smedley, says that she has found no such charges in the court records. The resolution quoted is in
BCR
documents at MS-SS, Box 132. Endorsers included Mrs. Frank Cothren, who followed Rublee as president, Francis Ackermann, the treasurer, Mary Ware Dennett, Ethel Byrne, Jessie Ashley, and Juliet Rublee.

35.
Margaret Sanger, “Large Families and the Steel Strike,”
Birth Control Review
4:1 (Jan. 1920), p. 11; editorial, “A Birth Strike to Avert World Famine,” p. 1; and “The Call to Women,”
BCR
4:2 (Feb. 1920), pp. 3-4. Mary Ware Dennett to the board of directors of the New York Woman's Publishing Company, Jan. 20, 1920, MS-LC. Mary Ware Dennett to Marie Stopes, Jan. 27, 1920, Stopes-BM. Also see minutes of the board of directors of the N.Y. Women's Publishing Committee, MS-SS.

36.
The material in quotation is from Kitty Marion, “Hail and Farewell,”
The Birth Control Review
, 14:2 (Mar. 1930), p. 92; Agnes Smedley to M.S., Nov. 1, 1918; and Agnes Smedley,“Cell-Mate, No. 4,” n.d. (1918), both in MS-LC. Also see Margaret Sanger, “Trapped,”
BCR
2:9 (Oct. 1918), p. 3; Kitty Marion, “Scattered Memories,”
BCR
5:9 (Sept. 1921), p. 11; “Kitty Marion,”
BCR
, 12:1 (Jan. 1928), p. 30. On police interference see Jonah Goldstein to Frederick Blossom, Apr. 18, 1917; F.B. to Police Commissioner Arthur Woods, Apr. 25, 1917, and Woods to F.B., June 19, 1917; unsigned vendor to Jonah Goldstein, Oct. 2, 1919; R. E. Enright, police commissioner of the City of New York to M.S., July 15, 1919; and Enright to Jonah Goldstein, Oct. 21,1919, all in MS-LC.

37.
Blanche Ames, “Margaret Sanger's Influence,” remarks prepared for a celebration of Margaret's seventy-fifth (actually her seventy-ninth) birthday in 1958, p. 7, in the Blanche Ames papers at the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, hereinafter BA-SS.
Daughter of a Union Army general, Adelbert Ames, and wife of Oakes Ames, a Harvard University botanist, Mrs. Ames had a distinguished career as a botanical illustrator and birth control activist. She had four children, including Amyas Ames and Pauline Ames Plimpton, mother of the irreverent writer, George Plimpton, who was shipped down as a child to his grandmother's Florida retirement estate when his mother despaired of ever disciplining him herself. See biographical data and miscellaneous family correspondence in BA-SS.

38.
On the Allison case, see “V.K. Allison…Jailed for Three Years,”
The Masses
, 8:2 (Sept. 1916), p. 15., and F. C. Cowan, “Memorandum Concerning the Case of Commonwealth v. Allison 227 Mass. 57 (May 24, 1917),” dated Mar. 14, 1950, in the Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, hereinafter, PPLM-SS. On reaction to Ames, see clipping from the
Boston Post
, Nov. 26, 1916, BA-SS. On Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and progress of other local efforts, see “The Fight from Coast to Coast,”
Birth Control Review
2:3 (Mar., 1918), pp. 6-11. Also, Bernice J.Guthmann,
The Planned Parenthood Movement in Illinois, 1923-1965
, a pamphlet prepared in 1965 for the Planned Parenthood Association, Chicago area, a copy of which was given to the author during a trip there in 1976.

39.
Margaret Sanger, Diaries and Yearbook, 1919, MS-LC. See especially entries for Feb. 12, Feb. 17, Feb. 18, Feb. 19. On her illness in 1918, see M.S. to Juliet Rublee, n.d. (Aug. 1918), MS-DC, and H.E. to M.S.,July 1, 1918, Aug. 12, 1918.

40.
Sanger Diaries, 1919, MS-LC, Feb. 13, 15, 17, 23, 24; Mar. 1, 4, 9, 16; Apr. 7, 11, 15, 22, 23. Quotation in letter to William Sanger is from M.S. to W.S., Mar. 24, 1917, MS-SS.

41.
See Walter Roberts to M.S., Jan. 11, “1915” (actually 1916, he was so overcome with emotion, he apparently forgot the new year), and Feb. 11, 1916,MS-SS, and M.S. to Walter Roberts, Sept. 24, 1919, when fearing that she might die from scheduled TB surgery, she returned his intimate letters and expressed her appreciation of what she placidly described as their “lovely friendship.” She must have reclaimed them at some point, however, for the entire correspondence survives in MS-SS. Also see Roberts to M.S., Apr. 5, 1929, and Mar. 30, 1935, MS-LC.

42.
The William Williams correspondence is even more substantial than the Roberts, also all in MS-SS. See especially, M.S. to W.W., Oct. 16, 1920, when he was dying in the hospital, and also Dr. Mary Halton to M.S., n.d. (Oct. 1920), describing Williams's last hours and how beautifully he spoke of her, and enclosing a last letter to her. The correspondence includes a clipping of
The Call
obituary of Oct. 24, 1920, along with John Reed's. Also see Margaret's 1919 diary references to Williams.

43.
Williams diary entrance is from May 1, 1919, along with the “chemistry of love” speculation. Jonah Goldstein diary references are on Feb. 6, 8, 15, 17, Mar. 8, and May 9, from which the quotation about him is taken. She also comments here on the “Jewish reactions” that “enslave” him, meaning, it appears, that she found Goldstein too controlled and moralistic, but also suggesting further evidence of a reluctance on her part to marry another Jew. Stuart Sanger recalled that Goldstein bought him his first pair of real “men's pants” at a tailor on the Lower East Side. On Herbert Simonds, see his printed “Recollections,” pp. 44 and 79, in MS-SS. Also, see Harold Hersey to M.S., Aug. 6, 1940, and her explanation of their relationship, dated June 13, 1947, for inclusion with the letters at Smith, both in MS-SS. Finally, see M.S. to Juliet Rublee, Aug. 27, 1921, MS-DC.

44.
The Ellis quote is from H.E. to M.S., May 19, 1918; the apology to Bill in M.S. to William Sanger, Dec. 1, 1919, MS-SS. On her operation, see Ethel Higgins to Mary Higgins, n.d. (1920), MS-SS, and Margaret Sanger to Mary Higgins, n.d. (1920), MS-SS. The diary quotation is from June 10, 1919, MSLC.

9: NEW WOMAN, NEW WORLD

1.
Margaret Sanger, appointment calendar, May 9, 1920, through May 2, 1921, MS-LC. M.S. to Juliet Rublee, May 18, May 27, June 7, July 7, 1920, MS-DC. Lawrence Lader,
The Margaret Sanger Story
(New York: 1955), p. 157, reconstructs the story of Glasgow Green from an interview with Sanger in 1953. Sanger's
Autobiography
says Alice Vickery made the arrangements with the Cooperative Guild, p. 273. Also see the announcement of Sanger's lecture at Caxton Hall, Westminster, sponsored by the Malthusians, in MS-LC, and Margaret Sanger, “London Birth Control Meetings,”
Birth Control Review
4:9 (Sept. 20, 1920), pp. 5-7.

2.
On Sanger's role in publishing
Married Love
in the United States, see M.S. to Marie Stopes, July 6, 1915, Oct. 1, 1917, Nov. 9, 1917, Dec. 20, 1917, and July 22, n.d. (1916) in Stopes-Wellcome. Also, Marie Stopes to M.S., Mar. 30, 1916, included with the Rublee correspondence, MS-DC; and William Robinson to M.S., Oct. 3, 1917, MS-LC. The quotation from
Married Love
is taken from the fine biography of Stopes, Ruth Hall,
Passionate Crusader: The Life of Marie Stopes
(New York: 1977), as is the assessment of her personality. The playground chant serves as the epigraph of this book. For the deterioration of relations between the two women, see M.S. to Marie Stopes, three notes marked “52 Rotherwick Rd. Garden Suburbs,” n.d. (1920) at Wellcome: Marie Stopes to M.S., May 26, 1920; M.S. to Stopes, May 16, 1920, July 1, 1920; M.S. to Slopes, Apr. 11, May 7, Oct. 28, Oct. 29, 1921, also in Stopes-BM; H.E. to Stopes, Sept. 15, n.d. (1921); May 21, 1922; Jan. 15, 1923, Stopes-BM. M.S. to Marie Stopes, Oct. 29, 1921, in Stopes-BM, has the Mary Ware Dennett incident. In the same collection, also see Stopes's correspondence with Dennett, 1921-31, passim. Finally, see
Autobiography
, p. 296.