Woman of Valor (84 page)

9.
Examples of correspondence from Sanger to Slee are the following: M.S. to J.N.H.S., Feb. 29, 1924; Sept. 18, 1924 (from London where she is spending their wedding anniversary alone); Oct. 19, 1924, from Wells's home in Easton Glebe; Oct. 23, 1924, from London's Stafford Hotel. The material in direct quotation is from M.S. to J.N.H.S, Nov. 7, 1924, and Dec. 5, 1926, and Mar. 2, 1927, all from the Stafford Hotel in London. Some of these letters, including M.S. to J.H.N.S., Dec. 5, 1926, are reprinted in Elizabeth S. Duvall, ed.,
Hear Me for My Cause, Selected Letters of Margaret Sanger, 1926-1927
, a pamphlet published by Smith College. Duvall takes them at face value. Also see Journal, Oct. 6, 1924, and, passim, correspondence of Harold Child to M.S., 1924 and 1925, MS-SS. An intimate account of the Sanger-Slee marriage is in Joan Dash,
A Life of One's Own: Three Gifted Women and the Men They Married
(New York: 1973), pp. 69-113. Dash apparently failed to read Sanger's correspondence with other lovers during this period, however, so she also missed the critical element of the story.

10.
M.S. to J.H.N.S., Apr. 17, 1925 (complains that Stuart was feeling uncomfortable about Slee's preoccupation with money); Ethel Byrne to M.S., Apr., 1925, talks about Stuart's problems with money, as does M.S. to J.H.N.S, Apr. 17, 1925, both in MS-SS. For more concern about Stuart's and Grant's spending, see M.S. to Grant Sanger, Apr. 18, 1928; “Aug. 2,” n.d. (probably 1931); undated (also probably 1931). On the boys' concerns in general, see, for example, Grant Sanger to M.S., “Dear Mother,” on “Westminster” letterhead, n.d., and Nov. 3, 1924, both in MS-SS; Sanger Diary entries for May 23 and Nov. 14, 1925; and the horoscopes for Grant, MS-SS. The final quotes are respectively from M.S. to H.E., Dec. 3, 1933; and M.S. to G.S., Oct. 23, 1927 and Apr. 18, 1928, all MS-SS.

11.
Margaret's generosity to the Higgins siblings is detailed in the Higgins family correspondence, MS-SS. See especially the letters from Bob about his daughter and her marriage. On Nan's retirement income, see M.S. to J.N.H.S., Dec. 4, 1928, MS-SS. On the corset business financing, see Richard Higgins to M.S., Sept. 11, 1936, in MS-LC. Olive Richard spoke of the college loan in her interview with Jacqueline Van Voris, pp. 10-11. Agnes Smedley to M.S., May 9, 1924 asks for money, and M.S. to A.S., June 4, 1924 pledges $50 a month. Jo Bennett to M.S., Mar. 2, 1928, thanks her for sending a check to Smedley, MS-LC; Kitty Marion to M.S., Feb. 2, 1930, and Feb. 16, 1930, thanks her effusively for her check--the latter is addressed “My Darling Beloved Lady and Pal,” MS-LC. H.E. to M.S., Aug. 1, 1930, describes the new comforts of his household and his gratitude for “this new life”; M.S. to H.E., Aug. 29, 1931, says the salary would have to be diminished, as does M.S. to Joseph Wortis, Sept. 21, 1934. H.E. to M.S., Mar. 13, 1932, says not to let the payments become a burden, all in MS-LC. M.S. to Françoise Cyon, “April third,” n.d. (1938) talks of another check for Ellis to buy a comfortable bed for the country house they had rented with money she collected from American friends, and Cyon to M.S., Oct. 9, 1957, bickers over Lawrence Lader's portrayal of Sanger as Ellis's benefactress, both in MS-SS. MS. to J.N.H.S., Nov. 7, 1924, coyly requests extra hotel money, MS-SS.

12.
A full and precise accounting of Slee's early contributions to the movement is in M.S. to “Dear Frances,” (undoubtedly, Frances Ackerman), Aug. 1, 1928, MS-LC. The letter is included with the correspondence and papers that relate to Slee's appeal, carried on between 1926 and 1930, of an Internal Revenue Service disallowance of the deductions he took for his contributions on the grounds that the American Birth Control League was a valid educational and charitable institution, and not a political lobbying group. Further discussion of this case and its implications is in Chap. 15. The appeal was brought by Covington, Burling, & Rublee in Washington D.C. The letters between the firm, Slee, and Sanger date from June 25, 1927, through Mar. 24, 1930, MS-LC. Other examples of Slee's fund-raising efforts are in J.N.H.S. to Frances Ackerman, Dec. 19, 1922; J.N.H.S. to Thomas L. Lamont, Dec. 19, 1922; J.N.H.S. to Clarence V. Evans, Feb. 29, 1924, MS-LC; and John A. Kingsbury (of the Milbank Memorial Fund) to J.N.H.S., Mar. 17, 1926, all in MS-LC. The Cooper request is in M.S. to J.H.N.S., Feb. 22, 1925, MS-LC. The smuggling is documented in J.N.H.S. to Murray Agency, Montreal, Oct. 16, 1924; J.N.H.S. to Messrs. Hechtel & LeNoir, Berlin, Germany, Oct. 16, 1924; and “Mr. O'Rourke” to J.N.H.S., Apr. 10, 1928, all in MS-LC. M.S. to Hannah Stone, June 11, 1926, MS-SS, says not to order supplies without consulting Slee first about problems with deterioration of rubber.
A statement dated Nov. 25, 1925, on 3-in-One Oil letterhead signed by Slee chronicles the smuggling and jelly manufacturing story. It is included in MS-LC with a note from Sanger's secretary Florence Rose, dated Sept. 1943, saying Mrs. Sanger was “much entertained at the recollection of this period of Mr. Slee's activity…[that] it always brought a chuckle.” On the founding of Holland-Rantos, see the recollections of Herbert Simonds in MS-SS. A brochure from the early 1930s advertising Holland-Rantos products says they were used by 105 clinics, 121 hospitals, and 52,000 physicians, in National Archives-Margaret Sanger bill files. Finally, on the commercialization of contraception after 1930, see Chaps. 14 and 15, and David Kennedy,
Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger
(New Haven: 1970), p. 212.

13.
On her appreciation of Noah after the conference, see M.S., Journal, Mar. 22, 1925, MS-SS. Also see James Gould Cozzens,
Ask Me Tomorrow
(New York: 1940). Cozzens later won the Pulitzer Prize for his 1957 novel
By Love Possessed
. On his writing, and on the quasi-autobiographical nature of
Ask Me Tomorrow
, see Granville Hicks,
James Gould Cozzens
(Minneapolis: 1966). Grant Sanger remembered the Cozzens link.

14.
M.S. to J.N.H.S., Feb. 1, Feb. 2, and Feb. 6, 1927, MS-SS. M.S. to H.de S., Jan. 10, Jan. 13, Jan. 22, Feb. 9, 1927, MS-LC. Some of the Sanger-Slee letters from this period are reprinted in Duvall,
Hear Me
, MS-SS.

15.
M.S. to J.H.N.S., Feb. 22, 1927, and letters, passim from Feb. through Mar., MS-SS.

16.
The initial quotes are respectively from E.H-M. to M.S., Mar. 15, 1929 and “Margaret darling, Have been awake since 1.30
A.M.
,” n.d. (1928), MS-SS. Also see E.H-M. to M.S., July 19 and July 27, 1915, June 15, 1916, Dec. 22, 1925, Sept. 28, 1926, Sept. 26, 1927, Oct. 31, 1928, MS-SS. E. H-M to Marie Stopes, Feb. 18, 1916, and Louise Thompson to M.S., Mar. 31, 1938, all in MS-SS, and the clipping of a 1934 interview in the
New York World Telegram
, “Repeal of ‘Silly Comstockery…Should Be U.S. Women's Next Objective,' Says Pioneer,” MS-LC. Sir Bernard Mallett's tribute to Margaret is in Margaret Sanger, ed.,
Proceedings of the World Population Conference
(London: 1927), p. 356. Homage to Margaret for her role at Geneva was formally offered by Frank Lorimar, “The Role of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population,” in Clyde V. Kiser, ed.,
Forty Years of Research in Human Fertility: Retrospect and Prospect
(New York: 1971), pp. 86-87. Also, see James Reed,
The Birth Control Movement and American Society: From Private Vice to Public Virtue
(Princeton: 1984), p. 337. On the events at Geneva, also see assorted printed documents from the World Population Conference in MS-SS, and “Miscellaneous Notes and Comments” in “Journal, 1927,” and “Geneva Diary, 1925-27,” both in MS-SS; as well as observations in the correspondence between Edith How-Martyn, who helped organize the conference, and M.S. 1925-29, passim, MS-SS. For the Italians, see Grant Sanger, Schlesinger Library interview, p. 36; and Abraham Stone, M.D., “Speaking of the Conference,”
Birth Control Review
12:2, (Feb. 1928), pp. 48-49. The final quote is from M.S. to H.de S., May 22, 1927, MS-LC.

17.
M.S. to J.H.N.S., Sept. 21 and Sept. 27, 1927, MS-SS. Also see M.S., ed.,
Proceedings
.

18.
Agnes Smedley to M.S., Nov. 19, 1928. Also see A.S. to M.S., Jan. 30, 1928, both in MS-LC. Janice and Stephen MacKinnon,
Agnes Smedley: The Life and Times of an American Radical
(Berkeley: 1988), pp. 51-133, provides a detailed account of her life in these years, which makes use of the Sanger correspondence.

19.
A.S. to M.S., 1924-6, in MS-LC, especially May 9, 1924, Feb. 12, 1925, Nov. 5, 1925, Jan. 13, n.d. (1926). The file also contains copies of American Express foreign money orders Margaret sent to Smedley in denominations of $50. Also see MacKinnon and MacKinnon,
Agnes Smedley
, pp. 98, 113-14, 127-130.

20.
A.S. to M.S., Apr. 23, 1928, July 1928; M.S. to Edith How-Martyn, Apr. 11, 1929, all in MS-LC; MacKinnon and MacKinnon,
Agnes Smedley
, pp. 128-31.

21.
On the Swiss holiday see M.S. to Grant Sanger, Dec. 28, 1927, MS-SS and J.N.H.S. to H.de S., Jan. 16, 1928, MS-LC. For the material quoted directly, see M.S. to Juliet Rublee, June 24, July 10 (1928), July 13 (1928), Aug. 15 (1928), Oct. 21, 1929. MS-DC; and finally M.S. to J.N.H.S, Sept. 18, 1927, MS-SS.

22.
M.S. to J.N.H.S., Sept. 27, 1927, and n.d. (from her trip out west in the fall of 1934); M.S. to H. E., June 20, 1939, marked “confidential,” June 20, 1939, all in MS-SS.

23.
Margaret Sanger,
Happiness in Marriage
(Elmsford, N.Y.: 1969), reprinted from the original 1926 edition, pp. 177-86, 191-203, 221-31, quotations on pp. 197 and 199.

24.
Ibid
., Quotations from pp. 181 and 229 respectively.

25.
Ibid
., pp. 5-6, 105-62, final quote on p. 139.

26.
Ibid
., p. 170, p. 121. My reading of the text here disputes Linda Gordon's interpretation in
Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America
(New York: 1976), p. 373.
Gordon says Sanger wrote nothing at all on the technique of physical love and confined herself to romantic philosophy, which is simply not true. It is true that Sanger obviously felt constrained writing about physiology, because she was a laywoman, eager for popular acceptance of her cause, and more importantly, perhaps, because she wrote under the threat of censorship. Both Sanger and Marie Stopes should be credited as transitional figures in the movement toward sexual candor, characteristic of the marriage manuals of the 1930s and of our own time. Gordon also attacks Sanger for promoting mutual orgasm in coitus, and implies that she did not distinguish between clitoral and vaginal responses, which is also incorrect, though Gordon is right that she did establish mutuality of response as an ideal.

27.
A copy of the letter from the lawyer (name unclear) to Charles Herold of Brentano's, with the Stopes quote enclosed, Jan. 29, 1926, is in MS-LC, as is Jonah Goldstein to Anna Lifshitz, Margaret's secretary, Feb. 15, 1926. Also see “Some Notes on How to be Happy if Married,” unsigned review in
The New
York Times
, July 4, 1926, clipping along with other notices in MS-LC. The book was also reviewed in the
New York Herald Tribune, Saturday Review of Literature, Booklist, Survey
and many local newspapers.
Margaret was also taken aback by the criticism of her friend, Agnes Smedley, who wrote from Europe that the parts on romantic courtship seemed terribly strange. On the other hand, she said that she found the sections of practical sex instruction “very, very excellent,” and promised to review the book favorably in an Indian publication for which she wrote frequently. See Agnes Smedley to M.S., Jan. 3, n.d. (1927), MS-LC. On sales, see Lowell Brentano to M.S., June 9, 1930.

28.
United States v. Dennett, 39 F. 564 2d (1930) and U.S. v. One Obscene Book Entitled “Married Love,” 48 F. 2d (1931). On these cases, and their reinterpretation of Swearingen v. United States, also see Kennedy,
Birth Control
, pp. 243-44. Margaret's book was reissued by Blue Ribbon Books in 1930, which guaranteed her a royalty of 10 cents each on 15,000 copies, and when the censorship laws were eased, she tried to restore some of the originally expurgated material, but what became of this effort is not clear. See Lowell Brentano to M.S., June 9, 1930, and M.S. to Eugene Reynal, both in MS-LC. On the contraceptive rulings, see Chap. 16.

29.
T. H. Van de Velde, M.D.,
Ideal Marriage: Its Physiology and Technique
(New York: 1930), passim. The translation was by Stella Browne, the British radical feminist, who had by then accused Sanger of embracing a bourgeois agenda, so its success must have infuriated Margaret all the more. Between 1940 and 1962, Van de Velde was continuously reprinted, sometimes twice a year. See esp. pp. 105, 148-49, 164-65, 168-69, 178-83, 188-89. On the history of marriage manuals, see Michael Gordon, “From an Unfortunate Necessity to a Cult of Mutual Orgasm: Sex in American Marital Education Literature, 1830-1940,” in
Studies in the Sociology of Sex
, edited by James M. Henslin (New York: 1971), and Edward Brecher,
The Sex Researchers
(New York: 1969), which compares Van de Velde's prescriptive writing to behavioral changes charted by Kinsey.

30.
M.S. to H.de S., (no date, 1927), MS-SS. Margaret Sanger,
Motherhood in Bondage
(New York: 1928). The files on this book in MS-LC contain numerous letters she wrote giving it away, as well as records on her royalties, dated Apr. 19, 1920, reflecting the poor sales. Anna Lifshitz to Noah Slee, Nov. 12, 1929, details the cost of remainders. For her initial optimism about the book, see M.S. to Françoise Lafitte Cyon, Aug. 16, 1928, MS-SS. For glowing reviews of the book, see Freda Kirchway in
The Nation
127 (Dec. 12, 1928), and Katherine B. Davis to M.S., Jan. 23, 1929, MS-LC, which suggests she send it to President Hoover. It was also reviewed favorably in just about every major progressive publication of the day.