Woman of Valor (96 page)

2.
Correspondence concerning Hannah Stone's death and Margaret's covering the expense of a memorial service are in Florence Rose to D. K. Rose, Oct. 28, 1941; and Abraham Stone to M.S., Oct. 15, 1941, both in MS-LC. Several boxes of correspondence with Mary Compton (Johnson), 1939-61 are also in MS-SS. See esp. M.C. to M.S., June 7 and Nov. 15, 1943, re: rubber diaphragm shortages, and June 27, 1943, re: staff bonuses; Feb. 5, 1947 and “Wed. the 14th, 1948,” re: finding endowments for marriage counseling and sterility services. The findings of the Indianapolis Survey are reported in Pascal K. Whelpton and Clyde V. Kiser, “Social and Psychological Factors Affecting Fertility,”
Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly
21: 3 (July 1943), pp. 221-80. Analyses of additional data by others who worked on the massive undertaking were published in subsequent volumes of the journal. Examples of Sanger clinic research projects are in Abraham Stone to M.S., June 21, 1943; B. J. Todd, vice president of Ortho Products, to Dr. Abraham Stone, Sept. 3, 1943; Stone to Dr. Douglas Forman, Christian Medical Council for Overseas Work, July 9, 1949, all in AS-Countway. On Sanger's search for a “spermatoxin,” also see her correspondence with Stuart Mudd, M.D., MS-SS; a journal entry for Sept. 4, 1940, MS-SS; Robert L. Dickinson to M.S., Nov. 26, 1948, MS-SS; and Abraham Stone, M.D., “Current Research in Contraception in U.S.A.,”
The International Journal of Sexology
7:2 (Nov. 1953), pp. 77-80. On the sterility service inaugurated in 1945, see Lena Levine, “The Margaret Sanger Clinical Research Bureau, 1923-1955,” Fifth International Conference on Family Planning,
Report of the Proceedings
(London: 1955), pp. 283-85, copy in MS-SS.
The success of the sterility service led to the registering of a complaint with the Grievance Committee of the New York County Medical Society by a physician claiming the Sanger Clinic had no right to practice medicine. See “A Physician” to Grievance Committee, Dec. 13, 1950; Abraham Stone, M.D. to William H. Lewis, Jr. M.D., Jan. 22, 1951; and Harriet F. Pilpel to Mrs. Maud Rogers, Feb. 7, 1951, all in AS-Countway. On the wind-up of affairs at the clinic, see especially Abraham Stone to M.S., Apr. 4, 1947; Stone to Stephen Blodgett, Sept. 10, 1951; Stone to Saper & Rapaport, auditors, June 15, 1951, and M.S. to Stone, Jan. 9, 1951, among other relevant papers in AS-Countway. Also, Cecil Damon Wright to M.S., Apr. 14, 1950, Feb. 8 and Dec. 26, 1951, and M.S. to William Vogt, Jan. 16, 1952, all in MS-SS; and M.S. to Charles E. Scribner, Sept. 19, 1950, MS-LC.

3.
A folder on the Nobel Prize is in MS-SS. See for example Mrs. G. J. Watumull to Dr. C. P. Blacker, Mar. 22, 1960, on “1960 Committee for Margaret Sanger” letterhead; also, Dorothy Brush to Margaret Grierson, Dec. 14, 1959, DB-SS. On the Lasker award, see M.S. to Mary Lasker, Feb. 16 and Mar. 14, 1950, uncollected Lasker Papers and miscellaneous Lasker correspondence from this period at MS-SS. A copy of the award address, dated Oct. 25, 1950, is in MS-SS, and reference to Grant's role is in Edwina Sanger to M.S., Nov. 5, 1950, also at Smith.
On the sterilization controversy, see Clarence Gamble to M.S., Nov. 1, 1950; H. Curtis Wood, Jr., M.D., president of Birthright, Inc., to M.S., Oct. 28, 1950; M.S. to the editor,
Coronet
, May 5, 1950, endorsing an article on sterilization, “Birth Control Is Not Enough”; and M.S. to David Loth, Apr. 12, 1951, all in MS-SS. The speech received press coverage. See especially: “1950 Planned Parenthood Awards to Go to Mrs. Sanger and Dr. Moses,”
The New York Times
, Oct. 19, 1950, 14:4-5, and “Mrs. Sanger Urges U.S. Sterility Plan,”
The New York Times
, Oct. 26, 1950, 26:3. Further background on Clarence Gamble's position on sterilization is in Clarence Gamble to the PPFA board of directors, Mar. 16, 1946, including clippings of Clarence Gamble, “Why Fear Sterilization,”
Hygeia
, Jan., 1948, a magazine of the AMA, MS-SS. More recent perspectives are in Leslie Aldridge Westoff, “Sterilization, Why Six Million Have Deliberately Chosen an Ultimate Form of Contraception,”
The New York Times Magazine
, Sept. 29, 1974, pp. 30-31, 80-89. Why Sanger was so blind to the racial implications of her remarks is impossible to explain. What is clear, however, is that she continued to think of herself as sympathetic to the cause of improved racial relations. See, for example, Mary McLeod Bethune to M.S., Mar. 17, 1952 and M.S. to M.M.B., Feb. 5, 1953, MS-SS. Finally, on Margaret's medical condition, see Margaret Sanger Marston and Nancy Sanger Ivins interview with Jacqueline Van Voris, p. 56, MS-SS. Additional perspective on her conditions comes from my own interviews with Margaret Marston, Grant and Stuart Sanger, and Grace Sternberg.

4.
The Sanger-Rublee correspondence for this period is in MS-SS. Also see Rublee to Dorothy Brush, Aug. 19, 1953, DB-SS; Brush to M.S., July 16, 1953, and M.S. to Brush, July 21, 1953, both in MS-LC; Edith How-Martyn to M.S., Nov. 1, 1950, and Jan. 13, 1951, MS-SS; (M.S. to Vera Houghton, Feb. 18, 1954, acknowledging notice of How-Martyn's death, IPPF-Cardiff; Sanger Journal, 1951; Juliet Rublee to M.S., Aug. 2, 1951; George Rublee to M.S., Oct. 15, 1951, and Gladys Plummer to M.S., Sept. 25, 1951, all in MS-SS; Françoise Cyon to M.S., Feb. 8, 1951, and M.S. to F.C., Oct. 30, 1951, both in MS-LC.
I am also grateful to Lawrence Lader, Sanger's first biographer, who explained, in our interview of November 1986, the power she was able to derive from her spiritual beliefs, and to Olive Byrne Richard for her recollection of the movie incident and for a copy of the letter in her possession, dated Jan. 22, 1952. M.S. to Wm. Sanger, Mar. 20, 1952, MS-SS, also requests permission to portray him in the movie, and in a touching gesture encloses an old tattered rug from their house in Hastings that had been one of his favorites.

5.
Materials on Stone's WHO project include, Abraham Stone, “Abstract of Assignment to India”; “Press Conference by [Stone],” New Delhi, Dec. 15, 1951; and “For Fewer Indians,” reprint of a
Newsweek
story of Jan. 28, 1952, all in AS-Countway. Also see Abraham Stone to M.S., n.d. (1951, from the India trip), and M.S. to “D. Lannanti” (actually “Dhanvanti”) Rama Rau, Dec. 28, 1951, both in MS-SS; and, finally, David G. Mandelbaum,
Human Fertility in India: Social Components and Policy Perspectives
(Berkeley, Cal.: 1974), and Phyllis Tilson Piotrow,
World Population Crisis: The United States Response
(New York: 1973), p. 34. Data on the Brush Newsletter is in Mrs. Philip Pillsbury, “Report of the International Committee to the Membership,” New York, May 1954, p. 4, IPPF-Cardiff. Also see “Report of Meeting of International Committee on Planned Parenthood,” Aug. 29-30, 1951; Arthur Jones to files, memorandum on ICPP, Sept. 28, 1951, both in Rocky-RG 2; M.S. to Vera Houghton, Jan. 25 and Oct. 8, 1951; and M.S. to Claire Folsome, Ortho Products, Jan. 23, 1951, all in IPPF-Cardiff.
The Tisserant incident is in “Historical Interview,” Sept. 18, 1951, MS-SS. There is no exact record of the conversation. Several years later, however, Angus MacDonald sent the Cardinal a copy of Lawrence Lader's biography,
The Margaret Sanger Story
(New York: 1955). See A.M. to His Eminence Eugene Cardinal Tisserant, Apr. 22, 1955, MS-SS.

6.
M.S. to Dorothy Brush, Mar. 14, 1952, MS-SS. J. D. Rockefeller, Jr., to Dana Creel, Feb. 29, 1952, Rocky-RG 2, and M.S. to Vera Houghton, Apr. 22, 1952, IPPF-Cardiff, detail the economic transaction. On the organizational details see, Dhanvanthi Rama Rau to M.S., Sept. 5, 1951, MS-SS; M.S. to Vera Houghton, Mar. 19, 1952, enclosing copies of Dhanvanthi Rama Rau to Mrs. C. J. Watumull, Mar. 11, 1952, and Watumull to Rama Rau, Mar. 14, 1952; William Vogt to M.S., Mar. 21, 1952, and M.S. to Vogt, Mar. 26, 1952 (including quote about Mead); Vera Houghton to M.S., Mar. 31 and Apr. 18, 1952, and M.S. to Houghton, Apr. 22, 1952; Vogt to M.S., Apr. 1, 1952, all in IPPF-Cardiff; and Dhanvanthi Rama Rau to M.S., July 4, 1952, MS-SS.
On the endorsements, also see Vida Scudder to M.S., June 21, 1952 and M.S. to Scudder, July 13, 1952. When the aging social reformer and educator declined to endorse the birth-control effort on the grounds that, as “an old spinster,” she did not want to sponsor “anything concerning which I should never say my prayers,” Margaret responded firmly but kindly that “your education has been so deplorably neglected by me.” Finally, see Albert Einstein to M.S., June 28, 1952 and M.S. to Einstein, July 11, 1952, all in MS-SS.
A charming recollection of the frenzied conference planning is in Ved Mehta, “Personal History: The Benefactress,”
The New Yorker
, May 9, 1988, p. 79. Mehta's father, an Indian physician teaching in Los Angeles, came to Margaret's attention through a prize winning essay he wrote on population. Margaret put him in touch with her longtime supporter Ethel Clyde, who became something of a patron to the Mehta family, after he accompanied her to the conference in Bombay.

7.
Kato,
A Fight for Women's Happiness: Pioneering the Family Planning Movement in Japan
(Tokyo: 1984), pp. 88-89; Malia Sedgewick Johnson, “Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in Japan, 1921-1955,” doctoral dissertation, University of Hawaii, 1987, pp. 93-94; author's interview with Taki Katoh, New York, 1988. The reference to Peggy is in Shidzue Kato to M.S., Dec. 14, 1949, MS-LC.

8.
M.S., 1952 itinerary, MS-LC; M.S. to Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Oct. 25, 1945, MS-SS; Shidzue Kato to M.S., June 28, 1949, MS-SS; Tsunego Baba to M.S., July 21, 1949, MS-LC; Capt. George H. Hendricks to M.S., Aug. 30, 1949, and M.S. to Hendricks, Sept. 10, 1949; Charles E. Scribner, memorandum to presidents and executive secretaries, PPFA, Feb. 17, 1950, and Gen. Douglas MacArthur to Charles E. Scribner, Feb. 24, 1950, all in MS-SS. Many of these materials are well utilized in Johnson, “Birth Control Movement in Japan.” Kato's observations on MacArthur are from a July 25, 1985 interview with Johnson, cited on p. 104. Shidzue Kato,
Fight for Women's Happiness
, provides a firsthand account of these events on pp. 87-98. Theodore Cohen,
Remaking Japan: The American Occupation as New Deal
(New York: 1988), provides an excellent summary of the reform initiatives of the Americans, especially on behalf of women and labor, and has many references to the cooperative efforts of Kanju and Shidzue Kato, though none specific to the Sanger controversy. See esp. pp. 306-12. Also see “Mrs. Sanger Barred by MacArthur from…Japan,”
The New York Times
, Feb. 13, 1950, 1:2; and “Japan, Trouble Coming Up,” clipping from
Newsweek
May 1950, MS-SS; and Piotrow,
World Population
, p. 32.

9.
Shidzue Kato to M.S., Dec. 14, 1949, MS-LC, talks about the fundraising. On the Gamble support for the work of Dr. Yoshio Koya, see James Reed,
The Birth Control Movement and American Society: From Private Vice to Public Virtue
(Princeton: 1984), p. 297, and miscellaneous Sanger-Gamble correspondence from this period in MS-SS. M.S. to Dr. Abraham Stone, July 22, 1952, MS-SS, talks about the visa complications. Also see Sanger FBI file, Files of G-2, 1st Army, confidential dossier on Margaret Sanger Slee with a disposition form dated Mar. 13, 1952. This file was included in materials provided from the records of the Department of the Navy, Naval Investigative Service: A copy of Sanger's seven page “Greetings from Japan, Nov. 1952” (most likely written by Dorothy Brush), is in Rocky-RG 2. The final quote is from M.S., handwritten notes for speech, Tokyo, Japan, 1952, MS-SS, also cited in Johnson, “Birth Control Movement in Japan,” p. 106. Finally, see “Mrs. Sanger's Visit Excites Japanese,”
The New York Times
, Nov. 10, 1952, 10:1.

10.
Material on the Bombay conference is in Margaret Sanger, “Newsletter, Greetings from India,” Dec. 1952, copy in Rocky-RG2; “Awareness of Birth Control Growing World-Wide,” undated clipping from
Arizona Daily Star
, including a photograph of Sanger presenting the Tucson check in India, copy in scrapbooks of Planned Parenthood in Tucson; Third International Conference on Planned Parenthood,
Report of the Proceedings, November 24-29 , 1952
(Bombay: 1952), copy in MS-SS; M.S. to Dhanvanthi Rama Rau, Jan. 5, 1953, and Rama Rau to M.S., Jan. 5 and Apr. 2, 1953, all in MS-SS. For additional biographical information, see Dhanvanthhi Rama Rau,
An Inheritance: The Memoirs of Dhanvanthi Rama Rau
(New York: 1977). The grants are mentioned in Ellen Watumull to Rufus S. Day, Jr., Aug. 14, 1958, IPPF-Cardiff.

11.
Warren Weaver to John D. Rockefeller III, Jan. 8, 1952, sets forth their objectives as follows: Weaver, then director of the Rockefeller Foundation's division of natural sciences, wrote: “The men should be of the highest calibre, should be dependable in some relevant discipline, should have imaginative and free-ranging minds, should have curiosity and openmindedness, and must be the sort of persons who can communicate in a small group discussion--this involves the capacity to listen, among other things!” Also see “Population Conference Invitation List and Draft Telegram,” Apr. 9, 1952; Robert Bates to Lewis Strauss, memorandum on Population Conference, May 22, 1952; List of Acceptances to Conference on Population Problems, May 28, 1952; Conference on Population Problems, June 20-22, 1952, Summary Report; all in Rocky-RG 2. A transcript of the Williamsburg Conference, running more than 100 pages, is in Rocky, J.D.R. III papers. Collier and Horowitz,
The Rockefellers
, p. 284, addresses the issue of the Catholic influence on the basis of the authors' interviews with Donald McLean and Frank Notestein. Finally, see Reed,
Birth Control Movement
, p. 272.

12.
Conference on Population Problems, Williamsburg, Va., June 20-22, 1953, “Resolution Adopted by the Members of the Conference; Draft Press Statement,” Aug. 1, 1953, and “New Group Sets Up Population Study,” clipping from
The New York Times
, Aug. 17, 1953; M.C. Balfour to Dr. Detlev Bronk of the National Academy of Sciences, July 15, 1942, and William Vogt to Detlev Bronk, July 8, 1952; Frederick Osborn to J.D.R. III, enclosing a draft of a report of grants for 1953-55, May 31, 1955; Dana S. Creel to J. D. R., Jr., “Planned Parenthood,” Mar. 11, 1955, recounting the history of the family's contributions; all in Rocky-RG 2. A copy of the “Report of The Population Council, Inc., Nov. 5, 1952 to Dec. 31, 1955,” is in AS-Countway. Also see Piotrow,
World Population
, pp. 13-15.