Gourt > Society > Issues > Family Planning > History > Sanger, Margaret
Margaret Higgins Sanger (September 14, 1879 – September 6, 1966) was an American birth control activist, an advocate of certain aspects of eugenics, and the founder of the American Birth Control League (which eventually became Planned Parenthood). Initially meeting with fierce opposition to her ideas, Sanger gradually won the support of the public and the courts for a woman's right to decide how and when she will bear children. Though her selective support of eugenics was less well received, Margaret Sanger was instrumental in opening the way to universal access to birth control.
Life
Sanger was born in Corning, New York. Her mother, Anne Purcell Higgins, was a devout Roman Catholic who went through 18 pregnancies (with 11 live births)Steinem. before dying of tuberculosis and cervical cancer. Sanger attended Claverack College, a boarding school in Hudson for two years. Her sisters paid her tuition, and when they were unable to continue to provide this assistance, Sanger returned home in 1899. Her mother died the same year, after which Sanger enrolled in a nursing program at a hospital in White Plains, an affluent New York suburb. In 1902, she married William Sanger. Although stricken by tuberculosis, she gave birth to a son the following year, followed in later years by a second son and a daughter who died in childhood. Sanger's ill health, marriage and subsequent pregnancy prevented her from completing her third year of training and attaining a certification, though her new husband assured her that he would care for her and that she would be better off raising their children than pursuing a career.Chesler.
In 1912, after a devastating fire destroyed the new home that her husband had designed, Sanger and her family moved to New York City, where she went to work in the poverty-stricken East Side slums of Manhattan. That same year, she also started writing a column for the New York Call entitled "What Every Girl Should Know." Distributing a pamphlet, Family Limitation, to poor women, Sanger repeatedly risked scandal and imprisonment by acting in defiance of the Comstock Law of 1873 which outlawed as obscene the dissemination of contraceptive information and devices.
More on [ Margaret Sanger ]
@dubiouslygreat More accurately, Margaret Sanger used questionable methods to sell birth control to asshats.
themadvoter (The Mad Voter) Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:43:29 -0000
@dubiouslygreat More accurately, Margaret Sanger used questionable methods to sell birth control to asshats.
Yes, Margaret Sanger held a lot of questionable beliefs. This doesn't mean the modern #prochoice mvmt is a racist conspiracy. #tinfoilhat
dubiouslygreat (Amanda Johnson) Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:42:21 -0000
Yes, Margaret Sanger held a lot of questionable beliefs. This doesn't mean the modern #prochoice mvmt is a racist conspiracy. #tinfoilhat
@theologyonline Have you ever protested/prayed at an abortion mill? mostly black girls as margaret sanger planned are escorted 2 the murder.
helensharvest (helensharvest) Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:03:38 -0000
@theologyonline Have you ever protested/prayed at an abortion mill? mostly black girls as margaret sanger planned are escorted 2 the murder.
@PPact quote of the week: "The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it." - Margaret Sanger
russellbjohnson (Russell Johnson) Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:44:10 -0000
@PPact quote of the week: "The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it." - Margaret Sanger
Though she was a committed racist & eugenicist, even Margaret Sanger believed that abortion was too barbaric even for the unfit races. #tcot
Jake_W (Jake Walker) Tue, 05 Jan 2010 23:10:43 -0000
Though she was a committed racist & eugenicist, even Margaret Sanger believed that abortion was too barbaric even for the unfit races. #tcot
RT @libertycounsel: Margaret Sanger PP Founder "We do not want the word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population" htt ...
shooflypieohio (Rhonda Royer White) Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:00:59 -0000
RT @libertycounsel: Margaret Sanger PP Founder "We do not want the word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population" htt ...
About Margaret Sanger - Materials from the Margaret Sanger Project at New York University, including biography, writings, and historical sketches of birth control organizations she was associated with. [Requires free registration.]
Margaret Sanger - An essay on her life and work, admiring Sanger as a great freethinker.
Margaret Sanger - Short biography, with photograph, of the woman who is recognized as a pioneer leader in providing birth control in the United States and worldwide.
Margaret Sanger - Biography, selected writings, and a large collection of links, from about.com.
Meta Description: [ A biography of Margaret Sanger, the nurse who promoted birth control as a means by which a woman could exercise control over her life and health. ]
Margaret Sanger Papers Project - Historical editing project of the Department of History at New York University, established to locate, arrange, edit, research, and publish the papers of the noted birth control pioneer. Extensive information about Sanger and the project.
Margaret Sanger, 1879-1966 - Profile of the founder of the American birth control movement.
Meta Description: [ hall of fame, 1976 inductee, Sange ]
Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood, In Her Own Words - Quotes sentences, partial sentences, and paraphrases from writings by and about Sanger, with the aim of demonstrating that she favored eugenics.
Meta Description: [ A collection of quotes by Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, taken from her many writings. Reveals her attitudes and beliefs regarding sterilization, racial purification, marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, adultery, fornication, teen sex, racism, eugenics, homosexuality, the rights of ... ]
The Truth About Margaret Sanger: How Planned Parenthood Duped America - Article from the January 20, 1992 edition of Citizen magazine describes Sanger's racist views and her support for eugenics.
Meta Description: [ Planned Parenthood's legacy of racism and eugenics is firmly established through its founder Margaret Sanger. ]
Time 100: Margaret Sanger - Feminist writer Gloria Steinem wrote this profile for Time magazine, which named Sanger as one of the hundred most important people of the 20th century.
Meta Description: [ Her crusade to legalize birth control spurred the movement for women's liberation ]
Woman and the New Race - 1920 book by Margaret Sanger chronicles her battle to legalize and develop information on the prevention of venereal disease and methods of birth control. (Bartleby.com)
Meta Description: [ Sanger, Margaret. 1920. Woman and the New Race ]
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