Margaret Sanger Papers

Period  c. 1914- c. 1940
Total size  1 microfilm.
Consultation Not restricted

Biography

Margaret Higgins Sanger; born in Corning, New York 1879, died in Tucson, Arizona 1966; nurse; her mother, Anne Purcell Higgins, was a devout Roman Catholic who went through 18 pregnancies (with 11 live births) before dying of tuberculosis and cervical cancer; Sanger attended Claverack College in Hudson for two years but returned home in 1899; her mother died the same year; Sanger enrolled in a nursing program; married William Sanger in 1902; also 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; after a 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; separated from William Sanger in 1913; fled escaping prosecution for violating postal obscenity laws to Europe in 1914 but returned in 1915; opened a family planning and birth control clinic in Brooklyn in 1916; it was raid nine days later by the police and she served 30 days in prison; founded the American Birth Control League (ABCL) in 1921; campaigned and lectured for birth control in Japan and many other countries; formed the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control in 1923; resigned as president of the ABCL in 1928; president of the Birth Control International Information Center from 1930; president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation 1952-1959; during the 1960 presidential elections, Sanger was dismayed by candidate John F. Kennedy's position on birth control and she threatened to leave the country if Kennedy was ellected but evidently reconsidered after Kennedy won the election; died few months after the landmark Griswold v. Connecticut decision, which legalized birth control for married couples in the US 1966.

Content

Her correspondence as director of the American Birth Control League with various persons and institutions, including Guy Aldred, Rudolf Elkan, Lord Dawson, the Malthusian League, the New Generation League and Rose Witcop c. 1914-c. 1940.

Location of originals

Originals in the Library of Congress-National Archives Washington