Born: Sept 14, 1879, Corning, New York, U.S.
Died: Sept 6, 1966, Tucson, Arizona
Margaret Sanger was an American leader of the birth-control movement.
Sanger was born in Corning, New York, on September 14, 1879, and trained as a nurse at the White Plains (New York) Hospital. Her work among the poor in New York City convinced her of the widespread need for information concerning contraception, and she abandoned nursing to devote herself to the promotion of that objective. In 1914, she was indicted for circulating through the mails a magazine called The Woman Rebel, in which she attacked the legislative restrictions on distribution of contraceptive information known as the Comstock Law. Passed in 1873, this federal legislation made it a crime to import or distribute any device, medicine or information designed to prevent conception or induce abortion, or to mention in print the names of sexually transmitted diseases. In addition, nurses and physicians were legally barred from providing this information to their patients. Sanger won support from prominent community leaders; through their influence the case against her was dismissed in 1916. In the same year, she established the first American birth-control clinic in Brooklyn, New York. Charged with “maintaining a public nuisance,” she was convicted and served thirty days in the Queens County Penitentiary, where she organized a school for fellow inmates. After her release, she won an appeal, opening the way for physicians to give birth-control advice in New York City. She then began publishing Birth Control Review, a monthly magazine that she edited until 1928. She founded the American Birth Control League and served (1921-1928) as its first president. In 1927, she organized the first World Population Conference. Sanger was a honorary chairperson of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., which was formed from the American Birth Control League in 1942.
Throughout her career Sanger travelled extensively, particularly in Europe and Asia, to publicize the birth-control movement. She died on September 6, 1966, in Tucson, Arizona. She wrote several books on birth control and Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography (1938).
