Margaret Sanger: New Woman and Birth Control Pioneer

This board was created for a graduate course entitled "New Woman International". The course explores the emergence of the New Woman across the world during the 1920s and 30s. This board focuses on New Woman Margaret Sanger who was the founder of Planned Parenthood and a woman who was committed to accessible birth control and fighting for women to have agency in the realm of family planning.

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10y

Justine W

an advertisement for birth control and the birth of mary monroe, november 3, 1932

Society Problems

Margaret Sanger

Suffrage Movement

Parenting Organization

Birth Control Review

Creative Nonfiction Writing

The Secret History of Wonder Woman

Jill Lepore explores the iconic Wonder Woman in her book "The Secret History of Wonder Woman". The super herione was partially based on Margaret Sanger! The original author of Wonder Woman was William Marston who engaged in a polyamorous relationship with Margaret Sanger's niece Olive Byrne. For a short time Sanger also lived with them. Amazing to see a New Woman embodied as a hero rather than some type of villain.

the front page of a newspaper with an image of a woman in black and white

"The Woman Rebel" was a publication started by Margaret Sanger in March of 1914. It was emblazoned with the slogan "No Gods, No Masters" and was designed to call together working-class women. Sanger hoped to use it to spread information about birth control. Only eight issues were ever published. This publication lead to Sanger's run in with obscenity laws and the Federal Comstock Law.

an old black and white photo of a woman wearing a hat with fur on it

Katharine McCormick, biologist & millionaire philanthropist | Amazing Women In History

1917 Katherine McCormick, first female biology graduate from MIT. She aligned with Margaret Sanger and smuggles diaphragms into the US putting control of fertility in women’s hands. She later funded research that lead to the pill.

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This powerful quote from Margaret Sanger explores her attitudes toward pregnancy. She held firm to the belief that pregnancy should be the choice of the woman always because it is her body alone that will be subjected to physical stress. Many claim Sanger was racist because she fought to allow lower class women, often women of color, to be able to end pregnancies or receive access to birth control. Quotes like this one do not show traces of any racism or speech of eugenics, only female safety.

two women standing next to each other in front of a window with tape on their mouths

formicarius: Birth control advocate Margaret...

Margaret Sanger, advocate for birth control, has her mouth covered in protest of not being allowed to talk about birth control in Boston on 17 April 1929. Margaret Sanger was often protested and forced to remain silent because her advocacy for birth control was either misinterpreted or deemed socially unacceptable. In 1929 contraception was illegal in the United States in most places and was not fully legalized for all US citizens until the early 1970's!

an old photo with a quote on it that says, no woman can call herself free who does not control her own body

Women Rights

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Intersectional Feminism

Equal Rights

A Quote

Women Deserve Equal Rights - Paperblog

This quote is the most popular of Margaret Sanger's, American birth control activist and sex educator. As a woman committed to female agency it is not surprising that she would see control over ones own body as being paramount to freedom. Sanger was advocating birth control during a time when women were unable to control potential pregnancy unless their male partner was willing to utilize some type of barrier method. This meant women were unable to make a finite decision about procreation.