November 14, 1916: Margaret Sanger was arrested for operating a birth control clinic. She also created the American Birth Control League, 1921, which would later become Planned Parenthood. Ironically, she opposed abortions and, as a nurse, refused to participate in them. She also supported eugenics.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #margaretsanger #feminism #birthcontrol #choice #abortion #eugenics #racism #plannedparenthood
The real lesson of the past is that it shows us what can be done for the future.
-- Margaret Sanger
⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #MargaretSanger #TheFuture #ThePast
⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Guangxi #China #LiRiver #LiJiang #TowerKarst #Geology
Today in Labor History September 6, 1966: Margaret Sanger died. She was a sex reformer, birth-control advocate, anti-authoritarian socialist, eugenicist. Sanger was famous for popularizing the term "birth control." She also opened the first birth control clinic in the United States and established the organizations that evolved into Planned Parenthood. Her protests, civil disobedience and arrests contributed to court cases that helped legalize contraception in the U.S. Many on the Christian right have targeted her for her role in supporting women’s reproductive rights, yet Sanger was opposed to abortions and, as a nurse, she refused to participate in them.
In the early 1910s, Sanger joined the Women's Committee of the New York Socialist party. She also participated in labor actions by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), including the notable 1912 Lawrence textile strike and the 1913 Paterson silk strike. She also became close with many left-wing writers and activists, like John Reed, Upton Sinclair, Mabel Dodge and Emma Goldman. During this period, she saw the toll unwanted pregnancies and back-alley abortions took on poor, working class and immigrant women. And it was at this point that she shifted the focus of her activism toward promoting birth control as a way to prevent abortions and the economic strain of having unwanted pregnancies.
In 1914, she launched “The Woman Rebel,” a monthly newsletter with the anarchist slogan, “No Gods, No Masters.” It promoted contraception, with the goal of challenging the federal anti-obscenity laws, which were then used to suppress education and outreach about birth control. In 1916, she opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S., leading to her arrest. In 1921, she founded the American Birth Control League, which later became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She argued that women who are educated about birth control are the best judge of the time and conditions under which they should have children, and that it is their right to determine whether or not to bear children.
After World War I, Sanger increasingly appealed to the social necessity of limiting births among the poor. She was a eugenicist and believed that it was necessary to reduce reproduction of those who were “unfit.” While she defined “fitness” in terms of individual fitness, and not race, she supported restricting immigration, and she was known to “look the other way” when racists spoke in favor of eugenics. She even gave a presentation to the women’s auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan. And she supported compulsory sterilization for those with cognitive disabilities.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #margaretsanger #birthcontrol #plannedparenthood #abortion #IWW #socialism #civildisobedience #freespeech #eugenics #immigration #racism #ableism #kkk
The real lesson of the past is that it shows us what can be done for the future.
-- Margaret Sanger
The real lesson of the past is that it shows us what can be done for the future.
-- Margaret Sanger
Battle for Birth Control | US History #shorts
The featured Wiki of the Day for Sunday, 18 May 2025, is Margaret Sanger.
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Collier's Florida May 27, 1944.
1 photograph : color transparency ; 35 mm (slide format)
Title: Toni Frissell Photograph Collection
Date: circa 1910s-1940s
Keywords: photography, portrait, fashion, women's rights, American artist
Description:
The Toni Frissell photograph collection is a collection of photographs created by the American photographer and writer Toni Frissell. The collection includes portraits of notable women from the early 20th century.
Notable Women in the Collection:
* Fanny Brice (1888-1951): American comedian, actress, singer, and vaudevillian.
* Pauline Trumbull Miller (1892-1963), wife of artist John Sloan and actress, philanthropist
* Mary Pickford (1892-1979) Actress, film producer, businesswoman
* Margaret Sanger (1879-1966): American birth control activist.
Locations referenced in the collection include New York City.
#Collier #Florida #ToniFrissell #American #FannyBrice #JohnSloan #MaryPickford #MargaretSanger #NewYorkCity #unitedstates #florida #photography
Today in Labor History January 1, 1934: A "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring" went into effect in Nazi Germany. The Eugenics research that Hitler used to justify torture and genocide was inspired by similar research from the U.S. The American eugenics movement originated in the 1880s, from the biological determinist ideas of Francis Galton. He believed that selective breeding could improve the human race and allow them to direct their own evolution. The U.S. eugenics movement was heavily funded by the Carnegie Institution, Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune. Biologist Charles B. Davenport founded the Eugenics Record Office (ERO) in 1911. The ERO trained field workers, who they sent to study people in mental hospitals and orphanages across the U.S. Davenport and others began to lobby for solutions to the problem of the "unfit." They lobbied for immigration restrictions and sterilization. Some even promoted the idea of extermination, well before Hitler became known for it. Some well-known eugenicists of the early 20th century included Alexander Graham Bell, Luther Burbank and Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. The eugenics movement tended to target the poor, people with disabilities and mentally illness, and specific communities of color as “unfit” for society. Their solutions included forced sterilization, which continued in the U.S. until as recently as 2010. From 1997-2010, California performed nonconsensual sterilizations on roughly 1,400 women prisoners. From 1929-1973, North Carolina sterilized the third highest number of people in the United States, roughly 7,600 people, predominantly African American women.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #eugenics #sterilization #sexism #ableism #racism #nazis #facism #hitler #genocide #classism #francisgalton #carnegie #rockefeller #margaretsanger
November 14, 1916: Margaret Sanger was arrested for operating a birth control clinic. She also created the American Birth Control League, 1921, which would later become Planned Parenthood. Ironically, she opposed abortions and, as a nurse, refused to participate in them. She also supported eugenics.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #margaretsanger #feminism #birthcontrol #choice #abortion #eugenics #racism #plannedparenthood
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Toni Frissell