Margaret Sanger's Actions

By ronniflanagan2021

  • Sanger Joined the Women's Committee of the New York Socialist Party

    Sanger took part in socialist politics and modernist values of pre-World War I Greenwich Village bohemia. As Member of the Women's Committee of the New York Socialist party, she took part in the labor actions of the Industrial Workers of the World. Allowing connections with intellectuals, progressive artists, socialists, and activists.

  • Published: Sanger's Two Series Column

    Sanger's political concerns, developing feminism, and nursing experience drove her to write a two series column on sex education: "What Every Mother Should Know" and "What Every Girl Should Know" for the socialist magazine "New York Call".

  • Launched A Campaign

    This campaign challenged existing governmental suppression of contraceptive information through confrontational behaviors.

  • The Woman Rebel & Family Limitation

    Sanger launched an eight-page newsletter, promoting contraception, entitled: "The Woman Rebel: No Gods, No Masters". Sanger's goal was to normalize the term "birth control" and turn away from the term "family limitation". Sanger legally challenged the federal anti-obscenity laws. She published "Family Limitation", another way she challenged anti-birth control laws.

  • Sanger's Lectures

    From 1916, Sanger regularly lectured in churches, women's clubs, homes, and theaters to break the social stigma surrounding birth control.

  • Opened the First Birth Control Clinic

    On October 16, 1916, Sanger opened the first-ever birth control clinic known to the US, in Brooklyn.

  • Published: Birth Control Review

    Sanger published the newsletter entitled, "Birth Control Review".
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    Published Books by Sanger

    Sanger wrote and published many books during the 1920s, several that served a nationwide impact in promoting the cause of birth control. Her most popular, "Woman and the New Race" and "The Pivot of Civilization" sold 567,000 copies within 6 years. Her autobiographies, "My Fight for Birth Control" (1931) and "Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography" (1938). Lastly, Sanger put together 500 written letters from women all over the world into her book, "Motherhood in Bondage" in 1928.

  • The American Birth Control League

    The American Birth Control League
    After WW1, Sanger established the American Birth Control League (ABCL) to expand her supporters to the middle and lower classes. ABCL's principles encompass:
    We hold that children should be...
    1. Conceived in love;
    2. Born of the mother's conscious desire;
    3. And only begotten under conditions which render possible the heritage of health.
    "Therefore we hold that every woman must possess the power and freedom to prevent conception except when these conditions can be satisfied"

  • The Clinical Research Bureau

    After Sanger's appeal of her conviction for the Brownsville clinic acquired a 1918 court ruling that excused physicians from the law prohibiting the distribution of contraceptive information to women. Sanger established the Clinical Research Bureau (CRB) in order to close this loophole. This clinic was the first legal birth control clinic in the United States.

  • The Sixth International Neo-Malthusian and Birth-Control Conference

    Sanger coordinated the Sixth International Neo-Malthusian and Birth-Control Conference located in New York in 1925.

  • The Harlem Clinic

    Sanger worked with African American leaders and professionals supportive on her position regarding birth control. In 1929, James H. Hubert, a black social worker and the leader of New York's Urban League, asked Sanger to open a clinic in Harlem.

  • National Committee on Federal Legislation

    In 1929, Sanger established the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control in order to demand legislation to overturn restrictions on contraception.

  • 1936 Court Decision

    Sanger's following legal challenge led to a 1936 court decision which overturned an important provision of the Comstock laws, urging the American Medical Association in 1937 to adopt contraception as a normal medical service and added it to medical curriculum,
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    Birth Control Federation of America

    From 1939 to 1942, Sanger was an honorary delegate of the Birth Control Federation of America, which was associated with the Negro Project, an effort to deliver birth control to poor black women.

  • Planned Parenthood Federation of America

    In 1942, The ABCL and BCCRB was changed to Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

  • International Planned Parenthood Federation

    In 1948, Sanger helped found the International Committee on Planned Parenthood, later known as the International Planned Parenthood Federation in 1952. The largest non-governmental international women's health, family preparation, and birth control organization.