Personal Vita
January 1, 2001
Margaret Higgins Sanger
[Source: Gloria Steinem]
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Margaret Sanger Papers Project, New York University History Department.
Marist College
Website: http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/
[Source: Margaret Sanger Papers project]
Biographical/Historical Note
Born in Coming, NY, on September 14, 1879 to Michael Hennessy Higgins and Anne Purcell Higgins. Married William Sanger in 1902 and had three children. After spending ten years in an affluent Westchester suburb, the family moved to New York City. Her interest in women's health issues and contraception stemmed from her mother's death due to tuberculosis. She died after having eighteen pregnancies and eleven live births. Margaret was determined to make women a part of the decision-making processes involved in their own sexuality.
[Source: Times 100, Gloria Steinem]
Birth Date
September 14, 1879, in Corning, NY.
[Source of Birthdate: Lader, 1953]
Death Date
September 6, 1966, in a Tucson, Arizona, nursing home
[Source of Deathdate: Lader, 1953]
Education
1896--1900 Attended Claverack College and Hudson River Institute
1900--Started Nursing program at White Plains Hospital
[Source: Margaret Sanger Papers Project]
Work History
1912--Began working as a nurse on the Lower East Side of New York City
1912--Started writing a column for the New York Call entitled "What Every Girl Should Know"
1914--Published The Woman Rebel, a newspaper advocating birth control
1914--Separated from William Sanger
1916--Opened United States' first family planning and birth control clinic in Brownsville, Brooklyn
1916--Brownsville Clinic was raided and Sanger was arrested for violating postal obscenity laws.
1916--Fled to Europe to escape persecution
1917--Returned to United States and published the first issue of The Birth Control Review and Birth Control News
1921--Founded the American Birth Control League, the precursor to the Planned Parenthood Federation
1922--Married Oil Magnate James Noah H. Slee
1923--Formed the Clinical Research Bureau, the first legal birth control clinic in the country which was operated under the American Birth Control League
1928--Resigned as the president of the ABCL
1930--Became president of the Birth Control International Information Centre
1937--Became chairperson of the Birth Control Council of America and created the two publications The birth Control Review and The Birth Control News
1939-1942--Was an honorary delegate of the Birth Control Federation of America
1940--Clinical Research Bureau changed its name to Margaret Sanger Research Bureau in honor of its founder
1952-1959--Served as president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation; at this time it was the largest private international family planning organization
1965--Griswold vs. Connecticut made birth control legal for married couples
[Sources: Margaret Sanger Project Papers, Time 100, Gloria Steinem]
Associated Subjects
Birth Control
Family Planning
Family Limitations
Dutch and English Methods of Birth Control
[Source: Margaret Sanger Paper Project]
Associated People
Mabel Dodge
Max Eastman
Havelock Ellis
Emma Goldwin
John Reed
Upton Sinclair
H.G. Wells
[Source: Chesler, Women of Valor]
Associated Organizations
American Birth Control League
Birth Control Council of America
Birth Control Federation of America
Birth Control International Information Center
Birth Control Research Bureau
Birth Control Review/New York Women's Publishing Company
Brownsville Clinic and the Committee of 100
Committee on Maternal Health/Maternity Research Council
International Committee on Planned Parenthood
International Planned Parenthood Federation
Joint Committee of the American Birth Control League and the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau
Margaret Sanger Research Bureau
National Committee for Federal Legislation on Birth Control
New York Birth Control League
Planned Parenthood Federation of America World Population Emergency Campaign
[Sources: History Department-New York University]
Publications
Sanger, M. (1931). My right for birth control. New York: Farrar and Rinehardt.
Sanger, M. (1938). Autobiography. New York: WW. Norton and Company.
Pamphlets:
Family Limitation (1914-1931)
Dutch Methods of Birth Control (1915)
English Methods of Birth Control (1915)
Magnetation Methods of Birth Control (1915)
Related References
Banner, L. (1972). Women in modern America: A Brief History.
Chesler, E. (1992). Women of valor: Margaret Sanger and the birth control movement in America. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Douglass, E. T. (1979). Margaret Sanger: A biography of the champion of birth control. New York: Richard Marek Publishers.
Garraty, J., & Carnes, M. C. (1988). Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 8 1966-1970. New York: Charles Scribner and Sons.
Kennedy, D. (1970). Birth control in America: The career of Margaret Sanger. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press.
Lader, L. (1953). The Margaret Sanger story and the fight for birth control. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday.
Martin, W. (Ed.). (1972). The American sisterhood. New York: Harper and Row.
Margaret Sanger papers project, Department of History, New York University, Revised October 20, 1999.
The selected letters and writings of Margaret Sanger, Indiana University Press, Revised November 17,1999.
Steinem, G. (1999). Margaret Sanger. Time l00.
Web site: http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/
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