ABSTRACT

American Leader of the birth-control movement and

founder of Planned Parenthood, known as a radical
who begin her fight to legalize birth control in 1914.

Amber Schofield
ENGL-2010-025

MARGARET SAGNER
1879-1966

CONTENTS
EARLY LIFE ..................................................................................................................................................... 2
HOW SHE BECAME A REBEL .......................................................................................................................... 3
SIGNIFICANCE OF HER WORK ....................................................................................................................... 3
WORKS CITED ................................................................................................................................................ 4

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EARLY LIFE
Margaret was born into a large family, she was sixth out of eleven children, and early on formed the
opinion that large families like hers were doomed to be poor. She was well aware that her mother had
not planned for each of the births and attributed her early death at only 40 years old to the excessive
child bearings.
After caring for her sick mother and younger siblings she decided to become a nurse. It was during her
years that she worked as an obstetrical nurse that she was further exposed to the death and sickness
surrounding poor families with multiple unplanned children. The turning point in her career was in 1912
when she met a young mother that she was called to help whom had attempted an abortion and was
near death when she arrived. The young mother begged the attending doctor to help her prevent
future pregnancies as she believed that another birth would kill her. The doctor had no advice beyond
abstinence and Sanger told the young woman that she would return with some more helpful
information. She didnt return as promised until she was called back to aid in the same situation three
months later, but this time her attempted abortion ended in death. The guilt that Sanger felt along with
the fact that her father always told her to leave the world better than how she found it convinced her to
give up everything in order to transform birth control from a private practice to a public conversation
(Wilson). She swiftly set out to teach the upper class contraceptive practices to all classes and
ultimately bringing sex education to the world in a time when sex was considered too private to talk
about.

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HOW SHE BECAME A REBEL

She published a journal two years later, in 1914 that encouraged women
to rebel and insist on reproductive freedom, it was in the first issue of
The Woman Rebel that she coined the term Birth Control. The
information in the journal was tightly monitored and she was unable to
put any information in the journal that could be considered obscene.
After thousands of women responded asking for specific information on
how to limit pregnancies, Sanger wrote a pamphlet that contained the
information that she was not allowed to publish in the journal. It had
pictures and drawings as well as avocation of sexual fulfillment for women. Once she found a printer
and started handing out the pamphlet she was arrested immediately.

SIGNIFICANCE OF HER WORK

Though she gradually won the support of many, her idea to reduce poverty through illuminating
unwanted pregnancy is to this day a major debate and after all these years she is still talked about and
continues to be accused of creating birth control clinics in hopes to eliminate blacks by terminating them
before they were born. During her journey to reach her goals she was jailed 8 times, had to go into
hiding leaving her husband and three children behind, divorced her first husband, opened the first birth
control clinic, organized the first birth control conference, formed the National Committee on Federal
Legislation for Birth Control, lectured and helped establish clinics in many countries and wrote 3 books.
With this being said she may not be convinced that she reached her goal due to the way the debate has
turned to abortion these days as she was wholeheartedly against such a thing. She believed that if you
were educated properly and used birth control as directed there would be no need for abortions.
Though that vision has fallen a little short, there is no doubt that she did succeed in the creation of the
largest sex education entity in the world, Planned Parenthood.
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WORKS CITED
Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. "Margaret Higgins Sanger."
6th Edition. History Reference Center, 2015.
Croft, Lesley Hoyt. "Margeret Sanger." Salem Press Biographical
Encyclopedia:Research Starters January 2014. Web.
Starr, Richard. "Look Back At Sanger." Commentary 133.1 (2012):
52-55.
Wilson, Aimee Armande. "Modernism, Monsters, and Margaret
Sanger." MFS Modern Fiction Studies 59.2 (2013): 440-460.

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