Preview

Margaret Sanger Birth Control In The Late 1800's

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1055 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Margaret Sanger Birth Control In The Late 1800's
Birth control pills today are seen differently and are accessible to many people. In the past, not many people talked about the topic of birth control and shied away from it because men were afraid that women would take over and attempt to fight for equality. The long endeavor to have birth control allowed women to have control of their own body without being criticized as much today. Margaret Sanger was a strong activist who fought for birth control was born in 1879 and died in 1966 had it easier for her to fight for her cause because of the place she was born in. Birth control in the late 1800’s was not a popular topic and it forced expectant mothers to do self-administered abortions and resulted in many deaths.
Some historical events that
…show more content…
As a nurse in where the slums lived, she experienced many traumas and abortions. She knew of many mothers who wanted to stop getting pregnant because of the life they are in. They could not afford another child and were afraid that they would not have enough money to provide and take care of the child. Hearing these situations being told pretty often opened the eyes of Margaret Sanger to find a way to prevent unwanted births. Her experiences with poor mothers who wanted to avoid pregnancies transformed her into a social radical (Mossman). As a nurse, Margaret Sanger was surrounded by premature deaths of women through self-administered abortions (Markey). She was tired of seeing women die because they try to make their own abortions. Since she was a nurse and knew about what the women were experiencing, she wanted to find ways to help them, so they will not be afraid of getting …show more content…
This book was a controversy in the past and not many people were opened to her ideas. “Edited and published by Sanger, who sought to educate and raise the consciousness of working women through a newspaper devoted to their specific needs” (Estherkatz). The main reason for her to write was to tell women that they are not alone and that there is a chance that they will have a better outcome in life. One important quote that Sanger used was “No Gods, “No Masters,” which meant to get the attention of middle class women and also the more educated people. This meaning focused on eliminating the unnecessary things in order to make things better. “Only eight issues of The Woman Rebel ever published, it was was one if the first publications to focus specifically on the problems of working women and to articulate a new feminist agenda for the 20th century” (Estherkatz). This anarchist monthly was a big step to getting the idea of birth control across and also getting supporters to help her campaign. Another important book she wrote was the Woman and the New Race, which talked about contraceptives and the way it can help with overpopulation. In the book, she tries to convince the readers that birth control is the way to enjoy sex, but to prevent overpopulation and unwanted pregnancies. Writing in books and newspapers articles opens up the people’s view on birth control and help them understand that it

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    She became an advocate for women’s rights after she was denied a promotion for being pregnant at her job at the local social security office. She was given a demotion for getting pregnant.…

    • 1163 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The complex decision to utilize analogies made the reason all the more clear, as well as made the speech all the more fascinating, and along these lines more powerful at conveying the expected message. "The Children's Era" is just a bit of Margaret Sanger's long lasting work in her campaign to enhance the lives of children, as well as their moms, by giving different options for the horrors she had seen working in the ghettos of New York City. Close to the end of Sanger's association with this cause, the effect of her work was finished through the improvement of the birth control pill, a tremendous triumph for the…

    • 110 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    By the 1950’s, she had won many legal victories, but she was far from context. After 40 years of fighting for women to control their fertility, Sanger was extremely frustrated with the limited birth control options available to women. There had been no new advances since the 1842 invention of the diaphragm in Europe and the introduction of the first full length rubber condom in the US in 1869. She had championed the diaphragm, but after promoting it for decades, it was the least popular method in the United States. It was highly effective, but expensive, awkward, and most women were embarrassed to use it. Even in her seventies, this didn’t stop Margaret from creating something better. She had been dreaming of a “magic pill” since 1912, but…

    • 288 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “Defending the unborn against their own disabilities.” Margaret Sanger is known for being a birth control, population control, and a eugenics activist. As a eugenics activist she believed that the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. She was born on Sept 14, 1879, in Corning, New York. Her family had lived in poverty and her father didn’t earn a steady wage. Because her family lived in poverty Sanger searched for a better life, and that way was going to college. She attended Claverack College and Hudson River institute in 1896.…

    • 101 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    | Margaret Sanger is the speaker and her reputation is set as a social activist of men and women’s rights everywhere.…

    • 914 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Moreover, her job in 1959 she then joined the March of Dimes program and put her focus on birth defects, such as what causes it and how to prevent it. She wrote different articles regarding this topic; she brought awareness to all parents and families out there. When rubella broke out she looked for a vaccine mainly because rubella was one of the main causes of birth…

    • 575 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Margaret Sanger Analysis

    • 589 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Sanger’s time in Hastings was brief and, at least initially, traumatic. Her young family’s newly built house went on fire the night they moved in. She, her husband, and young son escaped safely, and the house was rebuilt, but Sanger grew to dislike life in our leafy ‘burb. She ultimately moved her family, which by then included three children, back to the city, so they could participate in the “. . .great ‘Pageant of Living,’” as she described it in her 1931 book, My Fight for Birth Control.…

    • 589 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The one issue upon which there seems to be most uncertainty and disagreement exists in the moral side of the subject of Birth Control.”(Margaret Sanger) Margaret Sanger is an American birth control activist, sex educator, and nurse. She is the author of The Morality of birth Control, a speech that was delivered on November 18, 1921 in New York. This speech was given at a time when the church forbids birth control and women were made to focus on having babies and being housewives. Sanger explicitly persuaded an audience of her colleagues, theologians, scientists, and the people. She accomplished this with the use of rhetorical devices such as,…

    • 651 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    objected to the pointless suffering of these women, and she battled to make birth control information and contraceptives available to all. Sanger Feminist publication called the Woman Rebel, which encouraged a woman’s right to have birth control landed her in trouble; it was unlawful to send out information on contraception through the mail. Rather than face five years in jail, Sanger fled to England. While there she worked in the women’s movement and researched other forms of birth control, including the diaphragm which she latter smuggled back into the U.S. Sanger returned to the U.S. in October 1915, after charges against her were dropped.…

    • 1488 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Men thought women were put on Earth to bear children hence them thinking the use of birth control went against nature. Due to religious reasoning, sex was intended for procreation and not pleasure so if women used contraceptives, they denied God’s will. They also thought birth control would make people promiscuous since pregnancy wouldn’t be an issue.…

    • 57 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Who Is Margaret Sanger?

    • 763 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Margaret first became involved with helping pregnant woman when she worked at White Plains, she would help out women who had unwanted children, or took dangerous measures to have backdoor abortions. Due to this, Margaret felt like she had to help these women who were being oppressed in a society where women’s sexuality was never considered a thing – women weren’t even considered persons at this time. Margaret often said, “every child should be a wanted child,” and she worked really hard to make this a reality. It was those women who cried to her about the troubles they faced as being young mothers, having too many children, or having to deal with illegal abortions that inspired Sanger to find a way to prevent this. She wanted to be the voice for the women who were too afraid of their partners to tell them that they didn’t want any more children.…

    • 763 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sanger rebelled against the unnecessary suffering endured by these women, and she fought to make birth control information and contraceptives available. In 1922 Sanger wrote an article called The Need of Birth Control, I think one of the things that prompted Sanger to write this article was the fact that her mother, Anne, had several miscarriages, and Margaret believed that all of these pregnancies took a toll on her mother 's health and contributed to her early death at the…

    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There, she encountered many desperate mothers living in destitution who implored her to provide them with knowledge which would help them prevent more unwanted pregnancies (“Margaret Higgins Sanger”)". She discovered that many women were dying in childbirth or from botched, secretive abortions (“Margaret Louise Sanger.”). Exposure to such brutal life turned Sanger into a full-fledged social radical (“Margaret Higgins Sanger”)". She joined the Socialist party, attended rallies, and thoroughly researched “everything she could about birth control practices” (“Margaret Higgins Sanger”)". She eventually “became convinced that oversized families were the basic cause of poverty” (“Margaret Higgins Sanger”)". Sanger not only wanted to help these specific mothers living in the slums of New York City, but she wanted to end the similar injustices which were imposed upon women like them across the state, and, eventually, end the suffering of women in the same position across the…

    • 1544 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Margaret Sanger

    • 5150 Words
    • 21 Pages

    Margaret Sanger founded a movement in this country that would institute such a change in the course of our biological history that it is still debated today. Described by some as a "radiant rebel", Sanger pioneered the birth control movement in the United States at a time when Victorian hypocrisy and oppression through moral standards were at their highest. Working her way up from a nurse in New York's poor Lower East Side to the head of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Margaret Sanger was unwavering in her dedication to the movement that would eventually result in lower infant mortality rates and better living conditions for the impoverished. But, because of the way that her political strategy changed and evolved, Margaret Sanger is seen by some as a hypocrite; a rags to riches story that involves a complete withdrawal from her commitment to the poorer classes. My research indicates that this is not the case; in fact, by all accounts Margaret Sanger was a brave crusader who recognized freedom and choice in a woman's reproductive life as vital to the issue of the liberation of women as a gender. Moreover, after years of being blocked by opposition, Sanger also recognized the need to shift political strategies in order to keep the movement alive. Unfortunately, misjudgments made by her in this area have left Margaret Sanger's legacy open to criticism. In this paper, I would like to explore Margaret Sanger's life and career as well as become aware of some of the missteps that she made and how they reflect on both.…

    • 5150 Words
    • 21 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Margaret Sanger Analysis

    • 1584 Words
    • 7 Pages

    She pulls out a copy of The Woman Rebel and starts to read to me. “The aim of this paper will be to stimulate working women to think for themselves and to build up a conscious fighting character” (Sanger, 1). She mentions how women are “enslaved by the world machine, by sex conventions, by motherhood and its present necessary child-rearing” (Sanger, 3). Sanger wants me to know that women should not be condemned to having child after child due to lack of knowledge about birth control and how to obtain it. Women should be free to have control of their bodies. Her beliefs were that it takes two people to have sex, so why should the women face more consequences than the men? She explained how having a baby is extremely taxing for a woman more so than on a man. Women will forever live with the damages to their bodies and their minds. Without birth control, women will have children hanging off of them and will be withered away by the overload of motherly duties, she says. Her suggestions have taught me that it is only fair to women to have free birth control since they receive the short-end of the stick when it comes to being able to prevent pregnancy and take care of their bodies and lives. Women should have the right to prevent pregnancy or to terminate an early pregnancy/a pregnancy that is threatening…

    • 1584 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays