The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution (49 page)

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Authors: Jonathan Eig

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CHAPTER TWO

12
“science and scientist continue to be governed by fear”
: Mary Roach,
Bonk
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2008), p. 12.
12
textbooks . . . lacked entries
: Ibid.
15
“attempting to lose their inhibitions”
: Malcolm Cowley,
Exile’s Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920s
(New York: Penguin, 1994), p. 23.
16
the key to curing neuroses
: Christopher Turner,
Adventures in the Orgasmatron
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011), pp. 78–79.
16
“heart ailments . . . excessive perspiration”
: Ibid., p. 80.
18
“Fifties clothes were like armor”
: Brett Harvey,
The Fifties: A Women’s Oral History
(New York: HarperCollins, 1993), p. xi.
19
median age of marriage in 1950
: U.S. Bureau of Census report, September 15, 2004, http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/tabMS-2.pdf (accessed February 18, 2014).
19
“What’s college?”
: Elizabeth Siegel Watkins,
On the Pill
(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), p. 9.
20
“Birth control would have been cold-blooded”
: Harvey,
The Fifties
, pp. 11–12.
20
“I was terribly frightened about getting pregnant”
: Ibid., p. 12.
20
Most American women . . . accepted the idea of birth control
: Watkins,
On the Pill
, p. 11.
20
not a question of principle
: Birth Control Hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, 73rd Congress, 2d sess., on H.R. 5978, Jan. 18–19, 1934 (Washington, D.C., 1934), SSC.

CHAPTER THREE

22
“tennis or chess”
: Bernard Asbell,
The Pill: A Biography of the Drug That Changed the World
(New York: Random House, 1995), p. 124.
22
“Victory!”
: Unpublished interview,
Candide
, Gregory Pincus Papers, LOC.
22
might get them more money
: Asbell,
The Pill
, p. 124.
23
“
‘
cunning device
’
”
: Gregory Pincus,
The Control of Fertility
(New York: Academic Press, 1965), p. 6.
23
“consequences that are not apparent on the surface”
: Ibid., pp. 6–7.
23
“ivory tower conception of research”
: Ibid., p. 7.
23
the world in which they lived
: Ibid., p. 8.
24
“though dull of mind”
: Matthew James Connelly,
Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008), p. 61.
25
“more serious than the atomic bomb”
: “Creator of The Pill Talks to ‘The Sun,’ ”
Sydney Sun
, January 9, 1967.
25
wool-spinning machines, and electric clocks
:
Polk’s Worcester City
Directory
(Detroit, MI: R. L. Polk and Company, 1954), pp. 8–9.
26
Wear-Well Trouser Co. and the Worcester Baking Company
: Worcester Foundation annual reports and internal reports, Worcester Foundation Papers, UM.
27
“Since sleep escapes me”
: Undated letter, Gregory Pincus to Albert Raymond, Gregory Pincus Papers, LOC.
28
“I want you to know”
: Ibid.

CHAPTER FOUR

29
she wrote to a friend and supporter in 1939
: Margaret Sanger to Clarence Gamble, August 15, 1939, Margaret Sanger Papers, SSC.
29
“Dear Mrs. Sanger . . .”
: Margaret Sanger Papers, SSC.
31
revealing the true angels within
: “The Child Who Was Mother to a Woman,”
The New Yorker
, April 11, 1927.
31
His friends loved him and trusted him
: Ibid.
31
“It was Father”
: Margaret Sanger,
My Fight for Birth Control
(New York: Farrar & Rhinehart, 1931), pp. 11–12.
31
a constable barring the door
: “The Child Who Was Mother to a Woman,”
The New Yorker
, April 11, 1927.
32
where Ingersoll finally spoke
: Ibid.
32
“the juvenile stamp of disapproval”
: Margaret Sanger,
The Autobiography of Margaret Sanger
(Mineola, NY: Dover, 2004), p. 20.
32
“they were wrong”
: “The Child Who Was Mother to a Woman,”
The New Yorker
, April 11, 1927.
32
With financial support from her older sisters
: Ellen Chesler,
Woman of Valor
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), p. 30.
32
“I longed for romance”
: David M. Kennedy,
Birth Control in America
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1970), p. 5.
33
marriage “akin to suicide”
: Sanger,
My Fight for Birth Control
, p. 31.
33
“I was sick for two months”
: Sanger,
The Autobiography of Margaret Sanger
, p. 57.
33
“Socialists, Trade Unionists, Anarchists”
: William B. Scott and Peter M. Rutkoff,
New York Modern: The Arts and the City
(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), p. 81.
34
“stands firmly by its roots”
: Journal entry, November 3–4, 1914, Margaret Sanger Papers, SSC.
34
“an ardent propagandist for the joys of the flesh”
: Peter Engelman,
A History of the Birth Control Movement in America
(Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011), p. 31.
34
found the conditions “almost beyond belief”
: Sanger,
My Fight for Birth Control
, pp. 46–48.
34
below Fourteenth Street east of Broadway
: “New York Wards: Population and Density, 1800–1910,” Demographia.com, http://www.demographia.com/db-nyc-ward1800.htm (accessed February 19, 2014).
35
460 square feet each
: “Manhattan’s Population Density, Past and Present,”
New York Times
, March 1, 2012.
35
population had increased 62 percent
: “New York Wards: Population and Density, 1800–1910,” Demographia.com, http://www.demographia.com/db-nyc-ward1800.htm (accessed February 19, 2014).
35
“Poor pale faced wretched wives”
: Margaret Sanger to Juliet Barrett Rublee, July 7, 1920, Margaret Sanger Papers, SSC.
35
one-third of all pregnancies
: “The Question of Birth Control,”
Harper’s
magazine, December 1929, p. 40.
35
“inserting slippery-elm sticks”
: Sanger,
My Fight for Birth Control
, p. 47.
36
I would be heard
: Ibid., p. 56.
36
lapsed into severe depression
: Chesler,
Woman of Valor
, p. 52.
36
the maid would be there
: David Halberstam,
The Fifties
(New York: Random House, 1994), p. 283.
37
7.04 in 1800 to 3.56 in 1900
: Daniel Scott Smith, “Family Limitation, Sexual Control, and Domestic Feminism in Victorian America,”
Feminist Studies
1, no. 3–4 (1973), pp. 40–57.
38
24 percent for these devices
:
Controlling Reproduction
, ed. Andrea Tone (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2001), p. 75.
38
“except total abstinence”
: Ibid., p. 81.
38
plant-fiber tampon coated with honey . . . and swallowed poisons
: “Leeches, Lye and Spanish Fly,”
New York Times
, January 22, 2013.
39
disease of both body and soul
: Chesler,
Woman of Valor
, p. 52.
39
“You are a world Lover”
: Bill Sanger to Margaret Sanger, February 6, 1914, Margaret Sanger Papers, SSC.
39
“go-to-hell look”
: “The Aim,”
The Woman Rebel
, March 1914.

CHAPTER FIVE

41
“the severed head of Holofernes”
: “The Child Who Was Mother to a Woman,”
The New Yorker
, April 11, 1927.
42
“in the whole of his life”
: Arthur Calder-Marshall,
The Sage of Sex: A Life of Havelock Ellis
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1959), pp. 197–98.
42
“ever wonderful, ever lovely”
: Henry Havelock Ellis,
The New Spirit
(London: Walter Scott, 1890), p. 129.
42
“It is wonderful enough”
: H. G. Wells,
The Secret Places of the Heart
(New York: MacMillan, 1922), p. 250.
43
Comstock had masturbated so obsessively
: Gay Talese,
Thy Neighbor’s Wife
(New York: Doubleday, 1980), p. 53.
44
“any obscene, lewd, lascivious”
: Section 211 of the U.S. Criminal Code,
http://books.google.com/books?id=6cUZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA10381-IA2&lpg=PA10381-IA2&dq=“any+obscene,+lewd,+or+lascivious”:+
Section+211+of+the+U.S.+Criminal+Code&source=bl&ots=_m3p115
xFc&sig=0D4DBGx_m71oj1pbbHGiBPfsD5o&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gr
MQU6SiH6LWyQH-5YHwDQ&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage
&q=“any%20obscene%2C%20lewd%2C%20or%20lascivious”%
3A%20Section%20211%20of%20the%20U.S.%20Criminal%20Code&f=false (accessed February 28, 2014).
44
“a weeder in God’s garden”
: Talese,
Thy Neighbor’s Wife
, p. 56.
44
“You are all the world to me”
: Ellen Chesler,
Woman of Valor
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), p. 106.
45
Stuart, alone at boarding school
: Ibid., p. 107.
45
“reflect, meditate and dream”
: Ibid.
45
haunted by nightmares
: Ibid., p. 134.
46
“Then we got a little nearer”
: Peter C. Engelman,
A History of the Birth Control Movement in America
(Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2011), p. xviii.
47
“wrists reddened” . . . “what scars Murray and Foley are nursing”
: “Mrs. Sanger Flays Mrs. Davis’ Plans,”
New York Tribune
, March 7, 1917; “Mrs. Sanger Free, Hailed as Heroine,”
New York Tribune
, March 6, 1917.
48
“constant tendency”
: T. R. Malthus,
An Essay on the Principle of Population
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 14.
49
“I wasn’t doing my duty as a wife”
: Margaret Sanger,
Motherhood in Bondage
(Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2000), p. 124.
49
Sanger wrote in 1919
: Margaret Sanger, “Parent’s Problem or a Woman’s,”
Birth Control Review
3, no. 3 (1919), pp. 6–7.
50
“The Church’s attitude on birth control”
: “The Question of Birth Control,”
Harper’s Monthly Magazine
, December 1929.
50
“the sacramental attitude”
: Ibid.
51
There were conditions
: Lawrence Lader, “Margaret Sanger: Militant Pragmatist Visionary,”
On the Issues
Magazine, Spring 1990, http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/1990spring/Spr90_Lader.php (accessed February 19, 2014).
51
“retire with him to the garden of love”
:
Controlling Reproduction
, ed. Andrea Tone (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2001), p. 129.
51
“the greatest adventure in my life”
: Lawrence Lader, “Margaret Sanger: Militant Pragmatist Visionary,”
On the Issues
Magazine, Spring 1990.
52
“234 clinics and 140 hospitals”
: Ibid., p. 134.
53
weeding out of the “unfit”
: Ellen Chesler,
Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), p. 195.
54
in the backseats of their cars
: Jean H. Baker,
Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion
(New York: Hill and Wang, 2011), p. 174.
55
“To take life after its inception”
: “Archbishop Hayes on Birth Control,”
New York Times
, December 18, 1921.
55
“What he believes”
: Typed statement by Margaret Sanger, January 20, 1921, Margaret Sanger Papers, SSC.
55
as Chesler wrote
: Chesler,
Woman of Valor
, p. 470.
56
“There is no need to summarize”
: Andrea Tone,
Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America
(New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), p. 147.
57
“a fine piece of research”
: Margaret Sanger to Katharine Dexter McCormick, January 8, 1937, Margaret Sanger Papers, SSC.

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