“No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body,” said Margaret Sanger. “No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.” Many people may not think Sanger is important or even know who she is, but there are many reasons why she is important in American history. She revolutionized women's health all over the world. Her family life played a tremendous role in her becoming a women’s rights activist. Sanger changed women’s rights in the 1900s and still has an impact on women’s rights today. Margaret Sanger impacted women’s health more than anyone in American history simply because she started the conversation about women’s rights.
As explained on the website of Sanger’s life, Margaret was born and raised in Corning, New York. She was the one of eleven children. Sanger’s mother died at a young age due to the cause of tuberculosis. Margaret attended school Claverack College in Hudson, New York, and then went to study nursing at the White Plains Hospital. Margaret left school to take care of her mother, which she suffered from tuberculosis. Tuberculosis was a disease that affected the lungs. Sangers mother later passed away from this. In 1912, she worked in New York City as a nurse for immigrants. She was scarred by the number of immigrants she saved while in the hospital. While there she saw venereal diseases and mishandled abortions. As Sanger spent her days in the hospital she saw many different diseases, one case really caught her attention. Her patient was not given birth control from her doctor, then died from an illegal abortion. Sanger then said she would commit to educating women on birth control. She then married William Sanger they had a child t...
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“Margaret Sanger.” The Pill. PBS Online, 2001. Web. 6 Mar. 2014. .
Margaret Sanger Quotes, History, and Biography. Live Action. Live Acton, 2012. Web. 4 Mar. 2014. .
McHenry, Robert. Sanger, Margaret Higgins (biography). N.p.: Pilgrim New Media, 1995. Print.
Reed, Miriam. Margaret Sanger Her Life in Her Words. New Jersey: Barricade Books Inc., 2003. Print.
Sanger, Margaret. The Autobiography of Margaret Sanger. N.p.: Dover Publications, 2004. Print.
“The Truth About Margaret Sanger.” Black Genocide. blackgenocide.org, 20 Jan. 1992. Web. 6 Mar. 2014. .
Margaret Sanger, a well known feminist and women's reproductive right activist in USA history wrote the famous speech: The Children's Era. This speech focuses on the topic of women's reproductive freedom. Sanger uses rhetorical forms of communication to persuade and modify the perspectives of the audience through the use of analogy and pathos. She uses reason, thought and emotion to lead her speech.
Dorothy Wardell’s article titled “Margaret Sanger: Birth Control’s Successful Revolutionary” explains what inspired Sanger ideas on contraception and what problems she faced while working to change the notions and laws on Birth Control. The central argument presented by Wardell is that Sanger’s efforts led to privileges for women’s bodies and health centers providing methods for women to act on these privileges (Wardell, 736). Although Wardell is effective in supporting her argument, it would be stronger if she included some historical context and evidence of Sanger’s opinion in her own words found in a speech of hers and in Family Limitation. Wardell begins by addressing that “…a definitive biography and assessment has yet to be written.”,
Margaret (Peggy) O’Neal (who preffered to be called Margaret) was born in 1799 in Washington DC. She was the daughter of William O’Neal, who owned a thriving boarding house and tavern called the Franklin House in that same town. It was frequented by senators, congressmen, and all politicians. She was the oldest of six children, growing up in the midst of our nation’s emerging political scene. She was always a favorite of the visitors to the Franklin House. She was sent to one of the best schools in Washington DC, where she studied English and French grammar, needlework and music. She also had quite a talent for dance, and was sent to private lessons, becoming a very good dancer. At the age of twelve, she danced for the First Lady Dolley Madison. Visitors of the Franklin House also commented on her piano playing skills.
...still a vital part of world today. Planned Parenthood is not segregated to color or affluence and has definitely changed the world as we know it today. Margaret Sanger though a determined selfish women did not get everything the way she wanted it to be. She hung up fliers in immigrant neighborhoods just so the poor or colored would go to the clinic. She wanted these people to go to the birth control clinics so they couldn’t reproduce. Margaret believed that if you couldn’t support the family you already have you shouldn’t have more children and she was a strong believer that the inferior race should not be able to reproduce. All of Mrs. Sanger’s actions said more then what her voice said. Margaret Sanger was a powerful strong woman who was celebrated as an advocate of women’s rights; however her motives were for all the wrong reasons.
"A free race cannot be born" and no woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother"(Sanger A 35). Margaret Sanger (1870-1966)said this in one of her many controversial papers. The name of Margaret Sanger and the issue of birth control have virtually become synonymous. Birth control and the work of Sanger have done a great deal to change the role of woman in society, relationships between men and woman, and the family. The development and spread of knowledge of birth control gave women sexual freedom for the first time, gave them an individual identity in society and a chance to work without fearing they were contributing to the moral decline of society by leaving children at home. If birth control and Sanger did so much good to change the role of women in society why was birth control so controversial?
Margaret Sanger was the founder of The American League of Birth Control which later became Planned Parenthood and her argument in those times was that it was not fair for women who were from a lower class could not have access to Birth Control.
Since the beginning of the 17th-century and earlier, there has always been different perspectives on women 's rights. Men and women all over the world have voiced their opinion and position in regard to the rights of women. This holds especially true in the United States during the 18th and 19th century. As women campaigned for equality, there were some who opposed this idea. There was, and always will be a series of arguments on behalf of women 's rights. Anti-women 's rights activists such as Dr. John Todd and Pro-women 's rights activist Gail Hamilton argued intelligently and tactfully on the topic. There were many key arguments made against women’s rights by Dr. John Todd, and Gail Hamilton 's rebuttal was graceful and on par with her male counterpart. Let 's examine some of Dr. John 's arguments against women 's equality.
Thatcher, Laurel. A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812. 1st. New York: Vintage Books, 1990. 1-142 . Print.
Up until and during the mid -1800’s, women were stereotyped and not given the same rights that men had. Women were not allowed to vote, speak publically, stand for office and had no influence in public affairs. They received poorer education than men did and there was not one church, except for the Quakers, that allowed women to have a say in church affairs. Women also did not have any legal rights and were not permitted to own property. Overall, people believed that a woman only belonged in the home and that the only rule she may ever obtain was over her children. However, during the pre- Civil war era, woman began to stand up for what they believed in and to change the way that people viewed society (Lerner, 1971). Two of the most famous pioneers in the women’s rights movement, as well as abolition, were two sisters from South Carolina: Sarah and Angelina Grimké.
Kelley, Mary. Introduction. The Power of Her Sympathy. By Catharine Maria Sedgwick. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1993.
Sanger explains that people who aren’t fit to care for a child shouldn’t bare children. She goes on to explain that the less irresponsible and reckless people there are “the less immortality shall exist”. Sanger wants to stop the disease known as over population at the source which is in the hands of women controlling the number of offspring they bring into the world. The argument in the speech is that using contraception doesn’t lower morals, when actually not using contraception is immoral because irresponsible people are “filling the earth with misery, poverty, and disease” (Sanger
Showalter, Elaine. "Tradition and the Female Talent: The Awakening as a Solitary Book." Martin 33-55.
In 1942, Margaret Walker won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award for her poem For My People. This accomplishment heralded the beginning of Margaret Walker’s literary career which spanned from the brink of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930s to the cusp of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s (Gates and McKay 1619). Through her fiction and poetry, Walker became a prominent voice in the African-American community. Her writing, especially her signature novel, Jubilee, exposes her readers to the plight of her race by accounting the struggles of African Americans from the pre-Civil War period to the present and ultimately keeps this awareness relevant to contemporary American society.
During the early 1900s, American nurse Margaret Sanger led the birth-control movement in the United States. She and others opened clinics to provide women with information and devices. Although frequently jailed, she and her followers were instrumental in getting laws changed. In subsequent years, laws against birth control gradually weakened, and more effective methods were developed.
In the mid nineteenth century America was going through an age of reform. The person who would be the center of these reforms would be the women in society. Women soon realized that in order to make sure that all the reforms went through they would need more power and influence in society. The oppression and discrimination the women felt in this era launched the women into create the women’s right movement. The women fought so zealously for their rights it would be impossible for them not to achieve their goals. The sacrifices, suffering, and criticism that the women activist made would be so that the future generations would benefit the future generations.