Birth-Control Politics in the United States, 1916–1945

Carole R. McCann

Published by Cornell University Press 1999

Birth-Control Politics in the United States, 1916–1945

Carole R. McCann

https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501738791

Overview
Contents

About this book

Between 1916 and 1945 the American birth control movement secured the legalization of contraception and gave women access to birth control in more than eight hundred clinics across the country. In a provocative history of the behind-the-scenes struggle leading to those achievements, Carole R. McCann reassesses the movement's successes alongside its compromises. As she traces shifts in alliances, strategies, and rhetorical appeals, McCann shows how the politics of race and sex influenced the movement to rely on eugenicist arguments that eventually eclipsed the feminist claim to women's right to control their reproduction.

McCann examines the birth control movement's coalitions with white laywomen, eugenicists, and physicians throughout the period and with AfricanAmerican professionals who became involved in birth control advocacy in the early 1930s. Commitments to asserting the traditional principle of female chastity, she shows, led major feminist organizations—the League of Women Voters, the National Woman's Party, and the Children's Bureau—to refuse to support Margaret Sanger's demand for women's right to contraception. McCann argues that the birth control movement ceded far too much to the inherently racist eugenicist arguments in order to avoid the controversy that the asserion of women's right to sexual enjoyment and reproductive freedom provoked.

Author information

McCann Carole R. :

Carole R. McCann is Associate Professor of American Studies and Director of the Women's Studies Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
List of Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	xii
1. Introduction: The Politics of Pessaries Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Birth Control and Feminism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
3. Birth Control and the Medical Profession Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	59
4. Birth Control and Racial Betterment Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
5. Better Health for Thirteen Million: The Interracial Coalition for Birth Control Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	135
6. Laywomen and Organization Men Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
Chronology of Events in the U.S. Birth Control Movement Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209
Works Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 256
Keywords: Political Science & Political History; Family & Relationships

eBook

Published: January 24, 2019
ISBN: 9781501738791