News & Sanger Sightings > 2009
Birth Control Papers Opened at Harvard
The Center for the History of Medicine at the Countway Library of Medicine
invites you to attend a symposium celebrating the opening of the John C.
Rock Papers:
"Conceiving the Pill: Modern Contraception in Historical Perspective"
Minot Room, Countway Library
March 26, 2009, 2 - 5 pm
Reception to follow
This program will place the history of contraceptive technology over the
past half-century in its social, pharmaceutical and global health
contexts.
Panel speakers include:
* Margaret Marsh, PhD, Interim Chancellor and Distinguished Professor of
History, Rutgers University-Camden: "The Fertility Doctor Meets the Pill"
* Wanda Ronner, M.D., Clinical Associate Professor of Obstetrics and
Gynecology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine: "The Era of the
Pill Begins"
* Elizabeth Siegel Watkins, PhD, Professor, Vice Chair and Director of
Graduate Studies, History of Health Sciences Program, Department of
Anthropology, History, and Social Medicine, University of California, San
Francisco: "From Breakthrough to Bust: The Brief Life of Norplant, the
Contraceptive Implant"
* George Zeidenstein, Visiting Distinguished Fellow, Center for Population
and development Studies, Harvard School of Public Health: "Family Planning
and Reproductive Health in Global Perspective"
The program is open to all, but space is limited. RSVP to
ARM@hms.harvard.edu
Additional information and a downloadable flyer for
posting are available at:
https://www.countway.harvard.edu/lenya/countway/live/menuNavigation/historicalResources/chmPrograms/eventsList.html
Exhibits on display:
"Conceiving the Pill: Highlights from the Reproductive Health Collections"
Countway Library, first floor
March 26, 2009 - September 30, 2009
The exhibit will feature the newly opened manuscripts collections of John
C. Rock, the co-creator of the contraceptive pill, and Arthur T. Hertig
and will draw on the papers of contributing scientists, physicians, and
activists involved in reproductive health. The exhibit will include
ephemera, photographs, correspondence, and artifacts from these
collections.
"Modeling Reproduction: the Teaching Models of Robert Latou Dickinson"
Countway Library, second floor
March 26, 2009 - September 30, 2009
Robert L. Dickinson, an early birth control pioneer, developed a renowned
collection of reproduction models as part of his campaign to broaden the
understanding and acceptance of human sexuality. In addition to models,
the exhibit will include correspondence, ephemera, and photographs from
the Dickinson papers.
For more information about the Center, its programs, and holdings, see:
http://www.countway.harvard.edu/chom
Posted on 3/5/09.
All Too Human
In his new book, More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want (Island Press, Washington, DC, 2008), Robert Engelman (no relation to MSPP associate editor) provides a timely and intelligent historical perspective on population growth and elaborates on Sanger’s life-long argument that women, if given access to effective birth control and the freedom to use it, will make the best childbearing decisions for themselves and society. As part of a short and insightful discussion of Sanger’s life and achievements, Engelman rejects accusations that Sanger was a racist, and he includes a reasoned response to the ongoing attacks on Sanger for her ties to eugenics: “A rebel in so many ways, Sanger disappoints her admirers today not for racial prejudice but for the conviction that differential genetic endowments threatened progress and justified reproductive coercion. Sanger was overawed by the scientists of her day, and eugenics was seen – inaccurately – as an outgrowth of evolutionary biology. A heroine of reproductive rights, Sanger was nonetheless all too human and all too much a person of her time. Heroes and heroines usually are.” (p. 193)
Margaret Sanger: Solid as Barack
Sanger’s name has cropped up in several right wing blogs that attacked Barack Obama for his support of a woman’s right to choose. For instance, on Aug. 24, 2008 in Human Events Online (www. humanevents.com), Senator Obama was condemned for opposing the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, legislation that would require hospitals to care for infants who survive an abortion. Obama, who viewed this as an anti-abortion rights law, recognized that doctors already have a legal and ethical obligation to preserve life in the rare instance when a baby survives an abortion procedure. Nevertheless, the columnist warned “somewhere in hell, Margaret Sanger is filling out her absentee ballot.” Similar attacks on Sanger and Obama appear in a YouTube video that links them to a plot to eradicate the black race through abortion (www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI67MuPwsX0), and yet another piece on black genocide. (www.thereyesreport.org/2008/04/margaret-sanger)
Women of our Time
A new exhibition, “Women of our Time,” at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, brings together photographic portraits of American women who made their mark on the 20th Century. The exhibit, taken from photos in the museum’s own collection, is "a real panoply of women's identity, struggles and achievements in the 20th century," according to museum director Martin Sullivan. Included among the 90 images are portraits of Helen Keller, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ella Fitzgerald, Julia Child, Marilyn Monroe, Althea Gibson and, of course, Margaret Sanger. The exhibition is an expanded version of one that toured the country in 2002-2005. It opened in October and runs through February 1, 2009. (Agence France-Presse, Oct. 9, 2008.)
Forget the Quivering Aspic
Award-winning New York Times reporter, Edith Evans Asbury, died on October 30th in Greenwich Village at age 98. Asbury was a pioneering woman journalist, who worked at the Times from 1952-81. Asbury built a reputation for taking on hard news stories in an era when most women reporters covered society functions or wrote women’s page fare. Asbury "made it clear from the start," writes Margalit Fox, "that covering quivering aspic was not for her." In 1958 Asbury cover edthe debate over New York City’s unwritten ban on contraceptive counseling in public hospitals. She detailed the controversy dragged for months in sixteen stories, including an phone interview with Sanger on her 79th birthday (reported as only her 71st in the paper!). Sanger called for younger activists to step up to the fight instead of leaving it “to those of us who have been fighting all these years.” She professed herself “amazed, that New York City, where I founded the first birth control clinic in the country is still so backward.” and called its birth control policy "disgraceful." (New York Times, Oct. 31, 2008 and Sept. 14, 1958.)
Paling Around with Organizers
Catherine Denial wrote to the Galesburg, IL Register-Mail on Sept. 5, 2008 to complain about Sarah Palin’s dismissal of community organizers in her convention speech. “Sarah Palin seems to be under he impression that community organizers do little, and achieve even less. How misinformed. Community organizers have historically been at the leading edge of change, not only in the Unites States, but around the world. Some of the most prominent community organizers who come to mind include Jane Addams, Saul Alinsky, Tily Black Bear, César Chávez, Dorothy Day, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Margaret Sanger, Ida B. Wells, Paul Wellstone, and yes, Barack Obama.” Posted: February 17, 2009
Photo courtesy of the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College.
Revised: March 5, 2009