This long-awaited collection of letters, diaries, articles and speeches, most of them never before published, were selected with an eye to telling the story of a remarkable life--a life consumed with the quest for women's sexual liberation. The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger (Volume 1) gives us, with dramatic immediacy, the first 28 years of Margaret Sanger's quest.

The birth control crusader, feminist, and reformer Margaret Sanger was one of the most controversial and compelling figures in the twentieth century. This first volume of The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger documents the critical phases and influences of an American feminist icon and offers rare glimpses into her working-class childhood, burgeoning feminism, spiritual and scientific interests, sexual explorations, and diverse roles as wife, mother, nurse, journalist, radical socialist, and activist.

These letters and other writings, including diaries, journals, articles, and speeches, most of which have never before been published, have been selected and assembled with an eye to telling the story of a remarkable life, punctuated by arrests and imprisonments, exile, love affairs, and a momentous personal loss--a life consumed with the quest for women's sexual liberation. Because its narrative line is so absorbing, volume 1 may be read as a powerful biography.

Volume 1 covers a twenty-eight-year period from nurse's training and early socialist involvement in pre- World War I bohemian Greenwich Village to Sanger's adoption of birth control (a term she helped coin in 1914) as a fundamental tenet of women's rights. It traces the intersection of her life and work with other reformers, activists and leaders of modernity on both sides of the Atlantic, including Havelock Ellis, H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Emma Goldman, Max Eastman, and Eugene Debs, as well as many leading radical artists and writers of the day. It highlights her legislative and organizational efforts, her support of the eugenics movement, and the alliances she secured with medical professionals in her crusade to make birth control legal, respectable, and accessible. This volume also includes letters from women desperately in need of fertility control who saw Sanger as their last hope. Supplemented by an introduction, brief essays providing narrative and chronological links, and substantial notes, the volume is an invaluable tool for understanding Sanger's actions and accomplishments.

The documents assembled here, more than 80 percent of them letters, were culled from the Margaret Sanger Papers Microfilm Edition, edited by Esther Katz, Cathy Moran Hajo, and Peter C. Engelman. Two subsequent volumes will address later periods in her life, and an additional volume will cover her international work in the birth control struggle.

This long-awaited collection of letters, diaries, articles and speeches, most of them never before published, were selected with an eye to telling the story of a remarkable life--a life consumed with the quest for women's sexual liberation. The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger (Volume 1) gives us, with dramatic immediacy, the first 28 years of Margaret Sanger's quest.

FROM THE JACKET
The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger
Vol. 1: The Woman Rebel, 1900-1928
Edited by Esther Katz
Cathy Moran Hajo and Peter C. Engelman, Assistant Editors

The birth control crusader, feminist, and reformer Margaret Sanger was one of the most controversial and compelling figures in the twentieth century. This first volume of The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger documents the critical phases and influences of an American feminist icon and offers rare glimpses into her working-class childhood, burgeoning feminism, spiritual and scientific interests, sexual explorations, and diverse roles as wife, mother, nurse, journalist, radical socialist, and activist.

These letters and other writings, including diaries, journals, articles, and speeches, most of which have never before been published, have been selected and assembled with an eye to telling the story of a remarkable life, punctuated by arrests and imprisonments, exile, love affairs, and a momentous personal loss--a life consumed with the quest for women's sexual liberation. Because its narrative line is so absorbing, volume 1 may be read as a powerful biography.

Volume 1 covers a twenty-eight-year period from her nurse's training and early socialist involvement in pre- World War I bohemian Greenwich Village to her adoption of birth control (a term she helped coin in 1914) as a fundamental tenet of women's rights. It traces the intersection of her life and work with other reformers, activists and leaders of modernity on both sides of the Atlantic, including Havelock Ellis, H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Emma Goldman, Max Eastman, and Eugene Debs, as well as many leading radical artists and writers of the day. It highlights her legislative and organizational efforts, her support of the eugenics movement, and the alliances she secured with medical professionals in her crusade to make birth control legal, respectable, and accessible. This volume also includes letters from women desperately in need of fertility control who saw Sanger as their last hope. Supplemented by an introduction, brief essays providing narrative and chronological links, and substantial notes, the volume is an invaluable tool for understanding Sanger's actions and accomplishments.

The documents assembled here, more than 80 percent of them letters, were culled from the Margaret Sanger Papers Microfilm Edition, edited by Esther Katz, Cathy Moran Hajo, and Peter C. Engelman. Two subsequent volumes will address later periods in her life, and an additional volume will cover her international work in the birth control struggle.

"Mesmerizing letters from the days when birth control was legally obscene and jail sentences were regularly given out for talking about it in public. Nearly a century ago, Margaret Sanger was defending woman's 'ownership of her own body' and linking access to contraception to civil liberties and personal freedom. Rights we take for granted have a long and sometimes surprising history that comes clear on these pages. Required reading for our own time, whichever side of Roe v. Wade you are on."
-- Linda K. Kerber, author of No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies: Women and the Obligations of Citizenship

"These wonderful letters, diary excerpts, and essays dramatize women's long struggle for respect, self-awareness, independence, influence, and control over our bodies and our lives. To contemplate Margaret Sanger's harsh reality and the enduring vision of this courageous pioneer--while the war against women escalates on every front--is a heartening and galvanizing act of rebellion. Esther Katz and her splendid team have given us all a very great gift."
-- Blanche Wiesen Cook, University Distinguished Professor, John Jay College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, and the author of Eleanor Roosevelt, volumes 1 and 2

"This engrossing volume, meticulously edited and selected, captures Margaret Sanger in all her complexity during a formative period in her long career. Open to practically any page, and something will grab your historical attention."
-- Susan Ware, editor of Notable American Women, volume 5

This is a book that should be in the library of the parents of every boy.

It explained a lot of what my sons were going through and made it a lot easier to help them, and to deal with the mood swings.

This book basically tells "what every girl should know", as the title says. I think the author is more interesting than the book, and the book isn't her greatest, but still it's pretty good. There are many other books this birth control activist wrote. I'd reccomend the autobiography the most.

If you want to read Margaret Sanger's book, read Margaret Sanger's Pivot of Civilization, as published by Humanity Press or as available on-line, not this chopped up attack on her book by someone with a major agenda.

I was personally offended when Planned Parenthood recently announced plans to give its Margaret Sanger Award to the BBC documentary "The Dying Rooms."

Don't get me wrong: The documentary is a wonderful and courageous piece of work. An undercover camera crew managed to gain entry to China's state-run orphanages and videotape the mistreatment and murder of the girls there. I appeared in the documentary, testifying that this tragedy is a direct consequence of the country's one-child policy.

It was the award, named after Planned Parenthood's founder, to which I objected. For Sanger had little but contempt for the "Asiatic races," as she and her eugenicist friends called them. During her lifetime, she proposed that their numbers be drastically reduced. But Sanger's preferences went beyond race. In her 1922 book "Pivot of Civilization" she unabashedly called for the extirpation of "weeds .... overrunning the human garden"; for the segregation of "morons, misfits, and the maladjusted"; and for the sterilization of "genetically inferior races." It was later that she singled out the Chinese, writing in her autobiography about "the incessant fertility of [the Chinese] millions spread like a plague."

There can be no doubt that Sanger would have been wildly enthusiastic over China's one-child policy, for her "Code to Stop Overproduction of Children," published in 1934, decreed that "no woman shall have a legal right to bear a child without a permit ... no permit shall be valid for more than one child." As for China's selective elimination of handicapped and abandoned babies, she would have been delighted that Beijing had heeded her decades-long call for exactly such eugenicist policies.

Indeed, Sanger likely would have turned the award on its head, choosing to praise publicly rather than implicitly criticize China's government for its dying rooms. Even the inhuman operators of Chinese orphanages might have gotten an honorable mention, in order to underline the importance of their front-line work in eliminating what she called the "unfit" and "dysgenic." Sanger was not one for subtlety in such matters. She bluntly defined "birth control," a term she coined, as "the process of weeding out the unfit" aimed at "the creation of a superman." She often opined that "the most merciful thing that the large family does to one its infant members is to kill it,", and that "all our problems are the result of overbreeding among the working class."

Sanger frequently featured racists and eugencists in her magazine, the Birth Control Review. Contributor Lothrop Stoddard, who also served on Sanger's board of directors, wrote in "The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy" that "We must resolutely oppose both Asiatic permeation of white race-areas and Asiatic inundation of those non-white, but equally non-Asiatic regions inhabited by the really inferior races." Each issue of the Birth Control Review was packed with such ideas. But Sanger was not content merely to publish racist propaganda; the magazine also made concrete policy proposals, such as the creation of "moron communities," the forced production of children by the "fit," and the compulsory sterilization and even elimination of the "unfit."

Sanger's own racist views were scarcely less opprobrious. In 1939 she and Clarence Gamble made an infamous proposal call "Birth Control and the Negro," which asserted that "the poorer areas, particularly in the South ... are producing alarmingly more than their share of future generations." Her "religion of birth control" would, she wrote, "ease the financial load of caring for with public funds ... children destined to become a burden to themselves, to their family, and ultimately to the nation."

War with Germnay, combined with lurid tales of how the Nazis were putting her theories about "human weeds" and "genetically inferior races" into practice, panicked Sanger into changing her organization's name and rhetoric. "Birth control," with its undertone of coercion, became "family planning." The "unift" and the "dysgenic" became merely "the poor." The American Birth Control League became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Following Sanger's death in 1966, Planned Parenthood felt so confident that it had safely buried her past that it began boasting about "the legacy of Margaret Sanger." And it began handing out cutely named Maggie Awards to innocents who often had no inkling of her real views. The first recipient was Martin Luther King-who clearly had no idea that Sanger had inaugurated a project to set his people free from their progeny. "We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the Minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members," Sanger wrote Gamble. Had Dr. King known why he may have been chosen to receive the award, he would have recoiled in horror.

The good news is that Sanger's-and Planned Parenthood's-patina of respectability has worn thin in recent years. Last year Congress came within a few votes of cutting a huge chunk of the organization's federal funding. The 1995-96 Planned Parenthood annual report notes that it has closed up shop in Mississippi, and that the number of its staff and volunteers has fallen by 4,000 over the previous year.

Perhaps the next time the Maggie Award is offered to someone of character and integrity-and more than a passing knowledge of Sanger's bigotry-he will raise an indignant cry of refusal. He will have ample grounds.

Mr. Mosher, author of "A Mother's Ordeal: One Woman's Fight Against China's One-Child Policy," is vice president for international affairs of Human Life International in Front Royal, Va. Michael W. Bird, a writer living in Minneapolis, helped with the research for this article.

Very interesting material. It's reveals some of the strange ideas that were fervently held by intelligent people, such as the obsession with "feeblemindness."

None of the reviews mention the fact of Sanger's deep involvement with the pre-WWII Nazi movement and her racist devotion to the practice of eugenics. Any in-depth study of Sanger's life would surely reveal these involvements; a cleansed portrait of Ms. Sanger as this one apparently is can only be the product of a politically correct agenda.

Based on these reviews, I won't be buying or reading this book.

I've just finished reading this book for a women's history class. I found it hard to put down. It's a shame that it is out of print, as Margaret Sanger's life story, and her struggle for the reproductive rights of women and female autonomy, make for enlightening reading. Ellen Chesler put in an enormous amount of work, documenting every detail, and weaving the whole into a very readable book. I would definitely recommend this to any reader, not only those interested in the empowerment of women, but also those NOT interested in it, since it might change their minds! Definitely an important work, and an important woman, for gaining an understanding of how the 20th century has been shaped.

Nancy Whitelaw's biography paints Margaret Sanger's life in broad strokes only; it is the type of book I would use to introduce a child to an important historical figure but it is not suitable for adult reading. As an example of the problem, the various men in Margaret's life who were not husbands are referred to as "Escorts" and no attempt is made to discuss these involvements. In fact, little in-depth discussion of any aspect of Margaret's life is attempted; there is so little detail that she emerges as a cardboard character.

One of the modern world's most controversial and influential women, Margaret Sanger certainly shaped the entire artificial birth control industry and the abortion establishment.

Drogin's relatively short biography, complete with family photos and cuts from the Birth Control Review, contrasts Sanger's methods, propaganda and prevaricative style with the relevant pronouncements and personae of the Catholic Church, from which she apostasized early in life. The book emphasizes her racist and eugenic tendencies, not her disciples' favorite topics.

If one is seeking a balanced or hagiographic approach, this is not a book to read by itself. The author is occasionally witty, but mostly outraged at a woman who led a quintessentially outrageous lifestyle. Drogin, surely with tongue in cheek, does record the eulogy given at her funeral by the late Reverend George Ferguson, rector of St. Philip's in the Hills Church of Tucson: "all the elements of sainthood were personified many times in her life." Either the Episcopal divine meant "exemplified," or he was accusing her of multiple-personality disorder.

This book is a complete waste of money, time and innocent trees.
The author (and I use that term loosely) is caught in pure emotion, hysteria and progandizing rather than looking at the facts and analyzing based on those.
The author completely lacks the ability to think logically, critically and sensibly. Margaret Sanger was many things--a "killer" was not one of them. Margaret promoted birth control so as to avoid unwanted pregnancies. Therefore, the term "killer" is inappropriate. (Men who complain about a women getting pregnant should have vasectomies.) Birth control is
about women having some say over their bodies--anyone who is against Margaret Sanger and her views is against a woman having a free mind and exercising her right to do as she see fits with her
body. Margaret Sanger was an intelligent, bright and compassionate woman who saved many lives.

If you want to learn FACTS about Margaret Sanger, this is not the book for you. There are many fine FACTUAL books out there about her that would be worth the time. This book is not one of them.
Don't waste your time or money.

It's truly a disappointment that amazon would carry a book as pathetic as this one.

From the first words it is obvious that the author has his own agenda--just as he says Margaret did! And since his agenda is to deny the basic human right to control one's life, naturally he thinks she was a "bad person." He is very confused & illogical in that he thinks birth control is a religious issue, not the freedom issue it is. I do not care if he wishes not to use birth control--that is his right. However, I do not want him telling me I can not. He further confuses the issue by painting Planned Parenthood as only an abortion provider. Whereas, 95% of their work is preventing abortions! Yes Mr Grant, using birth control "religiously" is the surest way to prevent abortions, like it or not!

Margaret Sanger's own words should sink the ship of Planned Parenthood. I'm glad that Grant wrote such a book. His writings are needed to balance out the Planned Parenthood [material] being rammed down the throat of society. Although I do agree with the...reviewer's notes who gave the book 4 stars out of 5, I thought that my review of 5 out of 5 is more fitting...

Margaret Sanger was no better than Hitler with her population control. She chose to focus on control because she was one of many children from her family and obviously did not get enough attention. Now she focuses on being selfish. Most of us have children because we love them. For those who have abortions, they need to stay out of other peoples beds if they can't handle the responsibility or the unselfishness of having a child or children.

In reviewing Sanger's autobiography, there is a difficult balance to manage.

On one hand, Sanger had a genuine desire to reduce unwanted births and, indirectly, reduce the population of the poor and mistreated.

On the other hand is the ungirdings of her beliefs: that African-Americans were second-class citizens. Backing what she believed was a growing acceptance of eugenics, that to have a better world, the population needed to be genetically purer. For Sanger, not too different that Hitler, this meant encouraging abortions among African-Americans.

To read Sanger's auto-biography alone might mislead the reader into believing her views were founded in cleanly laid-out welfare theories and of women's rights. That was part of it... but deeper still... and the reason I'm not comfortable fully recommending this book... is her core racial prejudice under the guise of freedom.

I understand my review might offend fans of Sanger, but read it in context.

Pick up George Grant's book on it... get past his over-emphasis on his own conservative views, and read his analysis of her own comments. Better yet... if you can find one, read Doug Scott's "Bad Choices" expose of the founding and practices of Planned Parenthood. Again, exceedingly conservative and not for the close-minded, but his citations of Sanger's letters and official documents are astounding and alarming.

Anthony Trendl

Margaret Sanger is not only one of the most influential women in 20th century America, she's the rare sort of individual whose autobiographies are better than the biographies that others have written about her. The Sanger described by others is typically little more than an icon, a stilted "Woman of Valor." The real Sanger you'll discover here is far more interesting and in many ways far more apt to reveal flaws and shortcomings.

This is a reprint of her 1938 autobiography, written by a mature Sanger as she was retiring from public life to become the birth control movement's senior representative. Her 1931 My Fight for Birth Control has more fire to it, but at that time she was much more ill-tempered. She'd been pushed out of the American Birth Control League that she had founded and was having little success in her attempts to get federal birth control legislation passed. If you read one of her autobiographies, this should be the one.

Just remember that you will not get a full picture of Sanger from this book. Here you get the events of her life told from the inside. To understand what motivated her you need to read the book she termed her 'head' book, her 1922 The Pivot of Civilization (recently republished with additional material). It's her most intellectual book and contains an introduction by her friend H. G. Wells.

It is demeaning of Sanger's legacy that so few of those who claim to take her seriously as an activist take the time to examine her ideas. It was Sanger the thinker who inspired Sanger the activist. We must understand both to understand the movement she founded.

Quotes from this book can go a long way:

She unabashedly called for the extirpation of "weeds .... overrunning the human garden"; for the segregation of "morons, misfits, and the maladjusted"; and for the sterilization of "genetically inferior races." Later she singled out the Chinese, writing in her autobiography about "the incessant fertility of [the Chinese] millions spread like a plague."

This book helps you to understand the person behind the person, drawing one to ponder questions like, "Is eliminating an inferior race an exercise of the right to choice?" and "Can one get a salesman to pay the price of gold for rocks?"

In concluding that I was one of those births that should have been prevented, I wondered if it was acceptable to reverse the focus, practicing the freedom to choose through elimination one's incubation processors.