HIUS 157 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Emma Goldman, Margaret Sanger
Document Summary
Hius 157 lecture 5 the fight for birth control. Birth control: trying to regulate fertility using things like the rhythm method. Falling birth rates: average number of births per woman, 1800: 7. 04, 1900: 3. 56, 1920: 3. 17, 1940: 2. 22, higher birth rates immigrants, blacks, evened out over time, birthrates for black women 5. 61 1900, 2. 87 1940. What were people doing: abstinence, until 1924 people didn"t understand when women were fertile, thought women were most fertile before period, rather than in the middle of the cycle, continence, abortion, rose 1840-1850, especially among married, middle-class women. Information circulated widely until 1870s: condoms, sponges, "womb veils"/diaphragms, expensive, hard for working people to regularly use. Founded new york society for the suppression of vice 1873: supported by wealthy businessmen. Lobbied for comstock law 1873: banned "obscene" materials from being sent in us mail, defined contraceptive devices, information about contraception and abortion as obscene. If you cannot control birth, you cannot be free.
