Margaret Sanger

Margaret married the architect, William Sanger in 1902 at the young age of 23 and had three children with him. The marriage lasted a little less than two decades.

She had brief affairs with psychologist, Havelock Ellis as well as writer, H.G.Wells during her stay in England in 1914.

In 1923, she married J. Noah H. Slee, a businessman who used to provide most of the financial help she needed for her social reform projects.

Margaret Higgins Sanger was born to Michael Higgins, who was an Irish Stonemason, and Anne Higgins.

She was the sixth of the 11 children born to her parents and did not have a prosperous childhood, spending most of the time doing household chores and rearing her younger siblings.

At the age of 17 in 1896, she went to the Claverack College and later attended the Hudson River Institute, as she was inclined towards academics and wanted a better life.

When she turned 21 in 1900, she chose to take up nursing as her subject of specialization and joined the White Plains Hospital to help thousands of people suffering from ailments.

In 1910, Sanger went to the Greenwich Village of New York City and settled in a bohemian enclave. She joined the ‘Women’s Committee of the New York Socialist party’.

At 33, in 1912, while working as a nurse on Lower East side, she started writing educational columns for women including ‘What Every Mother Should Know’ and helped many women who wished to terminate their pregnancies or underwent back alley abortions.

In 1914, she published a monthly magazine, ‘The Woman Rebel’ that promoted the rights of women to opt for birth control which caused legal troubles for her, as per the Comstock Act of 1873.

In 1916, she managed to set up her first clinic in USA for birth control, which was followed by sheer unrest in the society. Many raised their voices against her, which eventually led to her arrest and prosecution thereafter.

However, she remained undeterred and went on to establish the well-known ‘American Birth Control League’ in 1921, later renamed as ‘The Planned Parenthood Federation of America’. She became the president of the organization for the next seven years.

Sanger came into limelight in 1914 when she started the monthly magazine on birth control, ‘The Woman Rebel’, through which she imparted relevant information related to birth control to her clients. At the time of its publication, the content presented in the magazine was either considered to be illegal, immoral or obscene. However, Sanger braved all odds and went on to educate large hordes of women about the importance of birth control and self-respect.