Book Description
A pioneer in the battle to establish birth control as a basic human right and a founder of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Sanger — a nurse who witnessed first-hand the devastating effects of unwanted pregancy
— triumphed over arrest, indictment, and exile. Her autobiography is a classic of women's studies.
Customer Reviews:
know your history.......2007-10-16
It is difficult for women of today to understand a time when knowledge of basic biology was denied them. We don't know the fear of producing children which we are not healthy enough to produce or care for.
Before you it in judgement of Margaret Sanger or any feminist, read your history. Learn how laws were written and interpreted 100 years ago and realize how much things have changed because of such women.
As much as religious conservatives want to villify Sanger.......2006-02-08
...the reality is that she fought hard to make access to BASIC contraceptive information available to ALL families--wealthy, middle-class, poor, immigrant, WASP, African-American, etc.
Her battle against Anthony Comstock's puritanical Comstock Law--which made it illegal to give a pamphlet to a woman explaining basic menstruation--is legendary. Her article "Comstockery in America," written in 1915 and discussed in this book, highlighted the campaign by government officials to keep basic information out of the hands of the average person.
Special interest groups have created a campaign over the past 20 years to smear Sanger as a eugenicist, writing books that are published by biased publishing companies as part of a clear agenda. This autobiography stands on its own as one woman's story about her work to spread basic information to families who asked for it.
Just remember who she really is........2005-07-13
There is more to Margaret than she tells. This is all you really need to know: "The most merciful thing a large family can do to one of its infant members is to kill it" - Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger, a great woman.......2004-06-15
Growing up the daughter of a practicing lay midwife in the middle of the Hippie Era, I have seen the consequences of not planning ahead before making babies. Margaret Sanger is a great historical figure for everyone, female and male alike, and her memory has been unfairly sullied by funamentalist ninnies and misogynists. I wholly support her vision, with the proviso that because of the increase in average lifespan because of modern medicine, none of us, even the fittest, can breed indiscriminately, and it's even more critical that people with genetic health issues as well as people whose families haven't fit into society very well exercise the better part of valor and refrain from reproducing.
Autobiographers do not make good historians........2004-06-08
To interpret yourself and hope everyone after you swallows your interpretation was the wistful hope of this author. What a stark comparison between the Margaret Sanger of this autobiography and the real Margaret Sanger! What the world remembers is that her family planning clinics were usually located in Black neighborhoods. Ms. Sanger doesn't consciously disclose the connection between Darwinian Evolution and her campaign to reduce the birth rate among peoples she considered to be inferior, of lower intelligence, poor or poorly bred.
Go to a real historian like George Grant for the full story. (Grant is as readable as a good story-teller.) >Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood
<, a book he wrote in 1988, tells what Margaret Sanger was really like.
Book Description
The birth control crusader, feminist, and reformer Margaret Sanger was one of the most controversial and dynamic figures of the twentieth century.
Volume 2 chronicles Sanger’s efforts during the Depression years to legalize contraception. These significant and engaging letters and writings, constructed to be read as biography, tell the story of Sanger’s frank discussion of birth control before an uneasy Congress, her quest for a judicial test case, and her ongoing public relations campaign in the face of powerful opposition from the Catholic Church, to convince Americans about the benefits of birth control.
Volume 2 also documents Sanger’s complicated personal life, her unstable marriage, loss of wealth, and love affairs in middle age. Required reading for anyone interested in the emergence of planned parenthood and the life of its extraordinary leader.
Book Description
This book includes Sanger's writings on marriage and children, the labor movement, socialism, prison reform, pacifism, eugenics, and sex education. The documents illustrate Sanger's impact on these issues, the development of the struggle between the working class and middle class, and the clash between conservative mores and the freethinking women that have shaped today's society. It features the original articles Nothing and What Every Girl Should Know from The New York Call which sparked the ongoing struggle for women's reproductive freedom.
Customer Reviews:
A Great Book.......2004-05-03
An interesting book on early 20th century America that many of the recent immigrants like me are not aware of. It is fascinating and I highly recommend it.
All the truth, painful or not.......2004-04-29
First, I'm a Margaret Sanger fan. Her work did as much to ultimately liberate women as did the right to vote and the attempted passage of the ERA. I love this book because Dr. Reed has read every single piece of primary research available on Sanger, and then overlaid it with her own (Reed's) summations and conclusions. It is deeply researched, has the blessings of the Sanger family, and provides a non-biased look at a woman, though changing the world, who still had personal flaws and failings. It's arranged chronologically and also contains short biographies of each soul mentioned in the book, an in-depth section of footnotes, a thorough bibliography, and a complete index. This was not Dr. Reed's disseratation -- but it certainly could have been.
Margaret Sanger continues to inspire.......2004-04-22
A beautifully written, passionate, intimate look at a seminal figure in America's history. While Sanger has been justly honored as an early 20th century feminist icon, her fight to publicize the importance of family planning and legalized birth control have shaped rights and institutions we take for granted today. Miriam Reed has crafted an excellent new resource for anyone interested in learning more about this fascinating woman. Good job!
Sanger's Life NOT in Her Own Words.......2004-03-25
This poorly written book offers more of the words of the author, Miriam Reed, than Sanger's. There is no doubt that Margaret Sanger was and is one of the most unforgettable and fascinating figures in American history, but this book (I don't know how to define it) does not do her justice. Snippets of Sanger's words arescattered throughout undermining the author's intent, the documents are badly introduced and oddly over-interpreted. If the author wanted to write a biography she should have. If readers want to read Sanger's own words, check out her Autobiography. This one just doesn't do it. I, for one, am extremely disappointed.
Not enough Sanger.......2004-03-12
This selection of Sanger documents is odd and not made with the best of care. While Reed claims that this is Sanger's "Life in Her Words" there is probably more of Reed than Sanger in the book, if you counted words. Each document is introduced by a lengthy and not all that well written essay, and equal weight (and space) seem to be given to Sanger's views on race and eugenics and her recipes for chicken curry. There is some very sloppy research here as well, with no attribution. Reed's biographical sketches are incomplete and in one case, "Oliver" Johnson instead of "Olive" Johnson, downright embarrassing. The fact that Reed disputes Sanger on the name and gender of her British associate would be laughable if it didn't raise so many questions about her other identifications. Reed claims a Ph.D. on the cover, but I don't think it could be in history.
Customer Reviews:
Killer Angel.......2007-07-04
This is an excellent primer and succinct summary of the truth about the origins of "Planned Parenthood." Anyone who wants to know the truth about America's disgraceful abortion mills, should begin with this book. You can trust Grant to tell you the truth, in contrast to the communist propaganda we usually get fed! Thank you George!
Not much here.......2007-02-23
There's no original research here; as is clear from the footnotes, the author has just taken material from standard biographies of Sanger and used it to present her in the most negative light possible. Sanger did favor eugenics (as did most people in her era), and she was a socialist, and she had a rather unorthodox family life. There isn't much argument about the facts. But to use these facts to portray her as a monster of iniquity (and a worse murderer than Stalin or Hitler) is just silly, unless you regard a blastocyst as the moral equivalent of a human being.
Margaret Sanger the monster.......2006-11-02
Her views were just as monstrous as Hitler's, because they came from the same philosophical genetic line of thinking. Her own words condemn her. She indeed targeted the poor and down-trodden of society with the same views as the Third Reich. She saw the black community as hitler saw the disabled of Germany "useless eaters." Read this book to find out what she really believed. Don't just listen to the emotional-laden lies of Planned Parenthood and their misinformed rabble,[..]
I've never seen pro abortionists deal with the real facts concerning Margaret Sanger. The facts are presented in books like "Killer Angel," but they can't "handle" the facts. All they can do is appeal to the emotions-- "Oh the starving children..." etc. So... their solution is that the children are better off dead, than starving! Good argument!? No. Stupid argument -- just an appeal to the emotions. "Starving Children?" "Abused Children?" Why change the argument? No one said that anti-abortionists were pro starvation or pro abuse. What greater abuse can you have than the killing of innocent children? What you actually have is a promoting and philosophical acceptance of, and practice of genocide for convenience-sake. Shame on anyone who would try to defend what Margaret Sanger said and lived for. You may as well try to defend Hitler himself!
I load of crap.......2006-05-05
This author has no clue what he is taking about. He is continuing to spread a lie that is only confusing people. Margaret Sanger was a great woman who fought for other women to have the right to have control over their own body.
His rant on birth control is mind numbing. Birth control prevents abortions and Planned Parenthood wants to prevent abortions. Yes they provide abortions, but they also provide health services to uninsured women, fight for women to have a say to what happens to their bodies, and educates all on proper sex education. Margaret Sanger would be proud of what Planned Parenthood has become. There are much better and truthful books on Margaret then this one. I only gave this one star because it was the only way I could sumbit the review!
Just A Balance To Those Planned Parenthood Nitwits.......2003-04-09
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...
Book Description
Drawing on new information from archives and interviews, Chesler illuminates Margaret Sanger's turbulent personal story as well as the history of the birth control movement. An intimate biography of a visionary rebel, this is also an epic story that is indispensable reading for generations of women who take their reproductive and sexual freedoms for granted.
Customer Reviews:
Historical Revision?.......2000-06-06
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.
Fascinating, in-depth look at a remarkable woman.......1999-11-29
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.
Book Description
Combines biography of M. Sanger with social history of birth control movement. Winner of Bancroft Prize in American History 1971 and John Gilmary Shea Award of American Catholic Historical Association 1970.
Customer Reviews:
Hero for Women's Rights.......2005-05-13
Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger. By David M. Kennedy. 320 pp. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1970. $30.
David Kennedy is the McLachlan Professor of History at Stanford University and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. Reflecting his interdisciplinary training in American Studies, which combined the fields of history, literature, and economics, Professor Kennedy's scholarship is notable for its integration of economic and cultural analysis with social and political history.
Professor Kennedy teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in the history of the twentieth-century United States, American political and social thought, American foreign policy,
American literature, and the comparative development of democracy in Europe and America.
He has had ten books published to date and written over twenty articles with two on Margaret Sanger. He has received numerous awards including the John Gilmary Shea Prize (for Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger, 1970 and the Bancroft Prize (for Birth Control in America), 1971.
His 1970 book, Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger, embraced the medical, legal, political, and religious dimensions of the subject and helped to pioneer the emerging field of women's history. It is a highly critical study of Sanger's pre-World War II career that can still be appreciated by readers in today's society. It is not a true autobiography
of Margaret Sanger but a chronological listing and explanation of the events that occurred involving the American birth control movement which she was a crusader for. To fully
understand Sanger's involvement in the birth control movement the author lets us know who Margaret Sanger was and the events that caused her to become a leading birth control advocate,
feminist, and activist.
Margaret Sanger was born in 1879 in Corning, New York, one of eleven children of Irish-American parents. Her mother was Catholic, her father a radical follower of the freethinker Robert Ingersoll and single-taxer Henry George. Sanger later attributed the family's lack of prosperity and her mother's death at forty-nine to her parents' having had so many children.
The inequality she observed between them stimulated her
lifelong social activism.Margaret, with help from her sisters, attended Claverack College, after which she went to nursing school. She did not immediately use her medical training because, she later wrote, William Sanger "pressured" her into marrying and leaving school in 1902. William Sanger, an
artist and architect, moved the family (soon to include three children) to suburban Westchester.
While he commuted to New York, Margaret grew restless as a result of her isolation and full-time housekeeping. In 1910 the Sanger's moved back to Manhattan, and Margaret began working as a visiting nurse on the Lower East Side. She became active in radical politics, joining the Socialist party and working with the Industrial Workers of the World in supporting several militant strikes. From this network she absorbed feminist ideas and came to agree with Emma Goldman that women had a right to control their sexual and reproductive lives. Her work as a nurse with the poor further convinced her that birth control was vital to women's health and freedom.
In 1912 she began to write and speak on sexual and health issues under socialist auspices and was encouraged by her enthusiastic reception. The censorship of one of her columns by the U.S. Post Office in 1913 brought her more publicity. In 1914 she published several issues of the Woman Rebel, a radical feminist newspaper, and Family Limitation, a pamphlet intended for mass distribution and containing explicit instructions for contraception. A warrant was issued for her arrest, and she fled to Europe, where she studied with Havelock Ellis a sexual
psychologist.
She returned to the United States in 1915 to find a nationwide birth-control movement under way; the charges against her were dropped. In 1916 she and her sister Mrs. Evelyn Byrne, who was also a trained nurse, and a third woman, Fania Mindell
established a birth-control clinic in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn as an act of civil disobedience, since providing birth control remained illegal. Clinics were now opening throughout the country, in defiance of the laws against them, and attracted many clients. Sanger became increasingly angered by the Left-wing party's refusal to make birth control a priority and decided on a strategy of making legalization of contraception a single-issue campaign. Distancing herself from her left-wing friends, she now sought support from physicians and academic eugenicist's. Their influence replaced that of the feminist and socialist movements, then in retreat, and Sanger sometimes used eugenic arguments for birth control that it could help reduce the birthrate of "inferiors."
In 1921 she established the American Birth Control League, a national lobbying group, which became Planned Parenthood in 1942. Very much needing personal recognition, Sanger thought of birth control as her own invention and her leadership as irreplaceable. Her aggressive campaigning, however, did play a large part in the legalization of contraception by many states
between the 1920s and 1960s. This movement was not the true success she had fought for, because contraception became understood, not as a woman's right, but as a medical matter
requiring a doctor's prescription.
This book was extremely well written, well researched, and well organized. The book was fair to the material it was interpreting. The author points out that "despite all her defects of posture and policy, Margaret Sanger, it could be argued, had been indispensable to the ultimate success of her cause. Mrs. Sanger then slipped quietly from the position of leadership after twenty-five years. So effectively had she educated society that it seemed no longer to need her."
This book held my interest all the way to the end. It reinforces my belief that Margaret Sanger should be considered a hero for women's rights. This book is a real contribution to the subject of birth control and to Sanger and helped me understand Margaret Sanger more as a person and a female.
Rachel Dvorkin
Roosevelt University
Schaumburg, IL
Average customer rating:
|
Margaret Sanger: Rebel For Women's Rights (Women in Medicine)
Vicki Cox
Manufacturer: Chelsea House Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding
 Teens
| Subjects
| Books
| Audiobooks
| Authors, A-Z
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Health, Mind & Body
| History & Historical Fiction
| Horror
| Literature & Fiction
| Manga
| Mysteries
| Reference
| Religion & Spirituality
| School & Sports
| Science & Technology
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Series
| Social Issues
Science & Technology
| Biographies
| People & Places
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
Social Activists
| Biographies
| People & Places
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Teen Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
ASIN: 0791080307 |
Book Description
In the early 20th century, birth control was considered immoral. Margaret Sanger set out to change that law. As a nurse, public health advocate, writer, organizer and rebel she worked tirelessly to gain for women the right to control their own bodies.
Customer Reviews:
A suitable biography of Margaret Sanger for teen readers.......1999-01-12
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.
Books:
- The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival
- The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science (James H. Silberman Books)
- The Career Fitness Program: Exercising your Options (8th Edition)
- The Guns of August: The Pulitzer Prize-Winning History of the First Month of WWI
- The Life of Kingsley Amis
- The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales
- The Mayor of Casterbridge (Modern Library Classics)
- The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (The Albert Schweitzer Library)
- The Old Man and The Sea
- The Old Man and The Sea
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Building Storage Networks
- Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker
- Earth Door Sky Door: Paintings of Mustang
- History: Fiction or Science
- Propeller One-Way Night Coach: A Story
- Tess of the D'Urbervilles
- Proletarians of the North : Mexican Industrial Workers in Detroit and the Midwest, 1917-1933
- Essential Managers: Achieving Excellence
- From The Trenches: Strategies from Industry Leaders on the New Economy
- Phineas Poe: Kiss Me Judas, Penny Dreadful, Hell's Half Acre
Margaret Sanger: Her Life in Her Words
Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America
The Pivot of Civilization in Historical Perspective: The Birth Control Classic
Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger
Motherhood in Bondage (Women and Health, Cultural and Social Perspective Series)
