Portrait of Margaret Sanger
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, George Grantham Bain Collection
The twentieth century

Margaret Sanger

1879–1966
Freethinker (her slogan was "No Gods, No Masters")

Margaret Sanger was raised in Catholic Corning by a freethinking stonecutter who brought Ingersoll to town and taught her to question God as a "baker". She told no story of lost faith. She aimed her inherited unbelief, under the 1914 slogan "No Gods, No Masters", at the power of the churches over women's bodies. After the 1921 Town Hall raid she met the Catholic hierarchy as her chief opponent, and insisted she quarrelled with the Church's authority rather than its faith. Late in life she was reported to call herself an Episcopalian.

The belief timeline

18791966Faith (inferred, weak)c. 1880s-90s, undatedDeclarationMarch 1914Test (cost)16 Oct 1916 and 13 Nov 1921Revision1922 (distinction); 1957 (secondhand)
  1. Faith (inferred, weak) (c. 1880s-90s, undated) — Mother reared Catholic; Sanger tours Sunday schools "for a year or two", prays "for mother's benefit", prefers the Virgin Mary, and gives thanks to God at eight. No source for baptism or confirmation. [2][8][11]
  2. Doubt (undated, in childhood) — Father: "Is God a baker?"; "Thereafter I began to question what I had previously taken for granted and to reason for myself." [9]
  3. Declaration (March 1914) — Slogan of The Woman Rebel: "No Gods, No Masters." She says "Gods, not God." [16]
  4. Test (cost) (16 Oct 1916 and 13 Nov 1921) — Brownsville ("Is this the price of Christianity?"); the Town Hall raid at the instance of the archdiocese; Hayes's pastoral [22][28][31]
  5. Revision (1922 (distinction); 1957 (secondhand)) — Pivot: not attacking the Catholic Church, but its claim of authority over non-Catholics; 1957 interview reported as "Episcopalian by religion" [33][34][41]
Notes to the timeline (11)
  1. [2] Her mother, Anne Purcell, was of Irish family; "reared in the faith", she had "never attended church" to Sanger's knowledge after marrying a freethinker, which distressed her parents — Aut pp. 11, 21.
  2. [8] She made the Sunday-school rounds for "a year or two", disliked the cold Catholic church and the crucifix, preferred the Virgin Mary; said her prayers "for mother's benefit" — Aut p. 22.
  3. [11] At about eight (in her "eighth year"), after nearly stealing money for a theatre ticket, she gave "a prayer of thanks", pictured "the devil which had tempted me and the hand of God"; she calls it "a spiritual awakening" — Aut pp. 24-25.
  4. [9] "Is God a baker?": her father's question after the Lord's Prayer; "Thereafter I began to question what I had previously taken for granted and to reason for myself" — Aut p. 22.
  5. [16] In March 1914 the first issue of The Woman Rebel appeared, eight pages; her "initial declaration of the right of the individual was the slogan 'No Gods, No Masters'", "Gods, not God" — Aut pp. 109-110.
  6. [22] The first birth control clinic in America opened at Brownsville on 16 October 1916; Catholic women among the patients ("It's none of his business" about the priest); a mother with fifteen pregnancies, six living; she asked "Is this the price of Christianity?" — Aut pp. 215, 218-219.
  7. [28] The Sunday 13 November Town Hall meeting on the morality of birth control was broken up by police before the speakers began; Sanger and Mary Winsor were arrested and released the next morning. Anne Kennedy reported that Monsignor Dineen, secretary to Archbishop Hayes, told her "He has the right" to stop it and signalled to Captain Donohue; Sanger later wrote the Church "held such power in its hands that it could issue orders to the police" — BCC1921 p. 4 (committee account; does not name the Church); Aut pp. 303-304, 306; Pivot ch. I.
  8. [31] Hayes's Christmas pastoral called preventing a life "satanic"; the press reported it on 19 December 1921 (the pastoral read in Catholic churches of the archdiocese) — Aut pp. 308-309; Pivot ch. IX note 2; WaHerald 19 Dec 1921 p. 2.
  9. [33] In her reply to Hayes she agreed a clinic was "the proper place" for practical information, argued theory belonged on the platform, and cited Bible only children — Aut p. 308.
  10. [34] In the Pivot she answered Hayes: "advocates of Birth Control are not seeking to attack the Catholic church. We quarrel with that church, however, when it seeks to assume authority over non-Catholics"; H. G. Wells's introduction separates "the vituperation of individual Catholics" from "the deliberate doctrines of the Church" — Pivot ch. IX; Pivot Introduction.
  11. [41] In 1957, asked about religion, she is reported to have said she believed "we have divinity within us" and would call herself "an Episcopalian by religion" — Wiki quoting Wallace 1957 (video; not heard). Reported at second hand; the original has not been seen.

No Gods, No Masters

When Margaret Sanger was a girl in Corning, New York, her father invited the freethinking orator Robert Ingersoll to lecture in the town. The only hall belonged to the Catholic priest, who had it shut. Objects were thrown, and the meeting was held in the woods, with the girl at her father's side. "I cannot remember a word of what Colonel Ingersoll said, but the scene remains." Afterwards, she wrote, "we were known as children of the devil."1234

Margaret Sanger in 1916, a Bain News Service photograph.
Margaret Sanger in 1916, a Bain News Service photograph.Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, George Grantham Bain Collection

Sanger never told a story of losing a faith. Her unbelief came from her father, and what she did with it was aim it at one thing: the power of the churches, as she saw it, over women's bodies. She became the best-known campaigner for birth control in America, and the Catholic hierarchy became her chief opponent. Her views on eugenics are also part of the record, and this chapter does not hide them. It asks what the girl from Corning believed, how her quarrel with the churches took shape, and where she ended. Much of her own account comes from her autobiography of 1938, written long after the events it describes.

Children of the devil

She was born in Corning in 1879.5 Her father, Michael Higgins, an Irish-born stonecutter who carved angels and saints for tombstones, was "a nonconformist through and through".6 Corning was mostly Catholic, and "Although Catholics were father's best patrons, by nature and upbringing he deplored their dogma." He studied Ingersoll's works "and used as texts".789 Her mother, Anne Purcell, "had been reared in the faith, although since her marriage to a freethinker which had so distressed her parents, she had never attended church to my knowledge."1011 After the Ingersoll meeting the priest called on her mother: he "could not have an atheist within those sacred walls". No more marble angels were ordered for Catholic graves, and the family's income fell.2

Corning, New York, a bird's-eye view of 1882.
Corning, New York, a bird's-eye view of 1882.Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division
Robert G. Ingersoll, whom her father brought to Corning.
Robert G. Ingersoll, whom her father brought to Corning.Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-46479

Her father read the New Testament as "the noble story of a human being" exaggerated by time, and gave his children one rule about churches: "Try them all, but be chained to none."121314 The girl went the rounds of the Sunday schools "for a year or two", disliked the cold Catholic church and the crucifix, and "much preferred the Virgin Mary".1516 She said her prayers, she wrote, "for mother's benefit", and at about eight, after nearly stealing money for a theatre ticket, she gave a prayer of thanks that felt to her like "a spiritual awakening".1517 No source records her baptism or confirmation; her timeline's placement of faith here is inferred, and weak.

One night, as she finished the Lord's Prayer, her father asked who she was talking to, and whether God was a baker who gave her daily bread. "Thereafter I began to question what I had previously taken for granted and to reason for myself. It was not pleasant, but father had taught me to think."1819 Her timeline places her doubt at that undated exchange. Her father "never talked about religion without bringing in the ballot box", and taught that duty lay "not in considering what might happen to us after death, but in doing something here and now".202122

The woman rebel

Her mother bore eleven living children and died of consumption when Sanger was in her late teens; the daughter was left with "a deep conviction that perhaps she might have been saved" with more knowledge of medicine, and became a nurse.232425 As a nurse she watched a young mother, Sadie Sachs, nearly die of a self-induced abortion and then die of a second, and she gave up nursing to give women the means to prevent pregnancy.26

The Woman Rebel, volume 1, number 1, March 1914.
The Woman Rebel, volume 1, number 1, March 1914.Wikimedia Commons (image taken from libcom.org's scan of The Woman Rebel)

In March 1914 she published the first issue of The Woman Rebel. "My initial declaration of the right of the individual was the slogan 'No Gods, No Masters.' Gods, not God. I wanted that word to go beyond religion and also stop turning idols, heroes, leaders into gods."2728 Her timeline treats that slogan as her declaration, and it was aimed at idols and masters as much as at God. "I had anticipated objections from religious bodies," she wrote, but it was the federal government that stopped her: the Post Office ruled the issue unmailable under the Comstock law of 1873, which let it decide what was "obscene".29303132 Indicted on nine counts, she fled to England.33 The law's author, Anthony Comstock, told her husband that her pamphlet on contraception was "the worst thing I have ever seen".3435

Anthony Comstock, from Trumbull's biography of 1913.
Anthony Comstock, from Trumbull's biography of 1913.Wikimedia Commons, from Charles Gallaudet Trumbull, Anthony Comstock, Fighter (1913)

Comstock had his reasons, and stated them. "Liberals and infidels," he had written in 1883 of Ingersoll's movement, were the only class who had tried to defend "the dealers in obscene literature". But he added: "Every person must respect the infidel who says, 'I cannot see nor understand these matters of religion as you do; I wish I could.'"363738

Brownsville and Town Hall

On 16 October 1916 she opened the first birth control clinic in America, in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Many of the women who came were Catholic. Hearing of one mother with fifteen pregnancies and six living children, she counted the "fifteen baptismal fees, nine baby funerals, masses and candles for the repose of nine baby souls", and asked herself, "Is this the price of Christianity?"3940 The clinic was raided, and she served thirty days.41 In Woman and the New Race (1920) she called on women to demolish "old systems of morals, a degenerate prudery, Dark-Age religious concepts".4243

Sanger in January 1917, probably outside the court during the Brownsville clinic trial.
Sanger in January 1917, probably outside the court during the Brownsville clinic trial.Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, George Grantham Bain Collection
The title page of Woman and the New Race (1920).
The title page of Woman and the New Race (1920).Internet Archive, Boston University Libraries copy, womannewrace00sang (leaf 11, width 3000)

On Sunday 13 November 1921, at the end of the first American Birth Control Conference, police broke up a public meeting at the Town Hall in New York before the speakers began, and arrested Sanger.4445 A friend reported seeing Monsignor Dineen, the archbishop's secretary, directing the police; Sanger concluded that "the Catholic Church held such power in its hands that it could issue orders to the police". The conference committee's own account blamed only "the arbitrary and illegal action of the police"; accounts differ.4546 Dineen told reporters that such a meeting was "no place for growing children"; Sanger noted that the "children" were Columbia sociology students.47 The magistrate dismissed the charge in five minutes, and the meeting was held again five days later without interference.4849

The New York Times, 14 November 1921: "Police Veto Halts Birth Control Talk; Town Hall in Tumult".
The New York Times, 14 November 1921: "Police Veto Halts Birth Control Talk; Town Hall in Tumult".Internet Archive, 'The New York Times 1921-11-14: Vol 71 Iss 23305' (page image leaf 0, width 3000)

That Christmas, Archbishop Patrick Hayes answered in a pastoral letter. "Children troop down from Heaven because God wills it. He alone has the right to stay their coming." To prevent a life the Creator was about to bring into being, he wrote, was "satanic"; and even within a child's "visible malformation there lives an immortal soul".50515253 Her timeline counts those trials, the clinic and the raid, as the test.

Archbishop Patrick Hayes, a Bain News Service photograph.
Archbishop Patrick Hayes, a Bain News Service photograph.Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, George Grantham Bain Collection

The quarrel with power

Her reply came in The Pivot of Civilization (1922), and it drew a line. "Advocates of Birth Control are not seeking to attack the Catholic church. We quarrel with that church, however, when it seeks to assume authority over non-Catholics and to dub their behavior immoral because they do not conform to the dictatorship of Rome."5455 That distinction between belief and power is where her timeline places her revision. The same book also argued for "immediate sterilization" of those she called "feeble-minded", as "an emergency measure", in the eugenic language of her time; it answered Hayes's defence of "misshapen" lives with that policy.5657

The title page of The Pivot of Civilization (1922).
The title page of The Pivot of Civilization (1922).Internet Archive, University of Toronto copy, pivotofcivilizat00sanguoft (leaf 9, width 3000)

By the 1930s, she wrote, the Protestant churches "had begun to regard us favorably"; she counted the vote of the Anglican bishops at Lambeth in 1930, 193 to 67, on her side, while the Pope's encyclical that December condemned contraception. "The world moved but the Pope sat still."585960 The Catholic hierarchy, she concluded, "were going to be the principal enemies of birth control".61

What she believed at the end is not settled. A biographer, as reported by Wikipedia, called her "a socialist, bohemian atheist" in 1922; in a television interview of 1957 she is reported to have spoken of "divinity within us" and called herself "an Episcopalian by religion", and the same year the American Humanist Association named her Humanist of the Year.626364 She died in Tucson in 1966.65

Sanger's unbelief was inherited from a father who stood in the woods to hear Ingersoll, and she spent her life against what she saw as the churches' power over women rather than against their faith. Robert G. Ingersoll, the man her father brought to Corning, has his own chapter in this book.

Footnotes

  1. Aut pp. 20-21. Not verified. ↩

  2. Aut p. 21. ↩ ↩2

  3. Aut p. 20. ↩

  4. Aut p. 21. ↩

  5. Aut p. 11 (place); Wiki rev. 1379880701 (date). Reported at second hand; the original has not been seen. ↩

  6. Aut pp. 12-13. ↩

  7. Aut p. 20. ↩

  8. Aut p. 20. ↩

  9. Aut p. 20. ↩

  10. Aut pp. 11, 21. ↩

  11. Aut p. 21. ↩

  12. Aut pp. 21-22. ↩

  13. Aut p. 21. ↩

  14. Michael Higgins, as remembered by Sanger: Aut p. 22. ↩

  15. Aut p. 22. ↩ ↩2

  16. Aut p. 22. ↩

  17. Aut pp. 24-25. ↩

  18. Aut p. 22. ↩

  19. Aut p. 22. ↩

  20. Aut p. 23. ↩

  21. Aut p. 23. ↩

  22. Aut p. 23. ↩

  23. Aut pp. 41-42. Accounts differ; see the disputed points. ↩

  24. Aut p. 45. ↩

  25. WNR dedication page. ↩

  26. Aut pp. 90-92, 104; Wiki. ↩

  27. Aut pp. 109-110. ↩

  28. Aut pp. 109-110. ↩

  29. Aut pp. 110-111. ↩

  30. Aut p. 110. ↩

  31. Aut pp. 77-78 (running head 78 falls mid-passage). ↩

  32. Aut p. 110. ↩

  33. Aut pp. 114, 119-122; Wiki. ↩

  34. Aut pp. 176-177. ↩

  35. Anthony Comstock to William Sanger, as reported by Sanger: Aut p. 177. ↩

  36. Comstock-Traps p. 184. ↩

  37. Anthony Comstock, 1883, on honest unbelievers; he continues that he opposes those who "by scoffs and sneers" wound others: Comstock-Traps p. 184. ↩

  38. Anthony Comstock, 1883, on Ingersoll's National Liberal League (the movement her father admired): Comstock-Traps p. 184. ↩

  39. Aut pp. 215, 218-219. ↩

  40. Aut p. 219. ↩

  41. Aut pp. 227, 229, 237, 252. ↩

  42. WNR ch. V; ch. VI. ↩

  43. WNR (1920) ch. V "The Wickedness of Creating Large Families". ↩

  44. BCC1921 pp. 1-3. ↩

  45. BCC1921 p. 4 (committee account; does not name the Church); Aut pp. 303-304, 306; Pivot ch. I. ↩ ↩2

  46. Aut p. 306. ↩

  47. Monsignor Joseph P. Dineen, Hayes's secretary, to reporters: Aut p. 307. ↩

  48. Aut pp. 306-307. ↩

  49. BCC1921 p. 4; Aut p. 307 (Park Theater). ↩

  50. Aut pp. 308-309; Pivot ch. IX note 2; WaHerald 19 Dec 1921 p. 2. ↩

  51. Archbishop Patrick J. Hayes, Archbishop of New York; Christmas pastoral 1921: Aut p. 308 (as printed by Sanger); date WaHerald 19 Dec 1921. ↩

  52. Archbishop Hayes: Aut p. 308. ↩

  53. Archbishop Hayes: Aut p. 308. ↩

  54. Pivot ch. IX; Pivot Introduction. ↩

  55. Pivot ch. IX "A Moral Necessity". ↩

  56. Pivot ch. IV; ch. IX. ↩

  57. Pivot ch. IV "The Fertility of the Feeble-Minded". ↩

  58. Aut pp. 410-412. ↩

  59. Aut p. 410. ↩

  60. Aut p. 411. ↩

  61. Aut p. 411. ↩

  62. Wiki (Chesler, Baker not seen). ↩

  63. Wiki quoting Wallace 1957 (video; not heard). ↩

  64. Wiki. ↩

  65. Wiki. ↩

In their own words

Although Catholics were father's best patrons, by nature and upbringing he deplored their dogma.

Sanger · Aut p. 20

Still less did his espousal of Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll, a man after his own heart, whose works he had eagerly studied and used as texts.

Sanger · Aut p. 20

I cannot remember a word of what Colonel Ingersoll said, but the scene remains.

Sanger · Aut p. 20

Thereafter we were known as children of the devil.

Sanger · Aut p. 21

She had been reared in the faith, although since her marriage to a freethinker which had so distressed her parents, she had never attended church to my knowledge.

Sanger on her mother · Aut p. 21

He looked upon the New Testament as the noble story of a human being which, because of ignorance and the lack of printing presses, had become exaggerated.

Sanger on her father · Aut p. 21

Try them all, but be chained to none.

Michael Higgins, as remembered by Sanger · Aut p. 22

I much preferred the Virgin Mary; she was beautiful, smiling — the way I should like to look when I had a baby.

Sanger · Aut p. 22

Thereafter I began to question what I had previously taken for granted and to reason for myself. It was not pleasant, but father had taught me to think.

Sanger · Aut p. 22

Father never talked about religion without bringing in the ballot box.

Sanger · Aut p. 23

Unceasingly he tried to inculcate in us the idea that our duty lay not in considering what might happen to us after death, but in doing something here and now to make the lives of other human beings more decent.

Sanger on her father · Aut p. 23

If you had a right to free thought as an individual, should you give it up to the church?

Sanger recalling Claverack debates · Aut p. 38

My initial declaration of the right of the individual was the slogan "No Gods, No Masters." Gods, not God. I wanted that word to go beyond religion and also stop turning idols, heroes, leaders into gods.

Sanger · Aut pp. 109-110

I had anticipated objections from religious bodies, but believed with father, "Anything you want can be accomplished by putting a little piece of paper into the ballot box."

Sanger · Aut p. 110

I made a mental calculation of fifteen baptismal fees, nine baby funerals, masses and candles for the repose of nine baby souls, the physical agonies of the mother and the emotional torment of both parents, and I asked myself, "Is this the price of Christianity?"

Sanger on Brownsville, 1916 · Aut p. 219

We expect her to demolish old systems of morals, a degenerate prudery, Dark-Age religious concepts, laws that enslave women by denying them the knowledge of their bodies, and information as to contraceptives.

Sanger · WNR (1920) ch. V "The Wickedness of Creating Large Families"

what is the worth of the law, the moral code, the tradition, the religion, that for the sake of an outworn dogma of submission would wreck the lives of these women

Sanger · WNR (1920) ch. VI "Cries of Despair and Society's Problems"

the Catholic Church held such power in its hands that it could issue orders to the police, dissolve an important gathering of adult and intelligent men and women, and send them home as though they were naughty children

Sanger on 14 Nov 1921 · Aut p. 306

I agree with the Archbishop that a clinic is the proper place to give information on birth control.

Sanger, open letter to Hayes · Aut p. 308

advocates of Birth Control are not seeking to attack the Catholic church. We quarrel with that church, however, when it seeks to assume authority over non-Catholics and to dub their behavior immoral because they do not conform to the dictatorship of Rome.

Sanger · Pivot ch. IX "A Moral Necessity"

Religious propaganda against Birth Control is crammed with contradiction and fallacy. It refutes itself.

Sanger · Pivot ch. IX

Ever since the outburst of religious intolerance at Town Hall, it had been apparent that in the United States the Catholic hierarchy and officialdom were going to be the principal enemies of birth control.

Sanger · Aut p. 411

We had been attaining small victories, and little by little and bit by bit the Protestant churches had begun to regard us favorably.

Sanger · Aut p. 410

The world moved but the Pope sat still.

Sanger on the 1930 encyclical · Aut p. 411

we prefer the policy of immediate sterilization, of making sure that parenthood is absolutely prohibited to the feeble-minded. This, I say, is an emergency measure.

Sanger · Pivot ch. IV "The Fertility of the Feeble-Minded"

Young man, I have been in this work for twenty years, and that leaflet is the worst thing I have ever seen.

Anthony Comstock to William Sanger, as reported by Sanger · Aut p. 177

The other side

Children troop down from Heaven because God wills it. He alone has the right to stay their coming, while He blesses at will some homes with many, others with but few or with none at all.

Archbishop Patrick J. Hayes, Archbishop of New York; Christmas pastoral 1921 · Aut p. 308 (as printed by Sanger); date WaHerald 19 Dec 1921

to prevent human life that the Creator is about to bring into being is satanic.

Archbishop Hayes · Aut p. 308

under and within such visible malformation there lives an immortal soul to be saved and glorified for all eternity among the blessed in Heaven.

Archbishop Hayes · Aut p. 308

I think any one will admit that a meeting of that character is no place for growing children.

Monsignor Joseph P. Dineen, Hayes's secretary, to reporters · Aut p. 307

Every person must respect the infidel who says, "I cannot see nor understand these matters of religion as you do; I wish I could."

Anthony Comstock, 1883, on honest unbelievers; he continues that he opposes those who "by scoffs and sneers" wound others · Comstock-Traps p. 184

Liberals and infidels are the only class who have undertaken, by a systematic and organized effort, to defend the dealers in obscene literature, or repeal the laws of Congress prohibiting the transmission through the mails of this infamous matter.

Anthony Comstock, 1883, on Ingersoll's National Liberal League (the movement her father admired) · Comstock-Traps p. 184

They declared it was their office to see that no "social or moral" legislation passed Congress that did not conform to the tenets of Catholic doctrine

Catholic Welfare Conference officials (Monsignor John Ryan named), January 1926, as reported by Sanger · Aut p. 415

The authorities at Rome have again and again declared that all positive methods of this nature are immoral and forbidden

National Council of Catholic Women, as quoted by Sanger · Pivot ch. IX

Where accounts differ

PointOne accountAnotherHow the page handles it
Who closed Town Hall, 13 Nov 1921Sanger: the Church, acting through Monsignor Dineen, "could issue orders to the police" (Aut p. 306; Pivot ch. I)The committee's 1922 introduction attributes it to "the arbitrary and illegal action of the police" (BCC1921 p. 4); Dineen said police action was warranted by "growing children" present (Aut p. 307)Say: the police closed it; Anne Kennedy reported Dineen directing them; the archdiocese defended the closing.
Year of her mother's deathAut gives 31 March, no year (p. 42); Wikipedia: died at 50 when Margaret was 19 (implies 1898-99)Some biographers give 1896 (from memory; not checked, not cited)Say only "when she was in her late teens"; verify in Chesler.
Where she served her thirty daysAut p. 237: the court sentences her to "the Workhouse"Aut p. 252: she writes "while I was in the penitentiary"; year not statedSay only "thirty days in jail" until the institution and year are checked.
Her religion at the endWallace 1957 (via Wikipedia): "Episcopalian by religion", divinity withinChesler (via Wikipedia): "socialist, bohemian atheist" in 1922; AHA Humanist of the Year 1957 (Wiki)Treat as the open question; do not assert either as her self-label until the Wallace transcript and Chesler page are read.
Her own labelsNo self-label of atheist found in free textsRoster brief says "raised by a freethinking father" (supported, Aut p. 21); "lifelong unbeliever" (unsupported)The roster claim stands only for her father; hers is "no gods, no masters" and a quarrel with church power.

List of illustrations

This page uses only public-domain and Creative Commons images; each is credited with its source and licence.

  1. Margaret Sanger (Bain News Service, 1916) — Bain News Service, 1916 · Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, George Grantham Bain Collection · Public domain (Bain News Service photograph of 1916, published before 1931). Library of Congress states: "The Library of Congress does not own rights to material in its collections." No other rights statement on the record; basis is the pre-1931 date.
  2. Corning, N.Y., 1882: junction of the New York, Lake Erie, and Western and the Syracuse, Geneva & Corning R.R.'s (bird's-eye view) — Philadelphia Publishing House; C. J. Corbin, 1882 · Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division · Public domain (1882 print). Library of Congress states: "The content of the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division digitized collections is free to use and reuse unless a Rights Advisory statement is present that indicates otherwise." No Rights Advisory on the record.
  3. Robert G. Ingersoll - lithograph (1902) — G.H. Buek & Co. Lith. (New York), 1902 · Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-46479 · Public domain (US print before 1931)
  4. The Woman Rebel, March 1914, Vol. 1, No. 1 (front page) — Margaret Sanger (editor), 1914-03 · Wikimedia Commons (image taken from libcom.org's scan of The Woman Rebel) · Public domain (Wikimedia Commons file page: 'Public domain'; published 1914)
  5. Anthony Comstock (1844-1915), photograph from Charles Gallaudet Trumbull, Anthony Comstock, Fighter (1913) — Photographer unknown (published in C. G. Trumbull, 1913), 1913 · Wikimedia Commons, from Charles Gallaudet Trumbull, Anthony Comstock, Fighter (1913) · Public domain (Wikimedia Commons file page: 'Public domain'; originally published 1913)
  6. Margaret Sanger, probably outside her Brownsville clinic trial at the Kings County Court of Special Sessions, 30 January 1917 — Bain News Service, 1917 · Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, George Grantham Bain Collection · Public domain (Bain News Service photograph of 1917, published before 1931). Library of Congress states: "The Library of Congress does not own rights to material in its collections." No other rights statement on the record; basis is the pre-1931 date.
  7. Title page of Margaret Sanger, Woman and the New Race, with a preface by Havelock Ellis (Eugenics Publishing Company, New York, 1920) — Margaret Sanger, 1920 · Internet Archive, Boston University Libraries copy, womannewrace00sang (leaf 11, width 3000) · Public domain (published 1920)
  8. The New York Times, Monday, November 14, 1921, front page: 'Police Veto Halts Birth Control Talk; Town Hall in Tumult' — The New York Times, 1921-11-14 · Internet Archive, 'The New York Times 1921-11-14: Vol 71 Iss 23305' (page image leaf 0, width 3000) · Public domain (published 1921). Internet Archive item states no rights (ia-files: 'not stated; check date').
  9. Archbishop Hayes (Bain News Service title 'Archb. Hayes') — Bain News Service, 1915 · Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, George Grantham Bain Collection · Public domain (Bain News Service photograph of 1915, published before 1931). Library of Congress states: "The Library of Congress does not own rights to material in its collections." No other rights statement on the record; basis is the pre-1931 date.
  10. Title page of Margaret Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization (Brentano's, New York, 1922) — Margaret Sanger, 1922 · Internet Archive, University of Toronto copy, pivotofcivilizat00sanguoft (leaf 9, width 3000) · Public domain (published 1922)

Sources

Tier 1 — the subject's own words (writings, letters, diaries, trial records)

  • Aut Margaret Sanger, Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography (W. W. Norton, 1938). Internet Archive margaretsangerau1938sang (scan, OCR in research/texts/autobiography.txt); page numbers are the printed folios (chapter-opening pages carry the folio at the foot, e.g. p. 306 starts Chapter 24). Cleaner transcription: Project Gutenberg #56610 (autobiography-gutenberg.txt, no page numbers), released 2018 as US public domain. Copyright status: Gutenberg's clearance is the only evidence; I did not search the Copyright Office renewal records myself. David to confirm before any on-screen quotation (see Open questions). Written in 1938; early-life events are recollections, mostly undated.
  • Pivot Margaret Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization (Brentano's; introduction by H. G. Wells), Gutenberg #1689 (pivot.txt; no page numbers, cited by chapter). Year: 1922 (not stated in the Gutenberg text; the text cites the press of 19 Dec 1921). Pre-1931: public domain.
  • WNR Margaret Sanger, Woman and the New Race (Brentano's, New York, 1920), Gutenberg #8660 (new-race.txt; cited by chapter). Public domain.
  • BCC1921 American Birth Control Conference, Birth Control: What It Is, How It Works, What It Will Do: Proceedings of the First American Birth Control Conference... November 11, 12, 1921 (Birth Control Review, 1922). Internet Archive birthcontrolwhat00ameruoft (bc-conference-1921.txt). Introductory Note pp. 1-4 gives the committee's account of the Town Hall closure. Public domain.
  • My Fight My Fight for Birth Control (Farrar & Rinehart, 1931). Internet Archive myfightforbirthc0000sang is lending-only (download refused, 401). Not read. Renewal status unchecked. Do not use until a scan is read and the renewal is checked.
  • Woman Rebel / Birth Control Review originals Not reached. IA holds only 1933AprilBirthControlReview. The 1914 slogan is therefore cited to Aut, not to a page of the magazine. Retry: Sanger Papers Project (NYU) digital edition, HathiTrust full view, Smith College.

Tier 2 — scholarly biographies and encyclopedias

  • Chesler Ellen Chesler, Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America (Simon & Schuster, 1992; rev. 2007). IA lending copies (womanofvalormarg00ches, womanofvalormar000ches) refused download (401). Not read; used only as cited by Wikipedia (secondhand). Borrow a copy for pages.
  • Baker Jean H. Baker, Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion (Hill and Wang, 2011). IA lending only; not read.
  • Masel-Walters Lynne Masel-Walters, Birth Control as Obscenity: Margaret Sanger and "The Woman Rebel", paper to the Association for Education in Journalism, Seattle, Aug 1978 (ERIC ED163518; eric-woman-rebel.txt; poor OCR, a conference paper rather than a monograph). Used for Comstock's religious outlook only.

Tier 3 — popular biographies and journalism

  • WaHerald The Washington Herald, 19 Dec 1921, p. 2 (Library of Congress, sn83045433). Word-position OCR reconstructed in research/texts/wash-herald-1921-12-19-p2.txt: "patrick hayes denounced birth control satanic and divorce national curse... pastoral message for the christmas season read all roman catholic churches the archdiocese new york". Punctuation and some words are missing in the OCR; used for date only, not for quotation.

Tier 4 — Wikipedia and similar reference sites (citable; give the article and revision date; prefer a higher tier where one exists)

  • Wiki "Margaret Sanger", English Wikipedia, revision 1379880701 of 2026-10-12. Map only: birth and death dates, marriages, Wallace interview, AHA award, burial. Cites Chesler 2007 p. 245 and Baker 2011 p. 179, which I could not see.
  • Wallace 1957 Mike Wallace Interview with Margaret Sanger, 21 Sept 1957, video, Harry Ransom Center (hrc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15878coll90/id/27/). The viewer is a script page; I could not read a transcript. Copyrighted broadcast: paraphrase only.

Opposition sources — contemporary critics and religious responses

  • Hayes Archbishop Patrick J. Hayes, Christmas pastoral, New York, December 1921, quoted at length by Sanger (Aut pp. 308-309), partly in Pivot ch. IX (note 2: "Quoted in daily press, December 19, 1921"), confirmed by WaHerald. Original pastoral text not seen; the quotations are as Sanger printed them.
  • Dineen Monsignor Joseph P. Dineen's statement to reporters (Aut pp. 306-307), as printed by Sanger.
  • Ryan Monsignor John A. Ryan, National Catholic Welfare Conference: only as reported by Sanger (Aut p. 415). His own writings not obtained.
  • Comstock-Traps Anthony Comstock, Traps for the Young (Funk & Wagnalls, 1883). Internet Archive trapsforyoung00comsiala (comstock-traps.txt). Chapter XII, "Infidel Traps, Liberal Traps, Etc.", about Ingersoll's National Liberal League and the repeal petition.
  • Hayes-Pivot / National Council of Catholic Women Statement quoted in Pivot ch. IX opposing repeal of the laws on birth-control information.