This week, we’re discussing Margaret Sanger’s thwarted attempt to present a lecture on birth control to the good citizens of Boston in April of 1929. The 1920s were a fairly liberating time for women – women were voting, drinking alcohol socially, cutting their hair short, and dancing the Charleston in short dresses. However, Boston was slow to let its hair down under the stern gaze of the Watch and Ward Society, and birth control remained one of the ultimate taboos.
Margaret Sanger
- Text of Sanger’s Ford Hall Forum speech, read by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger.
- The goal of the Margaret Sanger Papers Project is to collect, assemble, and publish the papers of the noted birth control reformer in order to make them more widely accessible to students, scholars and the general public. This newsletter article recounts her night at the Ford Hall Forum.
- Jonathon Green’s Encyclopedia of Censorship features the trial for An American Tragedy.
- An in depth profile on Sanger produced by Planned Parethood.
- Photos and supporting documents about Sanger from UVA.
- Photos of Sanger via Britannica.
- “Put to Patriotic Use: Negotiating Free Speech at Boston’s Old South Meeting House, 1925-1933” by Jonathan B. Vogels
- Margaret Sanger and Ethel Byrne are also mentioned in Episode 29, about Wonder Woman’s roots in Boston.
Featured Historic Site
To fit our theme of free speech, this week we’re sending you to Old South Meeting House to visit Margaret Sanger’s statue and the Dissent and Free Speech exhibit.
Built in 1729, the Old South Meeting House was once host to the annual protest meeting commemorating the Boston Massacre, and it is where the public meeting was held that led to the Boston Tea Party. After the congregation moved to the Back Bay in the 1870s, the building was narrowly saved from demolition. In the 20th century, the meeting house dedicated itself to public discussion “without regard to the unpopularity of any cause.”
Old South Meeting House is open daily year round, but check the website for holidays and limited hours during the off season. Admission is just $6 for adults and $1 for children 17 and under.
Upcoming Event
Continuing the theme of unpopular speech, our upcoming event is a seminar presented by the Ford Hall Forum called “Puritans, Native Americans, and Historians: A Conversation about New England’s Conflicted Past.”
Here’s how they describe the event:
Public commemorations have become a difficult business in recent years, often provoking sharp conflict about the meaning and implications of the past. With the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival in Plymouth fast approaching, the Congregational Library and Archives joins Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University in sponsoring an important conversation about remembering and memorializing that event, bringing together leading scholars of Puritanism and Native American history.
The event will be held at Suffolk University on Thursday, October 25 at 6:00pm. It’s free, but they ask that you reserve tickets in advance.