The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger, Vol. 1, The Woman Rebel, 1900-1928 (review)

Abstract

Since her death in 1966, the birth control crusader Margaret Sanger has drawn the attention of academic historians eager to write the history of women reformers and of partisans in the culture wars over abortion and reproductive rights. Sanger has been praised as a brave advocate of sexual liberation and reproductive autonomy for women, and damned as a racist and eugenicist who advocated sterilization of the "unfit" and helped to create a culture in which millions of the [End Page 237] "unborn" are murdered through contraception and inducted abortion. An Internet search will reveals dozens of sites where Sanger is demonized, but we also have one place that provides access to the historical record of Sanger's career, the Margaret Sanger Papers Project, founded by New York University historian Esther Katz in 1985 (http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger). Katz and her able staff published excellent microfilm editions of Sanger materials gathered from the major collections at the Sophia Smith Collections and the Library of Congress, as well as from more than 1,500 other archives and private collections. They hope to follow that magnificent service for professional scholars with a four-volume book edition of Sanger's papers.